Job Description

Job Title: Interim Strategy & Planning Manager
Contract Type: Fixed term contract up to 12 months
Salary: £56,637 -£62,598 Per Annum
Working Hours: 35 Hours per week
Working Pattern: Monday-Friday Hybrid
Location: Speke, Liverpool

The difference you will make as a Interim Strategy & Planning Manager

You will work in close partnership with senior leaders and help to translate Riverside’s Corporate Strategy into clear, actionable plans, robust governance reporting, and measurable outcomes that improve services for our customers. This is an exciting time at Riverside as we start to embed our new corporate strategy, Brighter Future Together! This role is integral to ensure that we embed our new strategy across the organisation, communicate and involve our customers and key stakeholders.

About you

We are looking for someone with

• Proven experience in organisational strategy, strategic planning and corporate performance in a large, complex organisation.
• Experience of developing and implementing corporate strategies.
• Strong experience in executive and Board-level reporting and influence.
• Experience of working with data and dashboards.

Why Riverside?

At Riverside, we’re a housing association with a difference – enhancing the everyday for all our customers. For 90 years, we’ve been revitalising neighbourhoods and supporting communities by providing the homes they need to live full, fulfilling and rewarding lives.

We have a portfolio of over 75,000 affordable residential and retirement homes across the UK. Our work ranges from homelessness services to social care, employment support to retirement living, and we need the best people on board to help us.

Working with us, you’ll enjoy:

• Competitive pay & generous pension
• 28 days holidays plus bank holidays
• Flexible working options available
• Investment in your learning, personal development and technology
• A wide range of benefits

Diversity and Inclusion at Riverside:
We are inclusive. At Riverside, we value diversity in all its forms. We foster a workplace where all individuals are respected, empowered, and heard. Our commitment to inclusivity drives our success and enriches the lives of our customers and colleagues. This role also falls under our Ethnic Diversity guaranteed interview scheme. If you are Ethnically Diverse and demonstrate you meet the minimum criteria for the role you will be guaranteed an interview.

Applications may close before the deadline, so please apply early to avoid disappointment.

Role profile

• Lead Riverside’s strategic planning and work closely with our business architecture team to shape how the organisation delivers today and evolves for the future.
• Ensure the Corporate Strategy is implemented, embedded and monitored, with clear links to supporting and enabling strategies.
• Work closely with our information services team to develop and report corporate strategy success measures, KPIs and targets.
• Own and continuously improve the corporate planning and reporting cycle, providing high-quality insight to Board, Chief Officers and regulators.
• Work with the business architecture team to provide clear advice to senior leaders on where to invest, how to prioritise change, reduce risk and maximise value and impact.
• Lead the implementation of our new corporate strategy, working with the business architecture team, strategy leads and other stakeholders to deliver our strategic goals.
• Shape a customer-centred blueprint for how Riverside delivers our strategies, creating simpler and more consistent customer experience.
• Develop, implement and report new targets which sit under each goal, working in partnership with our information team to ensure they are aligned to our performance framework.
• Develop and maintain a clear strategic implementation plan, setting out priorities, milestones and measures of success.
• Working closely with business architecture team and strategy leads to ensure the change portfolio remains focused on strategic outcomes.
• Lead the corporate planning cycle, including strategy-related input into business planning, financial planning and performance frameworks.
• Work with the transformation and change team to coordinate updates on delivery progress and KPIs for internal governance meetings.
• Own strategic reporting to Board, Committees and Chief Officers, including narratives, metrics, impact analysis and forward look.
• Lead on strategy-related content for the customer annual report, financial statements, and any other relevant reports.
• Lead on corporate performance and strategic reporting information for compliance or regulatory work.
• Ensure strong governance, performance tracking and benefits realisation for strategic initiatives.
• Work with the business transformation team to maintain our corporate strategy roadmap.
• Translate complex strategic information into clear, compelling narratives for a wide range of audiences.
• Develop a professional dashboard to report our strategic KPIs to Group Board using Tableau
• Ensure colleagues, customers and governance stakeholders feel informed, connected, and bought into the strategy through regular meetings, leading on planning and updates for these meetings.
• Support Board development through contributions such as Board masterclasses on strategy and progress and our annual Board strategy sessions and our annual stakeholder strategy day.
• Regularly scan the external environment to identify best practice, innovation and sector trends to inform our work.
• Work collaboratively across directorates, modelling our behaviors.

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

Essential:
• Proven experience in organisational strategy, strategic planning and corporate performance in a large, complex organisation.
• Experience of developing and implementing corporate strategies.
• Strong experience in executive and Board-level reporting and influence.
• Experience of working with data and dashboards.
• Ability to simplify and communicate complex strategy and performance data to a high standard.
• Excellent analytical, written and verbal communication skills.
• Evidence-based decision-maker with strong commercial awareness and value-for-money focus.

Desirable:

• Professional certification in strategic planning or relevant qualifications
• Experience in a housing association or regulated environment

Riverside is one of the UK’s leading not-for-profit social housing and regeneration organisations, owning or managing around 75,000 homes from Irvine to Kent. We are a leading provider of supported housing services, particularly for those affected by homelessness, and our track record of transforming lives and revitalising neighbourhoods dates back over 90 years. We have plans to build over 15,000 affordable homes over the next decade.