The Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Background
The Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation is a new and exciting development at the College that aims to inspire and excite students as aspiring entrepreneurs by cultivating the risk-taking and problem solving mindset and attitudes that underpin entrepreneurial activity. Our goal is to provide inspiration and training to promote, nurture and enable entrepreneurship as our students begin to think about their career aspirations post school.
The traditional Winchester College curriculum provides the academic qualifications to enable students to progress to the universities of their choice. However, entrepreneurship and innovation are experiential in nature – with an emphasis on what works rather than what is theoretically correct.
With start-ups worth $3tr to the global economy and high-achieving students aspiring to be founders and entrepreneurs, the Centre will reflect the global nature of our community of students and alumni through the activities it runs, the visitors it receives and the ideas it inspires. The Centre will be the place at Winchester College where our students start to think about navigating a world without maps and develop the resourcefulness and self-belief to succeed in more unconventional career choices.
The Centre will be run primarily as an extra-curricular pursuit for those in their final two years at the school and will enable students to:
• Develop the problem solving, teamwork, communication, adaptability and interpersonal skills in our students
• Cultivate the risk-taking and problem-solving mind-set and attitude that underpins entrepreneurial activity
• Collaborate on and co-create ventures
• Develop practical experience of entrepreneurial activity
• Access a wide network of entrepreneurs
The centre will provide experience and practice of the core entrepreneurial skills, including:
• Identifying opportunities;
• Being comfortable with uncertainty;
• Building networks;
• Building a business team and collaboration;
• Sales and marketing;
• Basic financial management and others
The Role
The Director of the Centre will lead the delivery of the department through numerous activities and by facilitating networking and collaborating opportunities. There will be great flexibility in the role and the chance to come up with new, innovative and exciting ways to support the Centre’s aims.
In short, this unique opportunity offers the chance for an innovative and creative individual who is passionate and enthusiastic about our mission to design and develop a programme unparalleled in the UK boarding school system that will drive the ambitions of the next generation of entrepreneurs.
He or she will report to the Bursar and the Headmaster and will be supported by a visiting Entrepreneur-in-residence initially from within the Old Wykehamist (OW) community.
The Director of the Centre will hold a part time, non- teaching role and will:
• Create a student-run series of talks and workshops bringing entrepreneurs and alumnientrepreneurs to Winchester College virtually or in person
• Encourage students through a guided process of discovery to launch a business
• Facilitate structured work experience in conjunction with Careers/alumni office
• Run case studies and/or business simulations where students use practical business skills: Finding problems, Solving Problems, Networking, Elevator Pitch, Market Research, Marketing and Pricing, App development etc.
• Introduce students to areas such as Not-For-Profit, Social Enterprise and the Green Economy.
The Person
The successful applicant will:
• Be an entrepreneur at heart and able to think outside the box
• Be a good networker
• Have a good awareness of the start-up ecosystem
• Have a natural ability to coach and motivate teams to excel
• Be a wearer of many hats: doing what it takes to get things done
• Be highly motivated, with high energy and ambition to succeed
• Have a proven track record of personal, academic and professional achievements.
Terms of Service
Start date
It is hoped that the successful candidate will be able to take up their duties in January 2021 subject to any notice period due to a current employer.
Salary
Competitive, commensurate with qualifications and experience.
Hours of Work
This will initially be a part time role, up to three days per week, with the potential to increase as the Centre evolves. The actual hours of work will be need to be flexible to fit in with the school timetable and will involve some evening and weekend attendance.
Holidays
The College leave year runs from 1 September to 31 August. The position will be entitled to the statutory entitlement of paid holiday per annum. Bank Holidays occurring during term time are deemed as normal working days.
Probation and Notice Periods
The first four calendar months of employment will be a probationary period. During this period conduct and performance will be reviewed. The College may extend the probationary period if it is deemed to be required. During the probationary period the notice required to terminate employment will be one week (by either the employee or employer). The notice period will increase to one month upon the successful completion of the probationary period.
Pension and Life Cover
On employment, employees are auto-enrolled into the College’s pension scheme according to legislative thresholds. Those who are not eligible for auto-enrolment may still elect to join the College’s pension scheme.
Initially, when joining the College’s pension scheme, employees will become a member of the College’s Group Personal Pension Plan (GPP). For this Plan, known as Tier 1, the employee contributes 5% and the employer 3%.
After 9 month’s membership of the Tier 1 plan employees may opt to join Tier 2, which is also a Group Personal Pension Plan and the contributions are 5% from the employee and a 9% contribution from the College.
Employees in Tier 1 automatically qualify for a Life Cover of 2 times salary. On entry to Tier 2 Life Cover changes to 4 times salary.
Enhanced Disclosure and Barring Check
Winchester College is committed to safeguarding the welfare of children at the school. Therefore, this appointment will be subject to a successful Enhanced Disclosure Barring check. This will provide details of convictions, reprimands, warnings, cautions and bind overs as per the DBS filtering guidance. A policy on the recruitment of ex-offenders, and information about DBS filtering, is available upon request from the HR Department if required. The college may approach previous employers to seek verification, in addition to obtaining references provided by the candidate.