Head of Commercial Property Development

Job responsibilities

The Head of Commercial Property Development will play a critical strategic leadership role within the Trusts redevelopment programme, providing commercial, technical and property development expertise to support the planning and delivery of major hospital and mixeduse development projects. The postholder will take responsibility for maximising the commercial value embedded in the redevelopment proposals, ensuring that the Trusts land, estate and development opportunities are planned and executed in a way that supports clinical transformation, longterm financial sustainability and the Trusts life sciences ambitions.

A core element of the role will be leading the commercial development strategy for St Marys Hospital. The redevelopment of St Marys will release approximately half of the existing site for commercial use, and the Trust intends to secure outline planning consent for the full campus, including both the new hospital and commercial development zones. The postholder will lead masterplanning activities, manage professional advisors, and collaborate with key internal and external stakeholders to ensure that the planning application is commercially robust, deliverable and aligned with strategic objectives. This includes working closely with the St Marys design team, the Redevelopment Capital Delivery Director, the St Marys Taskforce and partners from the life sciences ecosystem.

The role requires a highly skilled commercial strategist with the ability to lead complex, multistakeholder programmes. The postholder will design commercial approaches to market, oversee the delivery of business cases, and provide seniorlevel advice on development phasing, financial modelling, planning risk and commercial procurement strategy. They will also ensure that commercial plans support environmental sustainability, netzero obligations and the Trusts commitment to social value. As a senior leader within the redevelopment programme, the postholder will help establish the valuesdriven culture of the team, providing mentorship, direction and resilience in a fastmoving, ambiguous and politically sensitive environment.

Success in this role will be demonstrated by the delivery of a commercially viable, strategically aligned and financially optimised commercial development strategy for the St Marys site and wider Trust estate. The postholder will be expected to secure a comprehensive and deliverable masterplan and planning consent that supports the new hospital development and unlocks longterm commercial value. They will also be responsible for ensuring robust commercial governance, achieving measurable progress against redevelopment milestones and enabling the Trust to select and engage longterm development partners.

Additional indicators of success include building strong and trusting relationships across senior internal and external stakeholders, delivering highquality business cases and analysis, leading professional teams effectively, and ensuring all plans support the Trusts commitments to netzero, social value and community benefit. The postholder will contribute to the overall success of the redevelopment programme by providing expert commercial insight, strategic leadership and a proactive, solutionsfocused approach to complex urban development challenges.

Qualifications

Essential

• Educated to masters level or equivalent level of experience of working at a similar level in large and complex organisations
• Relevant professional qualification

Desirable

• Membership of recognised professional body
• Evidence of CPD

Skills/Abilities

Essential

• Leadership, vision, strategic thinking and planning with highly developed interpersonal skills
• Ability to make decisions autonomously when required, often in the absence of complete information
• Deep, proven, knowledge of delivering change within a complex environment.
• A skilled influencer who is outcome focused
• Undertaking detailed analysis and producing business cases to support investment
• High quality analytical and problem-solving abilities
• Ability to communicate complex problems and issues simply and effectively
• Sophisticated approach to delivering environmental sustainability and social value
• Supporting inclusive community engagement processes
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills
• Political awareness and sensitivity
• Have tolerance for ambiguity in an often-changing environment
• Emotionally resilient and capable of responding positively to set-backs
• Significant experience of working with multiple organisations with sometimes opposing objectives to gain consensus
• Successful track record of delivery of proactive stakeholder engagement with evidence of measurable impact,
• Ability to analyse numerical and written data, assess options and draw appropriate conclusions
• Comprehensive IT skills: ability to input and manipulate financial data into databases and spreadsheets; and utilise the full suite of Microsoft Office programs
• High level critical thinking skills

Experience

Essential

• Managing professional teams
• Delivery of complex commercial strategy and transactions in the public sector
• Commercial experience in the Manufacturing and Infrastructure industry on large scale property deals
• Senior leadership experience in a large and complex environment
• Experience communicating in hostile, antagonistic or highly emotive atmospheres, whilst still delivering the core message in a sensitive manner
• Significant experience in Programme management and structuring the delivery of complex work, incorporating multiple inputs and stakeholders, management of fluctuating workload and associated resource management
• Senior level technical knowledge and experience of advising on complex transactions and commercial options
• High level of relevant professional, technical experience related to the delivery of commercial advice and complex transactions including market engagement
• Experience of leading and managing teams to be
• Track record of managing large mixed-use development projects from inception to completion
• Comprehensive understanding of property and investment markets, with exposure to UK and / or European real estate markets
• successful

Desirable

• Track record of leading major developments in London
• Track record of working on complex urban sites with heritage assets