HEAD OF GOVERNANCE AND INNOVATION

Quick info

Hours: 37.5 hours a week, fixed-term for 18 months. Flexible or part-time working (minimum 30 hours/week) will be considered.

Salary: £52,500 – £58,000 p/a (depending on experience. Pro-rata if part-time)

Location: Hybrid (in London), or remote (must be based in the UK)

Reporting To: Director of Governance

Application deadline: Wednesday 18th November 23:59

Ready to apply? Please sign in with a Google account in order to attach your CV and cover letter to your form submission.

About The Social Change Nest

At The Social Change Nest (SCN), we’re radically transforming the funding landscape and strengthening civil society. We remove the financial and administrative barriers – like bank accounts and legal structures – that often prevent communities, grassroots groups and informal movements from accessing funding and focusing on their core mission. We also work closely with funders, enabling them to support social action with confidence and transparency.

We currently support over 700 groups across the UK and abroad addressing issues such as social injustice, climate, housing, wellbeing and animal rights. We are at the forefront of fiscal hosting in Europe and, since our inception in 2020, we have supported groups in securing over £50 million in funding, helping them take advantage of opportunities that may have otherwise been unavailable.

We work with all types of social movements and community groups, from climate to housing, wellbeing and animal rights. Read more about this here.

The Social Change Nest is part of The Social Change Group. We are a Disability Confident Employer, and an accredited Living Wage Employer.

How We Work

You’ll be joining a close-knit team, supported and developed to be the best you can be. We believe that every member of our team brings a unique perspective from their experiences and abilities and we encourage everyone to be curious about how we can improve everything we do, from how we interact as a team to how we deliver for our clients and communities.

Underpinned by our values of collaboration, curiosity, courage, and creativity, we work closely and with care with our partners because we believe relationships are the glue that hold us all together.

We’re a growing business and operate at pace to keep up with the challenges that the sector faces. We have established a lot, but as we grow, we’re still working some things out. The right person will thrive in this environment and feel a level of ownership to support the build out of things we need as we need them.

The Role

At SCN, we believe governance, risk, and compliance should embody the freedom to empower transformative social change rather than restrict it.

As our Head of Governance & Innovation, you’ll serve as the operational anchor and creative engine of our governance function. Sitting between strategic executive leadership and daily operational delivery, you’ll hold total ownership over SCN’s compliance and risk backbone. You’ll ensure our active Money Laundering Supervision (MLS) framework, due diligence processes, and board support cycles run smoothly, proportionately, and on time across our multi-entity group structure, tailoring operational controls depending on whether specific services fall under statutory regulation or non-regulated subsidiary operations.

In this role, you’ll combine hands-on operational delivery with team leadership and progressive governance innovation. You and the Governance Team will champion and model SCN’s trauma-informed, relationship-based approach to risk, turning operational insights into creative governance tools that make compliance accessible and enabling for grassroots movements. You’ll mentor and support the team, manage complex Enhanced Due Diligence (EDD), handle sensitive safeguarding or compliance cases, and hold clear operational boundaries with cross-functional peers across Business Development, Operations, and Finance. You’ll also act as key deputy to the Director of Governance, stepping in to represent the function when required.

Skills & Experience

Essential

Senior Governance Leadership: Demonstrable track record (typically 3 to 5 years) leading or managing governance, risk, or compliance functions within a social enterprise, charity, fiscal host, or complex values-led organisation, with experience of applying compliance flexibly and creatively, and operating with significant autonomy.
Governance Innovation and Process Design: Strong capability in analysing operational workflows and complex case handling, designing user-friendly compliance tools, and translating group feedback and data into continuous governance improvements (using tools such as HubSpot or Google Workspace).
Trauma-Informed Risk Approach: Deep understanding and practical experience of relationship-based, trauma-informed risk management, with the ability to champion and embed this culture across an organisation.
Complex Risk Assessment: Demonstrated expertise in conducting EDD, analysing complex legal or financial risk profiles, and applying anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing frameworks proportionately.
Multi-Entity and Regulatory Nuance: Solid working knowledge of AML regulations and experience navigating governance across multi-entity group structures, with the ability to apply proportionate controls across both regulated and non-regulated operational models.
Practical Regulatory and Safeguarding Experience: Practical working knowledge of data protection (General Data Protection Regulation / GDPR), handling sensitive safeguarding or whistleblowing escalations, and applying risk management frameworks in operational settings.
Board and Committee Administration: Practical capability in managing formal Board and Committee cycles, with confidence to support Board effectiveness, advise Trustees and Directors on governance protocol, and oversee high-quality minuting and statutory records.
People Management: Experience in line-managing staff, setting clear objectives, managing workload distribution, and supporting career progression.
Cross-Functional Communication: Outstanding interpersonal and negotiation skills, with the ability to hold firm compliance boundaries while maintaining warm, collaborative working relationships.
Values Alignment: Deep commitment to social change, equity, and removing bureaucratic barriers for grassroots community action.

Desirable

Experience with multi-entity corporate structures, subsidiaries, or international grant distribution.
Formal or professional training in adult or child safeguarding, data protection (GDPR), or accredited risk management frameworks.

We will provide comprehensive onboarding and training on our internal systems, processes, and methodologies relevant to your role.

