Head of Business Partnering & Innovation

Hackney is one of the most dynamic and progressive local authorities in the UK. We are a resilient, vibrant, and creative borough in the heart of London, with strong, diverse communities and a powerful set of shared values.

Over the past twenty years, the Council has built up first-class services, outstanding public infrastructure, and a reputation for excellence, innovation, and ambition. We are leading the way on essential work such as our fight for equity in Hackney with a particular focus on becoming an actively anti-racist borough. But the work doesn’t stop there, we are proactive in our approach to bringing fairness to all aspects of life including gender, neurodiversity and across the poverty divide.

Hackney Council is looking for an outstanding strategic leader to transform how organisational needs are understood, investment is prioritised and ideas are turned into sustainable improvements for residents.

As Head of Business Partnering & Innovation, you will connect services across the Council with the digital, data and technology capabilities needed to solve complex problems and deliver measurable public value.

You will lead an integrated function covering strategic business partnering, portfolio and demand management, business analysis, project and delivery leadership, user adoption, benefits realisation, innovation and horizon scanning.

This is much more than a relationship-management role. You will create a trusted, coherent route through which services can define their challenges, test assumptions, explore opportunities and develop credible proposals for change. You will ensure the Council focuses its limited resources on the problems and opportunities that will make the greatest difference to residents and the organisation.

Working with senior leaders and elected Members, you will establish a transparent enterprise approach to assessing and prioritising demand. You will provide constructive challenge where proposals are poorly defined, duplicative, solution-led or unlikely to deliver sufficient value. You will also have the confidence to recommend that activity is paused, redirected or stopped when the evidence no longer supports continued investment.

A central part of the role will be improving how change is delivered and sustained. You will establish professional standards for business analysis, delivery, organisational readiness, adoption and benefits realisation. You will ensure new services and capabilities are not simply launched, but are understood, used, owned and continuously improved.

You will lead Hackney’s approach to practical and responsible innovation. This will involve identifying relevant developments in technology, policy and professional practice; creating safe ways to test promising ideas; and turning successful experiments into scalable, sustainable services. Innovation must respond to clearly defined needs, produce evidence and deliver meaningful value, rather than becoming a collection of disconnected pilots.

We need a visible, inclusive and influential leader who can build strong relationships across professional and organisational boundaries. You will lead multidisciplinary teams, develop professional capability and create an environment where colleagues can challenge existing practice, learn quickly and take responsibility for outcomes.

Operating in a complex and politically accountable organisation, you will need to engage confidently with elected Members, senior leaders, employees, Trade Unions, residents, community organisations, partners and suppliers. You will reconcile competing priorities, explain difficult trade‑offs and secure commitment to collective decisions.

• Significant senior leadership experience in a large, complex and politically sensitive organisation.
• A strong record of establishing trusted strategic partnerships with senior service leaders.
• Experience leading multidisciplinary teams through complex organisational and cultural change.
• Expertise in enterprise demand management, portfolio prioritisation and investment governance.
• An ability to turn complex or ambiguous challenges into clear problems, options and deliverable outcomes.
• Evidence of delivering measurable improvements for residents or customers alongside efficiencies, savings or increased organisational value.
• Experience establishing professional standards for business analysis, delivery, adoption and benefits realisation.
• A strong record of introducing innovation and…