Mission

Zero Gravity’s mission is to propel high-talent, low-opportunity students into top universities and careers, first in the UK and then worldwide.

We’re a unique business with a life-changing mission in an age of gestures and empty words. Our mission isn’t marketing fluff - it is the core of who we are and what we do.

We leverage the power of technology to drive equality of opportunity at scale. Through our award-winning digital platform, Zero Gravity unlocks education and career opportunities for talented students from low-opportunity backgrounds by propelling them into the UK's best universities and employers.

The role

To drive Zero Gravity’s mission, we’ve crafted partnerships with organisations that can help us propel our members into leading universities and careers.

Zero Gravity’s partners stretch across the education and early careers spectrum. We work with over 750 UK schools, 5 of the UK’s largest multi-academy trusts; leading universities such as QMUL, Leicester, Newcastle and Surrey; and some of the world’s best employers, including HSBC, KPMG, Beam, Snap Inc, Morgan Stanley and Ashurst, have partnered with Zero Gravity to power our mission and get top socially mobile talent into their roles - and we’re only just getting started!

To date - Zero Gravity’s small team have proven that the UK’s leading institutions back social mobility, not as a charitable endeavour but as a key strategic priority for diversifying their talent pipelines and achieving their outcomes - because when talent wins, everyone wins.

As Zero Gravity progresses into the next stage of its Series A funding round, we're looking for an expert from the Higher Education space to take our initial pilot successes with universities and develop and scale our model to partner with the UK’s leading universities and drive Zero Gravity’s mission.

To make sure that our members’ access to opportunity is not limited by their background, we leverage Zero Gravity’s technology in schools, universities and with our employer partners.

In the last two years, Zero Gravity has done a phenomenal job of creating technology that facilitates our school partnerships and ensures we can work in collaboration with schools to reach socially mobile students from all four corners of the UK - this strategy has been a huge driver of Zero Gravity’s mission and impact.

With the same aims in mind, we’ve piloted partnerships with Universities across the UK to reach more WP university students - allowing them to become Zero Gravity members and enhance their access to opportunity. Our pilots are now at the point where universities are exploring how they can write Zero Gravity into their APPs (Access and Participation plans), as the platform facilitates WP undergraduate outcomes from outreach and access all the way through to graduate outcomes - helping careers teams to propel their WP students into top graduate roles.

We’ve made a strong start, and this role will be to spearhead the strategy, product, reach and implementation of our HE partnerships from the bottom up. Reaching and securing long-term partnerships with the country’s top universities - ensuring that WP students are able to benefit from Zero Gravity’s technology, facilitating Zero Gravity’s growth and social impact. The potential is in reach, we need someone to take our initial shoots of growth and scale them nationally.

Below details the specific focus for this role and the outcomes you’ll be working towards:

Higher Education Strategy

• The build - you’ll be taking the initial shoots of impact and be responsible for developing and growing Zero Gravity’s Higher Education strategy from the ground up.
• Working with key design partners, you’ll create Zero Gravity’s end-to-end WP solution for universities.
• You’ll sculpt Zero Gravity’s HE partnerships, utilising your network and expertise from the sector to create a model that collaboratively grows Zero Gravity’s reach of WP University students, impact and facilitates university’s APP outcomes.
• With so many opportunities to connect our members with universities, you’ll be responsible for how we package up and implement Zero Gravity’s product offering to universities.
• Identifying key Strategic Partners is key to any strategy, you’ll be responsible for identifying and crafting partnerships with the key organisations in the Higher Education sector that will drive our outcomes and partnerships.

Platform Development

• You’ll represent the voice of our University partners and work with our Product team to create and package a Zero Gravity product that drives outcomes for both our university partners, and our members.

A data-driven approach

• What isn’t seen isn’t measured - you’ll develop and implement Zero Gravity’s data driven methodology for evidencing impact with our university partners.
• A strong eye for data is a must - being able to comprehend insights generated by our platform to drive performance will be a core part of the role.
• You’ll establish key performance indicators (KPIs) and reporting frameworks that we use to measure performance and know that we’re driving towards our mission!
• We’re on the hunt for a Higher Education expert who can oversee partnerships analysis, trends, and market research and use the insight to curate end-to-end strategies and drive our outcomes.

GTM and Marketing

• As an expert voice, you’ll represent Zero Gravity at industry events - providing unique insights from Zero Gravity’s work and adding Zero Gravity’s perspectives to the discussions of our strategic partners, such as HELOA.
• Zero Gravity is always innovating; with our sector leading Brand team, you’ll be responsible for building and overseeing our Higher Education Go-to-Market strategies.
• Innovation doesn’t achieve outcomes without excellent execution - you’ll ensure the successful execution of new product launches and work with the Brand team to make sure the world hears about them.

Who you’ll be working with

This role will be an integral part of connecting the dots between our school strategy and our employer strategy and ensuring disproportionate outcomes for our members. Reporting to the COO, you’ll be building your own strategy but working alongside  all teams from Product, Operations, Engineering and Brand to facilitate your outcomes.

What will you be measured on?

As a key part of this role is building the strategy for success, you’ll create the measurements that matter, however we envisage the following KPIs will be strong indicators of success:

• Number of University Partners
• # WP students signed up to Zero Gravity via university partnerships
• University partner outcomes (Access and Graduate outcomes)
• University partner satisfaction (NPS)

Requirements

The skills and characteristics we’re looking for:

• Proven experience in a Higher Education partnership related role or similar role in a startup, scale-up or similar fast-paced environment
• Extensive knowledge and networks within the Higher Education sector to drive outcomes
• Experience in scaling a commercial product in a tech environment
• An indisputable passion for Zero Gravity’s mission and understanding of our values

Benefits

• 🚀 | Incredible Work - Be part of a mission-driven business that is transforming the lives of our users and disrupting the status quo.
• 🤑 | Performance bonus - We reward top performance via our very own 'Zero Gravity Bonus Scheme'.
• 📈 | Share options - You can become a Zero Gravity shareholder via our 'Zero Gravity For All' option scheme.
• 🏢 | Central London office - You'll work out of our beautiful Zero Gravity HQ in St Pauls, with flexible working options.
• 👩‍💻 | Brand New MacBook - We'll equip you with the latest Apple hardware so you have the best tech to do your work.
• 💳 | Zero Gravity Card - We’ll give you a Zero Gravity Card loaded with £500pa to spend on learning and development.
• 💃 | Fortnightly socials - Every fortnight we take our team out for dinner/drinks, followed by a big celebration at the end of every quarter.
• 🎄 | End of year time off - Get 3 days off over the festive period in addition to your entitled 25 days of annual leave.
• 🌎 | Work from anywhere weeks - You're entitled to up to 4 work from anywhere weeks a year.