Key responsibilities

Operational Leadership and Progressive Governance

Leading Trauma-Informed Operations: Lead the day-to-day execution of SCN’s governance, compliance, and risk frameworks across all group entities, ensuring service level agreements and quality standards are met while embedding a trauma-informed, relationship-based risk across the business.
Governance Innovation and Process Design: Act as the innovation pipeline for SCN’s governance models, continuously analysing operational workflows, CRM (HubSpot) integrations, and group feedback to eliminate bottlenecks, rethink rigid processes, and design progressive compliance tools.
Board and Committee Cycle Management: Oversee the annual business and meeting cycle for Boards and Committees across the Social Change Group, ensuring high-quality paper coordination, accurate minuting, and systematic action tracking to support effective board governance.
Purposeful Data and Trend Analysis: Analyse governance metrics, incident logs, and due diligence trends to uncover root causes, drive continuous organisational learning, mitigate systemic risk, and inform SCN’s proactive strategy and service innovation.
Resource and Capacity Stewardship: Oversee the Governance department’s budget and operational capacity, strategically allocating resources to balance regulatory compliance needs with organisational growth and service innovation

Risk, Due Diligence, and Complex Case Management

Enhanced Due Diligence: Oversee and conduct EDD for high-risk, complex, or non-standard groups, funders, and commercial partnerships, making clear risk recommendations within agreed authority limits.
Handling & Coordination of Sensitive Cases: Coordinate the operational handling of sensitive cases, including incidents, complaints, whistleblowing, safeguarding, and terrorist-monitoring, ensuring secure record-keeping, timely communication, and learning reviews.

Regulatory and Policy Alignment

Money Laundering Supervision: Lead the ongoing operational management, embedding, and audit readiness of SCN’s existing MLS framework, ensuring our daily controls, transaction monitoring, and record-keeping remain fully compliant with regulatory standards.
Multi-Entity Regulatory Navigation: Implement and operationalise governance controls across our group entities, distinguishing clearly between services falling under statutory MLS and those operating outside regulatory frameworks to keep compliance proportionate, effective, and enabling.
General Regulatory Compliance: Maintain oversight of organisational compliance with AML, sanctions, GDPR, and Companies House obligations, and other relevant regulatory frameworks across all group entities, updating internal policy frameworks in response to regulatory changes.

Cross-Functional Boundary Holding and Culture

Embedding an Enabling Risk Culture: Champion a relationship-based, trauma-informed approach to risk management across SCN, delivering internal training and guidance to ensure risk is used as an enabling tool rather than a barrier to social action.
Cross-Functional Alignment: Work closely with other Heads of to negotiate realistic delivery timelines, embed compliance controls into new service streams, and prevent operational friction.

Team Leadership and Deputisation

People Management: Line manage and support the professional development of the Governance and Compliance Officer, and Governance and Compliance Assistant, and other roles as required, fostering an inclusive, high-performing team culture grounded in psychological safety and curiosity. Embed participatory decision-making and power-sharing principles into team planning, actively addressing power imbalances and creating an equitable environment.
Director Deputisation: Serve as primary deputy to the Director of Governance, representing the function in cross-functional leadership forums, internal committees, and external stakeholder spaces as needed.

Other Important Information

Terms: The role will be minimum 30 hours/week on an 18 month contract. As we often work with volunteers, occasional evening and weekend work may be required and compensated through TOIL. Occasional but limited UK or European travel may be required (by arrangement).

We are open to exploring flexible working arrangements and supporting you to meet commitments you may have. All pay and benefits, holiday etc will be pro-rated with the length of your contract.

Salary: £52,500 – £58,000 per annum (pro-rata if part-time), depending on experience.

Location: We are happy to consider remote candidates, but you must be based inside the UK. We have an office in central London, which London-based staff go to 2 -3 times a week.

We hold quarterly all-staff strategy meetings and annual away days, which you will be required to attend in person and for which we will cover the cost of your travel.

Language skills & visa status: Candidates must be fluent in English. You must have the right to work in the UK independently, as we are unable to provide visa sponsorship.

Holiday: 28 days plus bank holidays (including 3 days between Christmas and New Years).

Employer pension contribution: We offer a 3% employer pension contribution, that you will be auto enrolled into after 3 months of employment with SCN.

Additional Paid Time Off: We offer 2 days of paid voluntary time off, encouraging all staff to serve as trustees or any equivalent voluntary positions to contribute to their communities.

Mintago: The health and wellbeing of our staff is very important to us. We offer all of our staff access to Mintago which offers a 24 hour support line, structured counselling with external support, and a bank of online resources such as webinars and articles tailored towards health and wellbeing for both you and the members of your family, and access to some types of legal advice. You can see their website for details. They also offer access to a 24hr virtual GP.

Financial Wellbeing:

The financial wellbeing of our staff means a lot to us. We offer the following to our staff to help them reach their financial goals:

Financial wellbeing platform allows staff to check their pension dashboard, plan for retirement and search for forgotten/lost pensions. There is also a smart saver plan and we provide access to financial advisers for free.
Benefits app – retail discounts. Select from over 80 brands.

Hiring process

We strongly encourage applicants from a wide variety of backgrounds. We are committed to our staff representing the wide variety of backgrounds represented in the communities we work with. If you are concerned that you may not fit 100% of the job specification – please throw your hat in the ring. We never put formal education requirements on any role as we value lived experiences as highly as formal education and training qualifications.

We follow a blind recruitment process, which means that hiring managers for the role can only see your work history and cover note when deciding to progress to the interview stage.

If you need any accessibility accommodations for this application please do not hesitate to contact us at people@thesocialchangenest.org or by calling 07958298727 and we will be happy to provide you with those accommodations.

Please visit our main vacancies page for our equal opportunities statement.

Ready to apply? Please sign in with a Google account and attach your CV and cover letter to your form submission.