Job Details
Hours: 37.5 hrs Mon-Fri
Location: Hybrid role with 3 days a week in The VHQ, Crawley
Contract: Permanent
Closing Date: 27 September 2024
In a nutshell
In this role as Government Affairs Manager, you’ll be part of the Corporate Development team, supporting Virgin Atlantic (VAA) in continued efforts to position the airline as an industry leader across Government and wider political audiences. We emerged from the pandemic with increased influence and now is the opportunity to drive sustainable growth of the industry, promote UK connectivity and competitiveness, and support Britain’s global ambitions.
Passionate about building on those foundations, you'll maintain and improve VAA's reputation with the new Labour Government and decision makers (focus is primarily advocacy in the UK, but may include international issues), grow the airline’s position as a UK flag carrier, and support / anticipate opportunities that enable Virgin Atlantic’s growth ambition in the next 5 – 10 years. A key part of this role will be internally facing as well as external – to engage across our Senior Leaders Group to support, anticipate and make recommendations related to Government/policy risks and opportunities to Virgin Atlantic.
Day to day
- Build and deliver external – public or behind the scenes – engagement strategy, working with a variety of senior external influencers to deliver VAA strategic, commercial and customer-facing priorities.
- Develop strong, influential relationships and networks with key externals, including Parliamentarians, advisers and Government officials.
- Horizon scan to proactively identify relevant future legislative and policy changes that could impact VAA business and take the lead in setting enterprise approach to engagement and influence.
- Lead internal briefing materials and external responses to potential policy or regulatory changes, collaborating with partners where appropriate to generate data, analysis and insight.
- Brief Virgin Atlantic Leadership Team for meetings with senior officials across the Government.
- Prepare company ‘lines to take’ and briefing papers to support external political engagement, working closely with the comms team where appropriate.
- Deliver and/or support senior participation at external events to set strategic agendas and priorities, adopting an outcomes-based approach that balances commercial and operational objectives.
- Represent Virgin Atlantic at (amongst others) IATA Working Groups, meetings with CAA and DfT, and BATA/BAR UK/CBI/Sustainable Aviation/other meetings.
- Attend industry and government working groups as appropriate, seeking opportunities to engage with government departments, advisers and agencies.
About you
Are you experienced in Government and/or Parliament and/or leading political engagement for high-profile organisations? Are you well-networked with proven experience delivering engagement programmes and campaigns on behalf of management/senior leaders? Then this could be the role for you!
Alongside the above, we're looking for the following:
- Analytical skills with the ability to develop well-reasoned and evidenced positions for internal and external audiences. Collating, understanding and challenging data to frame/inform/ support political and policy outcomes.
- Established a network across politics and parliament. Ideally, with experience in issues related to Transport, Net Zero, Business and Trade or Treasury.
- Proven experience in working effectively as part of a cross-functional / multi-disciplined teams to deliver coordinated and value-led outcomes.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills across senior leaders and political members – both written and verbal.
- Negotiation and influencing, including advocacy and consensus-building skills.
- Confidence to be a prominent external representative of the business across the industry, airline and Government.
- Ability to handle confidential matters discretely.
If the above sounds like you, and you want to join Virgin Atlantic on our journey to becoming 'Most Loved', we'd love to hear from you!
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