Business Development, Network & Events Coordinator
Location: Netherton, Dudley
Salary: £25,000–£27,000 per year + commission/performance bonus
Realistic OTE: £30,000–£35,000+
Hours: Monday–Friday, 8:30am–4:30pm
Contract: Full-time, permanent
Start: As soon as possible
About the role
We're looking for someone confident, organised and commercially minded to join our team in a varied role spanning business development, network management and professional event coordination.
You'll be employed by Chalkline Education & Support Ltd, while also working closely with Nexa Impact CIC, a social-impact organisation focused on creating brighter futures for vulnerable children and young people.
This isn't a role where you'll be handed a script and a list of tasks to work through every day.
We'll agree the objectives, priorities and targets with you, and then we want someone who can take ownership: plan their workload, build relationships, spot opportunities, develop ideas and make things happen.
A significant part of your week will focus on growing and managing the Nexa network. You'll speak with new organisations, introduce them to Nexa, understand where they fit within the network and membership options, manage onboarding and build relationships that continue beyond the initial conversation.
Alongside this, you'll take the lead on planning and delivering events across Nexa, and potentially, other areas of the organisations as our needs develop.
You'll play a key role in developing the Nexa network, including:
- Proactively contacting organisations and introducing them to Nexa
- Developing new relationships through phone, email, online meetings and face-to-face networking
- Identifying appropriate membership and involvement opportunities
- Supporting organisations through the onboarding process
- Working towards agreed network-growth and revenue objectives
- Maintaining relationships after organisations have joined
- Looking for opportunities to increase engagement across the network
- Keeping accurate records of conversations, activity and outcomes
- Managing participating organisations' records within the Nexa Impact Framework
- Supporting organisations to understand and engage with the framework
- Connecting organisations, opportunities and people across the network where appropriate
- Using the growing network to support events, collaboration and Nexa's wider social-impact objectives
This is a business development role, so you need to be comfortable picking up the phone and starting conversations with people you've never spoken to before.
However, we're not looking for aggressive sales tactics. Building credible, long-term relationships is far more important to us than simply chasing numbers.
Events
You'll have real ownership of our events programme.
We're therefore looking for someone with at least two years' professional event coordination experience who is comfortable managing events from initial idea through to delivery.
Working with the team, you'll help determine what events we should run and then take responsibility for making them happen.
That could include:
- Developing event concepts and proposals
- Researching and sourcing venues
- Managing suppliers
- Agreeing requirements and coordinating logistics
- Identifying and liaising with speakers, contributors and participating organisations
- Working with members of the Nexa network
- Managing invitations and registrations
- Coordinating event promotion
- Producing schedules and event plans
- Managing attendee communications
- Attending and coordinating events on the day
- Troubleshooting problems as they arise
- Following up with attendees and organisations afterwards
- Reviewing the success and impact of events
Events may vary considerably in size and format, and could include networking events, professional discussions, fundraisers, workshops, launches, awareness events and other opportunities developed as the network grows.
We don't just want someone who can administer an event that's already been designed. We want someone who can contribute ideas, take ownership and deliver.
Chalkline Quality Support
Depending on your experience, strengths and training, there may also be opportunities to support with part of Chalkline's internal quality processes.
This could include reviewing reports and documentation to ensure they meet our expected standards.
Exceptional attention to detail would be essential for this part of the role, and appropriate training would be provided before you were expected to undertake quality audits independently.
Don't let this put you off applying if your strengths are business development, network management and events.
For the right candidate, this element of the position can be adapted. We'd rather recruit someone exceptional in the core areas of the role than lose them because they haven't previously worked in education quality assurance.
Recruitment & Onboarding
Previous recruitment or candidate onboarding experience would be useful, but is not essential.
Experience in this area may help with elements of Nexa's organisational onboarding and could also provide opportunities to support Chalkline's recruitment and onboarding processes when required.
This is not, however, a traditional Recruitment Consultant position.
What we're looking forEssential
- At least two years' professional event coordination experience
- Experience managing events through multiple stages of planning and delivery
- Confidence speaking with new organisations and developing professional relationships
- Strong telephone and written communication skills
- Excellent organisation and time management
- The confidence to manage your own workload and priorities
- Excellent attention to detail
- A proactive approach – you're comfortable identifying what needs doing rather than waiting for a task list
- Confidence working towards agreed objectives and targets
- Strong relationship-management skills
- Ability to represent our organisations professionally at meetings and events
- Full UK driving licence and access to suitable transport
- Willingness to travel and occasionally work outside normal office hours where events or business requirements require it
- Ability to obtain and maintain a satisfactory Enhanced DBS check
Desirable
- Business development or sales experience
- Network or membership management experience
- Recruitment or candidate onboarding experience
- Quality assurance/auditing experience
- Experience working within education, SEND, children's services or another related sector
- Experience managing CRM or membership records
- Experience promoting professional events
- Experience developing new event concepts rather than solely administering existing events
How we work
Our standard working pattern is Monday to Friday, 8:30am–4:30pm, based at our office in Netherton, Dudley.
This is primarily an office-based position.
There may be occasions where working from home is appropriate according to business needs, alongside external meetings, networking and events.
Some events may take place outside our standard Monday–Friday working pattern or normal office hours. Where this is required, it will be discussed with you and we'll provide as much notice as reasonably possible.
Autonomy
This is important to us.
We're looking for someone we can trust with responsibility.
You'll meet with the leadership team to agree priorities, objectives and targets. From there, we want you to take ownership of your area.
If we agree that we want to grow a particular part of the Nexa network, we want you thinking about who we should speak to and how you're going to reach them.
If we decide we want to hold an event, we want you researching the options, developing ideas, speaking with venues and suppliers, engaging the network and bringing a plan back to us.
You'll have support when you need it, but you won't be micromanaged.
Salary & Commission
The basic salary for the role is £25,000–£26,000 per year, depending on experience.
You'll also have the opportunity to earn additional income through a commission and performance-related bonus scheme linked to qualifying new business and network growth.
We expect a successful person in the role to have a realistic OTE of approximately £30,000–£35,000+, with the opportunity to earn more for exceptional performance.
Importantly, we want growth to be sustainable and appropriate. Quality matters just as much as quantity, so our incentive structure rewards genuine, suitable new business rather than simply encouraging as many sign-ups as possible.
The person we're hoping to find
You might currently work in events, business development, membership services, partnerships, recruitment or another relationship-focused role.
Your exact background matters less than what you can bring.
You'll probably enjoy meeting people and starting conversations. You'll be comfortable on the phone but equally confident walking into an event and introducing yourself to a room full of people.
You'll be highly organised, able to juggle several different projects and obsessive enough about the details to notice when something isn't right.
Most importantly, you'll be someone who likes ownership.
If your preferred way of working is to understand the goal, develop a plan and then get on with making it happen, we'd particularly like to hear from you.
Pay: £25,000.00-£35,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- Company events
- Company pension
- Flexitime
- On-site parking
Experience:
- professional events coordination: 2 years (required)
- teaching/educaiton: 2 years (preferred)
Licence/Certification:
- Driving Licence (required)
- Enhanced DBS (preferred)
Work Location: In person
