Senior Designer

Senior Designer

Job Title: Senior Designer Initiatives and Membership Manager (Mat Cover)

Department: Designer Initiatives and Membership

Reports to: Head of Designer Initiatives and Membership

Direct Line Reports: Senior Designer Initiatives and Membership Executive, Designer Initiatives and Membership Assistant, Education Account Manager

Location: Hybrid, 2 days a week in office (normally Wednesdays and Thursdays) and 3 days a week from home. Our office is based at: Fora, 33 Broadwick Street, Soho, London W1F 0DQ

Type: Fixed Term maternity cover, 39 weeks with opportunity to extend based on circumstances. Standard company working hours are 09.30 to 17.30, flexibility and non-standard hours are required during events

Salary:





Salary Subject to Experience

Application closing date: 25th October 2024

ABOUT THE ROLE

The BFC is looking for an ambitious and highly motivated Senior Manager (Mat Cover) in the Designer Initiatives and Membership team for a maternity cover to start in January 2025. The Senior Manager is responsible for managing the operations that support fashion talent in the UK via the BFC Foundation from Designer Initiatives (including BFC NEWGEN, BFC Fashion Trust, BFC/GQ and BFC/Vogue Designer Fashion Funds) to Education Initiatives (including the strategy, operations, and on-boarding of fashion students that benefit from them), delivering business support to help their growth and development. The Senior Manager manages a team of three and reports to the Head of Designer Initiatives and Membership.

ABOUT THE BFC

The British Fashion Council (BFC) is a not-for-profit organisation that strengthens British fashion in the global economy as a leader in responsible, creative businesses. It does this through championing diversity,





building and inviting the industry to actively participate in a network to accelerate a successful circular fashion economy. The BFC is a membership organisation, funded by industry patrons, commercial partners and the government. It convenes the UK fashion industry through three strategic pillars: Supporting Excellence in Design; Empowering Growth; Communicating to Activate Positive Change.

BFC ETHOS AND VALUES:

Our mission is to establish a dynamic, inclusive, and unified network that advocates for British talent, innovation and creativity. Through meaningful and authentic engagement with all stakeholders, we aim to foster collaboration, inspire innovation, stimulate connections, inform, provide access, and promote mutual growth.





Through our commitment to excellence, we want to empower our network and pioneer new approaches that drive progress and create lasting tangible impact.

We deliver our strategy through our pillars:

Relentless Innovation: Preparing businesses for positive change by embracing innovation.

Fuelling Responsible Growth: Develop a dynamic, inclusive and unified community that advocates for creativity, innovation and collectively supports the industry to grow and talent to gain access. We deliver this through our annual programme of events for the BFC Community of members and patrons which connects, updates, and promotes them while giving them a voice. The BFC Foundation charity raises funding to support creative talent through our world class designer support initiatives.







Amplifying our Narrative Globally: though storytelling, evolving BFC platforms to amplify excellence in creativity and our role in the UK’s cultural influence focusing on creativity, culture and commerciality. The Fashion Awards and London Fashion Week are best in class here.

THE ROLE

Responsibilities

As a Senior Designer Initiatives and Membership Manager (Mat Cover) you will be expected to have exceptional organisational and time management skills to ensure the delivery of multiple projects at the same time, to be approachable and empathetic to establish relationships with designers and students, and to have experience in the fashion industry from a brand and business point of view. The Senior Manager takes ownership,





is accountable to deliver timely solutions, and meets deadlines and OKRs by being solution-focused, managing problems in a positive and innovative way and ultimately being able to prioritise when managing very tight deadlines.

DESIGNER INITIATIVES

- Manage critical paths, application processes, application packs and other deliverables across BFC teams, to ensure successful delivery of BFC designer support initiatives.
- Liaise with senior industry people to curate judging panels.
- Liaise with other internal teams (including Comms and Finance) to ensure high standards of brand awareness across BFC channels and timely payments of grants and funds.
- Feed into commercial strategy surrounding Designer Initiative partnerships.






