Work for us

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About the role

We have an exciting opportunity for a Director of Finance to lead the development of UoNSU’s finance strategy to support the organisation to deliver on its strategic ambitions, ensuring effective and responsible management of resources to promote the efficiency and sustainability of our offer to members. The successful candidate will clearly demonstrate an innate ability to quickly become part of a highly cohesive leadership team who values the people within the organisation.

We are seeking a positive and solutions focussed Director of Finance who is ACA/CIMA/ACCA qualified and has experience which demonstrates professional competence to operate at a senior-leader level, as well as experience in promoting, challenging and championing a culture of equity, diversity and inclusion.

You will have experience in developing short, medium and long term financial strategies, and be able to produce high quality financial performance reports and have experience in developing robust and efficient process covering finance, risk and governance. Strong communication skills are essential as is the ability to deliver complex messages to a variety of audiences. You will also have skills in people management and development including performance appraisal and building impactful teams.

Our People Offer

When you come to work @UoNSU you bring your skills, experience, talent, commitment and a desire to do a great job. Our Students’ Union prides itself on being inclusive, working collaboratively and empowering individuals to be the best they can. In return we want to be an employer where every member of the staff team feels valued, trusted, inspired, and able to grow and to have fun. We welcome those of different cultures, ethnicities and beliefs – this very diversity is vital to our success, it is fundamental to our values and enriches life on campus. We value diversity, promote equality and challenge discrimination. We want to increase the diversity of our Senior Management Team and we would like to encourage applications from disabled, LGBT+ and Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds as they are currently underrepresented at this level

How to apply

Please apply here.

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About the role(s)

What is a Trustee?

As a charitable organisation, UoNSU has a Board of Trustees who oversee the overall running of the Students’ Union, an organisation with income of over £11m each year, over 250 staff and over 4,000 volunteers. Trustees oversee the Students’ Union’s governance, legal compliance and financial stability and trustees need to make sure the organisation is doing a great job for our students both now and in the future.

UoNSU’s Trustee Board comprises of seventeen trustees all with a diverse range of skills and experience. You’ll join elected officers, external professionals, and other student trustees who all share a commitment to improving student life in Nottingham.

What does the role entail?

Trustees are responsible for making the biggest decisions affecting the Students’ Union, and take on a legal duty to be responsible for the charity. Whilst Trustees don’t get involved in the day to day running of the Student’s Union, they do oversee and make decisions on legal, financial or reputation issues affecting UoNSU. Trustees meet and contribute to diverse discussions, giving their perspective, bringing their experience and expertise to help make student life in Nottingham the best it can be. Some example of Trustee decisions have included:

• The creation and ultimate approval of UoNSU’s long term strategy
• Overseeing development of our Welcome week programme to broaden the range of activities offered and improve the safety of mentors.
• The decision to allocate funding to set up Portland Coffee Company
• The decision to become an accredited Living Wage Foundation employer, considering the democratic, financial and legal issues.
• Overseeing and approving the Student’s Union’s financial plan

Trustees also scrutinise decisions made by staff in the Students’ Union and provide supportive advice, so that the Students’ Union is championing student interests and supporting students to have a great experience.

What’s the time commitment required?

The University of Nottingham Students’ Union Trustee Board meets routinely 5 times a year. Each meeting usually lasts for around 2-3 hours with a similar amount of pre-reading and preparation time. Trustees also sit on one of four sub-committees which have a greater focus on areas like our businesses, the student experience, finance, and our people. These takes place 2-3 times per. In total the commitment is roughly one day per month in term time.

What benefits are there to being a Trustee?

There are many reasons and motivations for being a trustee. Developing leadership experience and involvement in high level strategic decisions with the Students’ Union are particularly attractive for student trustees. You will gain and develop:

• Insights and experience in leading and running an organisations
• Communication skills through participating in discussions and debates about issues affecting students in Nottingham
• Problem solving skills through considering the issues affecting UoNSU which are the most serious, complicated, risky, and/or sensitive
• Skills in team work and developing others, through being part of a Board of Trustees who are collaborating with Officers and the Senior Management team to run UoNSU.
• Financial, business and legal knowledge into how a medium sized charity is run
• Experience in all aspects of the Students’ Union and the services it delivers – we probably do a lot more than you think!

Being a trustee is also a rewarding experience, with the ability to positively benefit your peers and ensure the workings of the Students’ Union are set up to best benefit students.

All Trustee roles are unpaid, voluntary roles.

Who can be a Trustee?

If you’re over the age of 16, and a registered student at the University of Nottingham, we want to hear from you! Applicants must be able to serve a minimum of 2 years as a Student Trustee.

What skills or experience do I need?

There are a variety of areas where student trustees bring a huge amount of specialist knowledge and experience directly relating to students and the student experience to the trustee board.

We’re particularly keen to improve the way we support post graduate students in their University experience. As such we’re really keen to attract students with good knowledge and/or lived experience of what it means to be a post graduate student.

We also want to continue our focus on championing equality and diversity and would welcome applications from students with good knowledge and/or lived experience of:

• Disabled students
• Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic students
• Mature students
• Equality and Diversity on campus

How to apply

To apply please provide your CV, along with a supporting statement of no more than 1 A4 page detailing your suitability for the position of Student Trustee and send to Jackie Dale, HR Specialist, at Jackie.Dale@nottingham.ac.uk.

For more information about this role please see our recruitment pack which is available here.

We’re trying hard to become a more inclusive workplace and to better represent the student community that we serve. We would like to encourage applications from candidates with a disabled, LGBT+ and Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic background, as they are underrepresented at this level.

