Wild Solutions Business Development Manager at University of Derby

Location: Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, Sandy Hill, Main Street, Middleton, Matlock, Derbyshire DE4 4LR

Fixed term for 22 months

University of Derby’s College of Business, Law and Social Sciences in partnership with Derbyshire Wildlife Trust (DWT) are offering an exciting career-development opportunity to manage and deliver a challenging strategic Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) project. Based at the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust premises, you will be employed by the University as a KTP Associate but work under the terms and conditions of the company.

Using your knowledge and skills to support the business and achieve specific project aims, you will receive on-going support by a Derbyshire Wildlife Trust Supervisor, Academic Supervisor and Academic Lead from the University of Derby to help you deliver.  A personal training and development budget will also be available for you to access, as well as receiving access to the same training opportunities and facilities as University staff. 

This is an exciting opportunity to lead a project that would transform Derbyshire Wildlife Trust into an agile and entrepreneurial organisation. You will help DWT to discover new business opportunities and develop the strategies, processes and working practices to realise those opportunities. If you believe that you can help DWT to deliver these, this role may be for you. 

Therefore, we are looking for an individual who is capable of working with others to facilitate transformation in this interesting setting and enable DWT to become agile, professional and entrepreneurial to realise business opportunities. A fast learner with the calibre to engage and persuade internal and external stakeholders and embed the business model will be ideal.

About Derbyshire Wildlife Trust

Derbyshire Wildlife Trust is a charity whose main function is creating spaces for people and nature with over 50 years’ experience. Within Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, Wild Solutions operates as a consultancy that provides end-to-end nature-based solutions to clients, partners and stakeholders. Wild Solutions specialises in the delivery of high nature, low carbon habitats providing a broad spectrum of essential ecosystem services.

We are forming a Centre of Excellence to enable us to lead the way to a wilder future, rewilding our uplands and our cities, expanding and protecting spaces for nature, campaigning for local and national change, and reintroducing key species. 

At the heart of this Centre of Excellence are three strategic projects, one of which, is this Business Development Project that would enable Wild Solutions to develop a holistic business model that will transform our business capabilities and working practices to establish us at the forefront of ecosystem services provision. Such ecosystem services include biodiversity net gain, health and wellbeing improvement, carbon sequestration and nutrient neutrality, will enable us to become the leading provider of nature-based solutions in the county, with a national reputation for innovation excellence.

Knowledge Transfer Partnerships 

This full-time post is part-funded by the UK Government’s KTP programme. A KTP is a three-way project between a graduate, an organisation and a university. KTP is one of the UK’s largest graduate recruitment programmes and has been placing graduates on challenging, high profile projects for almost 45 years.  In addition to a competitive salary and core KTP development training, you will have a dedicated budget of £4,000 for further training and career development. To find out more about the scheme visit: ktp-uk.org/graduates 

For more information and to apply on-line, please click the “Apply” button.