Community Lead

March 2026 
 
Salary: £50,000 - 70,000 (dependent on experience) 
Contract: Full-time, permanent
Location: This role is based in London, with a hybrid working model designed to balance collaboration, flexibility, and wellbeing.

The Community Lead will build and steward Forward Institute’s community as an active and engaged community of practice centred around responsible leadership.
The role combines strategic thinking with hands-on delivery. The Community Lead will shape the community strategy while also driving implementation across events, communications and engagement.

The work involves:

• creating clarity about who our community is and how it is structured
• building systems and stewardship that deepen engagement and loyalty
• turning a dispersed set of relationships into shared institutional infrastructure

Core responsibilities
1. Define and structure the community

• Develop a shared definition of the Forward Institute community
• Create a simple segmentation model to organise engagement
• Work with Partnerships to align segmentation with Salesforce CRM
• Enable intentional stewardship across different groups

2. Steward top 30-50 group of senior leaders

•  In collaboration with Partnerships and the Leadership team, identify a priority cohort of senior leaders
• Design a 12-month stewardship approach for that group
• Develop and lead the execution of targeted convenings and engagement opportunities

3. Lead and execute the community engagement rhythm

• Establish a clear cadence of communications, convenings and events
• Review existing community platforms and tools and define the approach moving forward
• Own the voice and rhythm of community communications including the monthly newsletter
• Lead the delivery of community events, working closely with the production team

4. Measure community engagement and impact

• Develop a clear framework for measuring the impact of the community
• Track engagement across convenings, and communications 
• Identify where community engagement is strengthening relationships, collaboration and commercial growth

Your first six months
The initial phase of the role focuses on building the foundations of a coherent community strategy and engagement model.
Forward Institute already has a strong base including:

• an active Fellowship network
• a regular rhythm of events and convenings
• an existing Slack community space
• established CRM infrastructure through Salesforce

The focus of the first six months will be to bring coherence, clarity and intentional stewardship to this existing activity.

Key priorities in this phase include:

• developing a clear definition and segmentation of the Forward Institute community
• identifying a priority cohort of senior leaders for deeper engagement
• establishing a clear engagement rhythm across convenings, communications and community touchpoints
• delivering the first flagship convenings aligned to the community strategy
• This phase will result in a clear community strategy and an operational engagement model that can develop further over time

This is an important and pivotal role. We care deeply about finding the right person to help build and steward the community that sits at the heart of the Forward Movement. The role will suit someone who combines strategic thinking with practical delivery, and who genuinely enjoys bringing people together. This may be someone with significant experience leading leadership communities, or someone whose career has consistently centred on building strong relationships and making things happen.

Mindset
• Deeply relational and energised by building meaningful connections between people
• Entrepreneurial and comfortable building something new
• Collaborative and able to work across teams
• Curious about leadership and societal change
• Motivated by work with real-world impact

Capabilities
• Strategic thinking and the ability to build systems from first principles
• Strong relationship stewardship with senior leaders
• Excellent written communication and narrative clarity
• Experience designing and delivering high-quality convenings or events
• Comfort working across strategy and delivery

Experience
• 5+ years of experience building, stewarding or working within professional communities, networks or leadership ecosystems
• Experience bringing senior people together through convenings, programmes or collaborative initiatives
• Experience designing engagement approaches, membership models or community participation strategies
• Experience building trusted relationships with senior leaders or influential stakeholders

We know our greatest strength is our people. We want everyone who works with us to feel supported in their wellbeing and confident in building a meaningful career.
Our benefits include:
• private health insurance
• hybrid working arrangements
• a generous training and development budget
• pension contributions
• a rich internal culture of learning and dialogue
You will also have the opportunity to work with some of the most thoughtful and influential leaders across business, government and civil society.

To apply, please send your CV and a covering letter or video (max 2 minutes) answering the following question:
What excites you about our work and this specific role? What would you uniquely bring?
We are an equal opportunities employer and are committed to fair and inclusive recruitment practices. We welcome applications from people of all backgrounds, identities, and lived experiences.
We want to make this process as inclusive and accessible as possible. If you have any access needs or specific requirements, please get in touch with simran.dhanjal-field@forward.institute.

Applications for this role are closing on Monday 6th April. ​

• First round interviews will begin from Monday 30th March
• Second round interviews will be the week of the Monday 13th April

You must have the right to work in the UK.