COMMUNITY AND INNOVATION ASSOCIATE

The Role’s Purpose

This role will be based in Reading. 

This role has two primary functions:

1. To act as the first and primary point of contact for all our clients and guests, creating the best first impression to all visitors to one of our workspaces. The community team focus on providing service and community engagement to our members. You will be excellent at building relationships and establishing trust with clients, suppliers and colleagues alike, with a focus at all times on customer satisfaction. With an eye for detail, you will ensure that the centre provides the very best facilities and is always impeccably presented.
2. To work collaboratively with the Plexal team to deliver a variety of projects, with a focus on innovation programme delivery, supporting startups as part of their growth journey. You’ll engage with a diverse range of stakeholders, including startups, scaleups, corporations, government, non-profit organisations, investors and academia. The role is fast paced, varied and complex and will require a highly organised approach to manage multiple tasks simultaneously and a broad range of stakeholder relationships.

What You’ll Do

Community responsibilities:  

• Creating a welcoming and friendly environment for all visitors to the space, ensuring the highest level of member/guest experience
• Ensuring that the space is operating efficiently – keeping the centre functioning well.
• Morning check of all areas prior to members arrival
• Answer the phone and the inbox to deal with queries in a friendly and helpful manner
• Confident to answer basic IT and facilities queries.
• Helpdesk management – ensuring all ticketing is resolved quickly
• Supporting with the operational delivery of events.
• Understand the nature of the client within the space so that they can be supported

Innovation responsibilities:

• Supporting innovation programmes through workshops, masterclasses and events
• Staying informed about key technology trends, emerging startups and innovation themes
• Engaging with SMEs to understand their needs, challenges, and interventions that will support their growth
• Supporting the design and delivery of innovation programmes at Plexal
• Creating high-impact outputs that help our clients make decisions
• Proactively managing regular interaction, communication and collaboration with external stakeholders

Your Skills

• Reliable, highly organised and able to provide a high level of customer service
• Effective planning and prioritisation skills with the ability to keep track of multiple tasks and deliverables
• Excellent Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint skills

Who You Are

• Proven administrative experience of working in a fast-paced team environment, and working in a customer-facing role
• Experience with working with multiple stakeholders, such as startups and corporate clients, but also understanding the practicalities of working in a small and growing company
• Dealing with ambiguity and operating in constantly changing environment
• Due to the nature of this position, our work, and our client engagements, you must be willing and eligible to achieve a minimum of SC clearance. To qualify for SC clearance, you must be a British Citizen or have resided in the UK for the last 5 years with  no extensive periods outside of the UK. Pre-existing SC welcome. For more information about clearance eligibility, please see https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/united-kingdom-security-vetting