View Vacancy – Head of Trade Promotion and Infrastructure Sector Lead

Main purpose of job:

The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) is responsible for promoting UK trade and investment with the rest of the world.  Working within the British Embassy in Chile, as well as collaborating closely with DBT Latin America and Caribbean (LATAC) and UK colleagues, the successful applicant will drive deeper trading relations between the UK and Chile, with responsibility for growing trade and increasing UK exports to the market.

Although overseeing all export promotion work, you will particularly focus your efforts on priority infrastructure sectors, such as mining and renewable energy, water management, airports, railways and infrastructure services. You will lead a team of 3 trade promotion officers to progress an existing pipeline of business opportunities for UK companies in both the public and private sectors, as well as identifying new opportunities, supporting UK companies to do more business in the market and increase the value of their exports. You will also work with policy colleagues and stakeholders in the sectors to help businesses overcome barriers to trade and investment in order to achieve commercial successes.

As a senior leader in the team, you will drive collaboration with DBT Chile colleagues leading on trade policy and investment, as well as across the Embassy and DBT LATAC (in particular in the Andean subregion). The candidate will need to display strong leadership and communication skills, helping reinforce strategic vision and direction across the team in order to deliver across all of DBT’s objectives and supporting cross-cutting UK government goals.

 Roles and responsibilities:

 Head of Trade Promotion

1.      Manage the trade promotion team in DBT Chile, ensuring effective line management of at least 3 trade promotion officers, to deliver commercial wins for UK companies and increase the value of UK exports to Chile. Ensure high quality evaluation and performance management of the team, including embedding a focus on personal development, in order to achieve this.

2.      Build and manage a diverse network of public and private sector stakeholders across the trade promotion team, creating and implementing a solid account management approach across the trade promotion team to ensure provision of excellent customer service. Leverage that network to increase understanding and identification of opportunities and support commercial wins for UK companies.

3.      Collaborate with other UK government departments within the Embassy and in the UK where it supports future commercial opportunities for UK business. Work with colleagues to ensure UK industry is engaged in upstream policy work/market creation where appropriate, helping to strengthen the mid-to-long term partnership and delivering secondary benefit to the UK from economic policy and prosperity work.

4.      Support the wider work of DBT Chile, including as a key member of the team leadership, driving collaboration across export promotion, trade policy and investment work and leveraging opportunities to deliver cross-cutting benefits. Similarly, collaborate with and support the work of DBT LATAC (in particular the Andean subregion) and other BE Santiago teams, including through regional/cross-team engagement, coordination and planning.

Infrastructure Sector Lead

5.      Lead the team’s work to support to UK companies to do business in the infrastructure sector in Chile, leading the planning and delivery of a trade promotion strategy and programme of activities to grow UK exports in the sector and achieve ambitious annual targets. Including across sub-sectors such as mining and energy, water management, transport and infrastructure services.

6.      Strengthen and maintain a diverse pipeline of infrastructure opportunities for UK companies, leveraging relationships with key contacts to promote UK expertise and match industry strengths with opportunities in Chile, moving quickly from identification of opportunities to achieving commercial wins. Use strategic vision and leadership skills to track and evaluate opportunities as they progress through the pipeline, monitoring and managing team resource/activity to ensure interventions are correcting targeted to have the most impact and support key objectives.

7.      Develop and maintain excellent understanding and market intelligence on the infrastructure sector in Chile, leveraging stakeholder relationships and working with trade associations, sector experts to ensure in-depth knowledge of market conditions and opportunities, promoting those to UK industry. Including ensuring robust understanding of market access barriers within the sector, including by all team members, embedding collaboration with trade policy colleagues to address those where it could lead to commercial benefit for UK companies.  

8.      Apply strategic thinking and oversight to identify opportunities for consortia-building for complex projects where appropriate, bringing together different expertise to create a cohesive UK offer to local buyers.  Including identifying opportunities to use UK Export Finance.

Resources managed (staff and expenditure):

2 x EO and 1 x AO staff members