- Ensure highest levels of accuracy across data management as part of the application and selection processes.
- Oversee on-boarding process of designers, from application through to signing of grant agreements and invoicing.
- Supervise data collection for reporting purposes (reporting including BFC Foundation Impact Report and BFC Annual Report, plus other reporting for funders and trustees).

DESIGNER BUSINESS SUPPORT

- Actively liaise with designers (with a focus on BFC NEWGEN) to provide them with bespoke support, access to seminars and mentoring opportunities.
- Troubleshoot and escalate business issues as flagged by designers and provide solutions.
- Curate a calendar of webinars, seminars and other training opportunities for designers (BFC Members and BFC Foundation Designers).






- Initiate and/or maintain relationships with mentors, industry experts, seminar speakers and other stakeholders who facilitate and provide support to the business support programme.

EDUCATION INITIATIVES

- Works closely with the Head of Membership and Designer Initiatives to develop education and careers agenda with the aim of attracting the best talent to the fashion industry.
- Project manage the BFC Education initiatives, building timelines, critical paths, and supervise relevant comms plans.
- Manage the BFC Colleges Council, including yearly (re)onboarding of members and the BFC Education website.
- Curate the delivery of the BFC Colleges Council programme including events, seminars, industry competitions and Graduate Preview,





liaising with speakers, industry contributors and fashion brands.
- Oversee the delivery of the BFC and Saturday Club Trust’s Fashion & Business Saturday Clubs including coordinating with host universities and liaising with industry to develop the masterclass programme.
- Support with the MA & BA scholarships programme including calls for applicants, liaising with universities, accepting applications, arranging shortlisting and judging panels.
- Supervise data collection for reporting purposes.

Person Specification

- Monitors critical paths and budgets, deliverables, risks, managing information flow and communication as appropriate.
- Ability to manage very tight deadlines.
- Takes responsibility for actions, outcomes, and follows-through.
- Exceptional organisational skills.
- Practical and pro-active with an eye for detail and creativity.
- Forging and maintaining strong relationships, including across Education Pillar Presidents, educators, and the fashion industry, taking a collaborative approach.
- Immediately addresses and resolves issues/challenges.
- Resolves complaints and can trouble-shoot with designers, external bodies, consultants, funders, sponsors etc with empathy and in a conciliatory manner.
- Pro-actively supports the Head of Department and internal teams to positively manage requests.
- Represents the BFC and acts as an ambassador at events and corporate initiatives.

Professional Experience & Skills

- Extensive experience in project management, fashion, events, careers/education or a charity essential.
- Excellent written and spoken level of English essential.
- Strong analytical, IT, Word, PowerPoint, and Excel skills essential.

Benefits

- 25 Days Holiday Per Year + Bank Holidays
- Upon completion of a successful probation period, you are also entitled to our additional benefits:
- Summer Working Hours which means that during July and August, our office closes at 3pm on a Friday so you can enjoy the sunshine
- A half day off on your birthday!
- Private Medical Insurance with Vitality which comes with access to a Virtual GP and an Employee Assistance Programme
- X2 Charity Days off per year to give back to your community. This could be running a marathon or volunteering (this does not need to be Fashion related)
- Enrolment into the BFC Pension Scheme
- Religious Festivals Swapping – to be as inclusive as possible, our employees are able to swap any of the standard UK public holidays based on their own beliefs/identity and instead take these days to celebrate things that are more relevant to them (such as Diwali, or Eid, or Pride etc)

How to apply

To apply for this role, please follow the instructions below:

- Candidates should apply in writing with a covering letter highlighting your relevant experience for this role, attaching your CV to [email protected] with ‘Senior Designer Initiatives and Membership Manager (Mat Cover)’ in the subject
- Application closing date: 25th October 2024

Please note, all candidates must be eligible to live and work in the UK as we are unable to offer Visa sponsorships at this time. Due to the volume of applicants, we are unable to respond to everyone or provide specific feedback. If you do not hear from us, please assume your application has been unsuccessful at this time.

Successful applicants will be notified by email by a member of the HR team and invited to a first stage interview with the hiring manager. Upon application, please let us know if you require any reasonable adjustments for an interview/throughout the application process and we will do our best to support you.

Show more Show less