Please note: This role is a 2 year FTC

The West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) is a strategic authority working with partners to deliver a stronger West Midlands, with a focus on clean and inclusive growth, health and wellbeing, skills, innovation, transport, housing and regeneration.

This is an exciting time for the West Midlands – including Coventry City of Culture 2021, the Commonwealth Games in 2022, the country’s first large scale 5G digital demonstrator, the arrival of High Speed 2 rail which will help make us a world class business location, and a new £350m housing deal aiming to deliver 215,000 new homes by 2031.

Our new West Midlands Local Industrial Strategy identifies our creative expertise and firms as a core opportunity for the area, with strengths in pioneering new content production and platforms, including a world-leading gaming and artificial intelligence cluster, product and process design and development, including across a wide range of services, media, disciplines and materials. We are committed to supporting the further development of a globally competitive creative & media cluster anchored by institutions and world class facilities and networks driving innovation and collaborative approaches to Intellectual Property and business growth.

Against a backdrop of a uniquely challenging and evolving environment, we are looking for the right people to ensure we can meet the demands of delivering an ambitious agenda that aims to build a healthier, happier, better connected and more prosperous West Midlands. This new role will truly have an impact on the whole of our region.

About the Role

The WMCA area has around 10,000 creative enterprises, around 50,000 workers delivering an economic impact of over £4Bn. The region contains 10% of the UK games industry, an innovative and emerging content production sector, a substantial advertising, marketing and design sector, with the largest jewellery, crafts and designer maker cluster outside London.

Many opportunities exist for scaling-up creative businesses, for example, around virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) applications, especially within performance, digital manufacturing and healthcare. There is huge potential within our diverse population to exploit innovative content and high-end streaming opportunities.

In March 2019, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) granted £1.3m funding to WMCA to lead delivery of the West Midlands Creative Scale-Up Programme covering the area’s three Local Enterprise Partnerships.

We are looking for an exceptional leader to drive this pilot whose goals are to improve: • the leadership capacity for early stage scalable creative businesses wishing to grow their business through accessing growth finance. Leadership capacity includes business planning, awareness of finance types, investability, and the ability to reach investors. • the capacity of investor communities in the region to work with creative businesses.

The Programme will provide support to help growing creative firms to access new finance to build and “scale up” their business. Creatives will be given the tools and inspiration to scale-up, along with the network connections and opportunities to turn their ambition to grow into a reality.

The Programme differs from generic programmes in that it will identify specific cohorts of creatives, from different sub-sectors, and then work with them in a hyper-flexible way. The exact components of the programme are still under development and await further input from discussions with the sector and wider research. For creative firms, they are likely to include a broad “inspiration gateway”; sector-specific scale-up support; and an intensive cohort focussing on IP development and valuation, investment-readiness support and brokerage with financiers. The programme will also work with the investor community and relevant collaborators.

The £1.3m funding will cover staff, programme management and external delivery from sector specialists to achieve the objectives of the Programme. Current funding covers operations over a two-year period.

The Creative Scale-Up Programme will work collaboratively with local partners including the three Local Enterprise Partnerships and the two other Creative Scale-Up Programme leads in other regions. This role will also provide specialist support to our wider Local Industrial Strategy work with the creative sector.

In return for your hard work and commitment, we will reward you with a range of competitive and attractive benefits.

We are committed to developing an organisation that is representative of the diverse communities that we serve and welcome applications from all sections of the community. The following groups are currently under-represented: young people, Black, Asian and ethnic minority groups and women at senior levels.

To view and apply for these opportunities please visit https://www.wmca.org.uk/careers/ where you will be required to register with our Online Recruitment System which is quick and easy. Please provide detailed information in your application outlining your suitability for the post and ensure it is submitted by the closing date.

A CV may be uploaded for extra information, but please note that personal details should be omitted and a CV alone will not be accepted.

Closing Date: 10th May 2019

Interview date: 16th May 2019

We are committed to equality of opportunity in service provision and employment. Our recruitment policies, procedures and practices enable all applicants to be considered on merit and ability to do the job. We will make reasonable adjustments, in line with the Equality Act, for disabled applicants if these are needed.