Head of Strategy and Planning, THE ACADEMY OF MEDICAL SCIENCES

Role Overview

As Head of Strategy and Planning, you will provide organisation-wide leadership on strategic thinking, prioritisation, and planning. You will develop and maintain the Academy’s strategic framework and planning processes, ensuring strategic ambitions are clear, evidence-based, affordable and deliverable.

Location & Compensation

Hybrid / London (50% office attendance)

£84,080 + Benefits

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Direction

• Lead the development and stewardship of a bold, coherent strategy positioning AMS as an influential voice across UK and global medical science.
• Design and embed organisation‑wide strategic and business planning processes, enabling clear prioritisation, coordinated action and disciplined alignment across all directorates.
• Integrate domestic and international priorities into the Academy’s strategic framework, ensuring AMS shapes and is shaped by global developments.
• Facilitate high‑quality strategic conversations with senior leaders, bringing structure, creativity, evidence and options to complex organisational decisions.

Whole‑System Partnerships, Influence and Strategic Engagement

• Build and nurture influential partnerships across the entire health, science, research and innovation ecosystem, including government, funders, industry, academia, NHS, international bodies and philanthropic organisations.
• Maintain a deep, organisation‑wide understanding of the Academy’s stakeholder landscape, ensuring strategic clarity about key partners, their values and how AMS can work with them most effectively.
• Enhance AMS’s role as a convener and connector, identifying opportunities for cross‑sector collaboration, joint influence and shared system impact.
• Act as a visible strategic ambassador, representing AMS’s priorities externally and ensuring strategic intelligence flows back into decision‑making.

Governance Leadership and Strategic Decision Infrastructure

• Oversee all governance functions for the Academy, ensuring Council and its committees operate effectively, efficiently and strategically.
• Ensure the right business goes to Council at the right time, managing forward plans, agenda setting and sequencing of decisions.
• Oversee the preparation of high‑quality papers and briefings that support rigorous, insight‑driven decision‑making by Council, committees and the Executive.
• Strengthen governance as a strategic asset, ensuring Board and committee structures, cycles and information flows enable clarity, accountability and long‑term stewardship.

Planning

• Lead a high‑performing planning function that provides cross‑Academy visibility, assurance and coordination of major strategic programmes.
• Embed consistent project, programme and portfolio management standards, ensuring strategic work is well‑sequenced, risk‑managed and aligned to organisational priorities.
• Produce insightful, action‑oriented reporting for the Executive and Council that supports confident oversight and timely decision‑making.

Strategic Funding and Resource Alignment

• Build strategic relationships with current and potential funders, identifying where aligned investment can accelerate AMS’s mission and shared system goals.
• Secure funding, shaping compelling, strategic propositions that reflect both organisational priorities and funder interests.
• Work closely with Finance and Fundraising to ensure strategic plans are supported by sustainable income models and clear long‑term financial assumptions.
• Identify funding gaps, capacity constraints and resourcing risks, enabling informed choices by the Executive and Council.

Horizon Scanning, Foresight & External Context

• Monitor and interpret major external developments — scientific, policy, geopolitical, funding, regulatory and technological — across the UK and internationally.
• Ensure the Academy’s strategy is globally informed and forward‑looking, enabling AMS to anticipate change, seize emerging opportunities and mitigate strategic risks.
• Translate horizon scanning into actionable strategic insight, equipping leaders and governance bodies with the intelligence needed to steer the organisation confidently.

Leadership, Organisational Alignment and Executive Support

• Lead and develop your team, ensuring strategic planning, international insight, planning, governance support and the CEO’s office operate as a cohesive, high‑performing unit.
• Act as a strategic partner to directors and colleagues across the Academy, supporting alignment across directorates while preserving operational accountability.
• Champion strategic discipline, prioritisation and organisational focus, ensuring the Academy remains aligned around the work that matters most.

Requirements

• Strategic leader with substantial experience setting organisational direction and running effective strategic and business planning.
• Proven ability to build influential external partnerships across government, funders, industry, academia, NHS bodies and international organisations, acting as a credible ambassador and convener.
• Skilled at governance and decision‑making support, including shaping agendas, preparing high‑quality papers and enabling effective Board/committee oversight.
• Strong analytical judgement, able to synthesise complex evidence, assess risk and present clear strategic options.
• Experience overseeing planning or programme functions, ensuring aligned, well‑sequenced and risk‑managed delivery.
• Financially literate, with the ability to align resources with strategic priorities and engage funders.
• Excellent communicator and collaborator, able to influence senior leaders and lead high‑performing teams.

Benefits

• Competitive salary and pension.
• 26 days’ annual leave, plus bank holidays.
• Option to buy or sell annual leave.
• Additional paid closure between Christmas and New Year.
• Hybrid and flexible working.
• Health, wellbeing and employee support programmes.
• Cycle‑to‑work scheme and everyday benefits.
• Structured learning and development.
• Enhanced maternity, adoption and paternity leave.
• Enhanced occupational sick pay.
• A range of enhanced benefits become available once you’ve completed your probation period.

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