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About the role(s)

What is a Trustee?

As a charitable organisation, UoNSU has a Board of Trustees who oversee the overall running of the Students’ Union. Our Trustees oversee our governance, legal compliance and financial stability and trustees need to make sure the organisation is doing a great job for our students both now and in the future.

UoNSU’s Trustee Board comprises of seventeen trustees all with a diverse range of skills and experience. You’ll join elected officers, external professionals, and other Lay trustees who all share a commitment to improving student life in Nottingham.

This is a voluntary role and unpaid.

What does the role entail?

Trustees are responsible for making the biggest decisions affecting the Students’ Union, and take on a legal duty to be responsible for the charity. Whilst Trustees don’t get involved in the day to day running of the Student’s Union, they do oversee and make decisions on legal, financial or reputation issues affecting UoNSU. Trustees meet and contribute to diverse discussions, giving their perspective, bringing their experience and expertise to help make student life in Nottingham the best it can be. Some example of Trustee decisions have included:

• The creation and ultimate approval of UoNSU’s long term strategy
• Overseeing development of our Welcome week programme to broaden the range of activities offered and improve the safety of volunteers.
• Investment decisions over setting up new trading businesses
• The decision to become an accredited Living Wage Foundation employer, considering the democratic, financial and legal issues.
• Overseeing and approving the Student’s Union’s financial plan

Trustees also scrutinise decisions made by staff in the Students’ Union and provide supportive advice, so that the Students’ Union is championing student interests and supporting students to have a great experience.

What’s the time commitment required?

The University of Nottingham Students’ Union Trustee Board meets routinely 5 times a year. Each meeting usually lasts for around 2-3 hours with a similar amount of pre-reading and preparation time. Trustees also sit on one of four sub-committees which have a greater focus on areas like our businesses, the student experience, finance, and our people. These takes place 2-3 times per. In total the commitment is roughly one day per month in term time.

What benefits are there to being a Trustee?

Being a trustee at UoNSU is a rewarding experience. There are always a broad range of issues and topics Trustees need to consider, some really unusual and some really challenging. But it never ceases to surprise us just how amazing our students are. You’ll work with a passionate, dynamic and diverse group of people who all believe we can make student life in Nottingham better

What skills or experience do I need?

The Lay Trustees have a very important role to play with regard to continuity, advice and guidance to new Trustees, particularly the Elected Officers and Student Trustees who will change every year or two. The external nature of lay trustees helps ensure we consider fresh perspectives, improves healthy challenge and combined with their greater professional knowledge and experience helps improve oversight of the strategy and the running of the organisation.

Following a review of the Trustees and a planned retirement we are looking for individuals with specific experience in people leadership, developing organisation culture, and developing high performing teams.

Applicants must be able to serve a 3 years term as a Lay Trustee, and have the potential to serve a second term.

How to apply

To apply please provide your CV, along with a supporting statement of no more than 1 A4 page detailing your suitability for the position of Student Trustee and send to Jackie Dale, HR Specialist, at Jackie.Dale@nottingham.ac.uk.

For more information about this role please see our recruitment pack which is available here.

We’re trying hard to become a more inclusive workplace and to better represent the student community that we serve. We would like to encourage applications from candidates with a disabled, LGBT+ and Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic background, as they are underrepresented at this level.

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About the role(s)

The role will involve the facilitation of the Student Union’s democratic decision-making meetings including Union Council, Scrutiny Panel and sometimes other events such as Democratic Procedures Committee, or central Hustings events during major elections, to ensure they are well run, productive and inclusive.

Our democratic meetings across the Students’ Union help seek to make decisions on what ideas for change the elected Officers of the Union should be working on; to help make major changes to our governance and documents as a Union; and to create spaces for our Officers of the Union to be held accountable for their work in representing students.

To facilitate these meetings the position will require excellent listening skills and for candidates to be an emotionally intelligent individual with the ability to impartially moderate potentially heated discussion.

Knowledge of the University of Nottingham Students’ Unions’ democratic processes and why they might be used by students is desirable, or a commitment and ability to learn it quickly would be an essential requirement.

Candidates will be passionate about encouraging students to create change through democratic decision-making meetings and will be eager to work closely with a staff member for 1-2-1 coaching to continually improve their facilitation skills across the year.

How to apply

If you are a current student of the University of Nottingham during the whole of the 2020/2021 academic year and wish to apply, please send your CV and supporting statement of no more than 1 A4 page demonstrating how you meet the criteria in the ‘Knowledge and Expertise’ section of the Role Profile to eleanor.cullen@nottingham.ac.uk or robert.henderson@nottingham.ac.uk

If you would like further information or want to see if the role is right for you, please contact Eleanor Cullen (they/them) at eleanor.cullen@nottingham.ac.uk or Rob Henderson (he/him) at robert.henderson@nottingham.ac.uk

Further information

Hourly rate: £9.50 per hour plus holiday pay calculated at 12.07%

Our People Offer

When you come to work @UoNSU you bring your skills, experience, talent, commitment and a desire to do a great job. Our Students’ Union prides itself on being inclusive, working collaboratively and empowering individuals to be the best they can. In return we want to be an employer where every member of the team feels valued, trusted, inspired, and able to grow and to have fun. We welcome those of different cultures, ethnicities and beliefs – this very diversity is vital to our success, it is fundamental to our values and enriches life on campus. We value diversity, promote equality and challenge discrimination.

Resources

You can view the full role profile here.