Commercial Account Manager (Innovation & Civic Partnerships) – Unit M

About Unit M:

Launched in Autumn 2024, Unit M exists to unlock the University’s full potential as one of the North of England’s largest innovation assets by making the University’s world class research, innovation capabilities and talent more accessible to all.

It’s remit is to accelerate the development of a global competitive, inclusive and impactful innovation ecosystem – from ideation and research translation, start up and scale up support, place making, talent and skills, community building and more – which systematically breaking down barriers to the flow of ideas between the University and its partners. Unit M is expected to attract, generate and mobilise significant external funding – from industry, investors, philanthropy and public sources – to sustain and scale innovation activity and create new, sustainable funding streams.

Some of the things you might find yourself doing include:

• Bring creativity, best-in-class practices, and commercial insight to explore novel ways to engage with industry partners along the spectrum of university service offering such as but not limited to partner-enabled learning, student employability, new educational programs that create revenue streams, and research and university services of commercial nature such as executive education.
• Co-design new ways of working with partners, shaping partnership structures and offers around client needs (e.g., pilots, subscription-style programmes, multi-partner consortia or blended funding models).
• Lead the articulation and positioning of University value propositions that support new and repeat commercial engagements with business partners.
• Build trusted, long-term relationships with senior stakeholders in partner companies, positioning the University as a partner of choice.
• Lead the development and oversight of partnership proposals, business cases and presentations, bringing strong commercial rigour on value, costs, benefits and risk, and supporting negotiation to secure agreements.
• Lead and coordinate activity across academic colleagues and Professional Services teams to translate external needs into viable partnership models and market-relevant propositions (including scope, resourcing, timelines and routes to funding).
• Work closely with relevant University teams (including Business Engagement an Knowledge Exchange, Innovation Factory, Legal, Finance, Research Platforms and Procurement) to support partners and academic colleagues through the process of agreeing terms, managing contract development and ensuring appropriate oversight of partnership agreements.
• Own and oversee pipeline, account and performance reporting (e.g., opportunity stage, value, probability and delivery status), using agreed KPIs to inform prioritisation and continuous improvement.

What You’ll Bring:

• Master’s degree in business administration, management or marketing or equivalent experience.
• Experience of working in commercial roles in industry. Industry roles in research or technical teams do not satisfy this requirement.
• Experience in business development, such as client discovery, conducting market research, shaping value propositions of products and services, with evidence of shaping opportunities and influencing decisions.
• Ability to stay on top of regional and global industry trends, including relevant technical developments, market dynamics and headwinds, and to translate this insight into partner-relevant opportunities and propositions.
• Demonstrable ability to influence, challenge and coordinate across organisational boundaries, including working with senior academic and Professional Services stakeholders.
• Demonstrable experience making and justifying commercial or strategic decisions in complex environments.
• Confidence working to clear commercial priorities, using pipeline management (e.g., CRM) and KPIs to plan activity, forecast outcomes and evidence impact.
• Strong communication skills a must, including experience producing briefings, and presenting proposals and reports for senior internal and external stakeholders.

What You’ll Get:

• 29 days annual leave, plus bank holidays and December closure days
• Generous pension scheme
• Flexible and hybrid working
• Access to a wide range of staff benefits, including discounts, wellbeing support, and development programmes

Explore full benefits: www.manchester.ac.uk/connect/jobs/benefits-working-here

For informal enquiries please contact the Talent Attraction Team people.talent@manchester.ac.uk