Chief Investment Officer

Job summary

At DSIT we’re all about improving people’s lives by maximising the potential of science & technology.

We accelerate innovation, investment and productivity through world-class science, research and development.

We use technology for good by ensuring new and existing technologies are safely developed and deployed across the UK, with the benefits more widely shared.

We are driving forward a modern digital government which gives citizens a more satisfying experience and their time back.

We do all this to enable the Government’s 5 national missions: kickstarting economic growth, making Britain a clean energy superpower, taking back our streets, breaking down barriers to opportunity and building an NHS fit for the future.

Above all, we focus on improving people’s lives. Whether it’s researching new treatments for disease, developing better batteries, reducing burdens through better public services, keeping children safe online, and much more, outcomes for citizens are at the heart of what we do.

Our Inclusive Environment

We offer flexible working benefits, employee well-being support and a great pension. We are enormously proud to be a Disability Confident Leader employer. We support candidates with adjustments throughout our recruitment process. Information about disability confidence and just some examples of the adjustments that you can request can be found in the reasonable adjustment section below.

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan and the Civil Service D&I Strategy.

Find Out More

We regularly run events where you can find out more about the department and tips for the application and interview process. You can sign up for upcoming events here: https://forms.office.com/e/Jae3B4w7xm

You can also follow our LinkedIn Page: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/dsitcareers/

Job description

An excellent opportunity to lead a unique, high-performing early-stage deep technology investment fund deploying up to £100m per annum within an exceptional National Security and Defence (NS&D) mission and values aligned culture. Responsible for the leadership, strategic direction and performance of all investment activity, and the collective leadership of NSSIF.

As the Chief Investment Officer (CIO), you will lead a mission aligned investment team to drive national security impact, by shaping and delivering NSSIF’s investment strategy, leading NSSIF’s direct and fund-of-fund investments, technology scouting, and market ecosystem development. You will be a member of the C-Suite leadership team and report to the CEO. NSSIF offers flexible working arrangements, with the NSSIF office in central London.

About NSSIF
The National Security Strategic Investment Fund (NSSIF) is the UK’s Government’s dual-use deep-tech corporate venture capital fund for National Security and Defence (NS&D).
NSSIF’s mission is to ensure the UK NS&D community can access and adopt the most innovative technology at pace and scale, delivering strategic advantage to the UK as well as protecting the UK's security. Investments enable pioneering companies to trial, test and mature dual-use technologies to put cutting edge capabilities into the hands of the defence and national security operators. NSSIF is differentiated from the market through its unique end user and mission partners network providing a formal and direct link between early-stage tech teams and national security and defence missions.

NSSIF drives impact through:

• Direct investment into predominantly UK based pioneering deep technology companies
  
• Investment as an LP in relevant early stage and growth venture capital funds
  
• Delivering work programmes to end users across NS&D to accelerate technology readiness and provide insight across government.

Following NSSIF’s impressive performance NSSIF has secured funding to scale over the next three years to deploy up to £100m per annum. NSSIF has directly invested into over 25 companies across AI, quantum, space and emerging technology sectors (5 of which have become unicorns, with a valuation over $1 billion), invested in over 20 Fund Managers, and enabled over 50 work programmes, with 41% of the programmes resulting in adoption by NS&D customers and contracts for companies. NSSIF has created thousands of jobs across the UK, successfully crowded in over £600m in private capital to support NS&D, and received multi-million returns from exits.

NSSIF is a partnership between the NS&D community and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) that supports NS&D, accelerates technology development across DSIT’s frontier technologies and beyond, and drives growth in the UK economy. NSSIF investments are made through British Technologies Investments Limited (BTI).

You can find more on NSSIF’s website www.nssif.gov.uk.

Person specification

The Chief investment Officer is responsible for developing and implementing the investment strategy for NSSIF including asset allocation, investment selection and portfolio management. The CIO will lead the investment team, oversee the investment portfolio, manage relationships with external fund managers and ensure that the investment activities align with the NSSIF Board Objectives (NS&D impact).

1. Member of C-Suite: Contribute to the overall leadership of NSSIF to deliver on its mission and objectives, helping to shape NSSIF’s overall strategy and organisational direction. Provide authoritative investment expertise to senior decision making, advising on market trends, emerging opportunities, and risks. making, advising on market trends, emerging opportunities, and risks.
   
   
2. Lead the NSSIF Investment Team: Manage, nurture and develop the high performing, mission and value-centric investment team, supporting team career progression and development. As the fund scales, lead investment team recruitment and onboarding.
   
   
3. Direct Investment Strategy: Responsible for NSSIF’s direct investment activities, empowering the team to deliver all investment case work, from building a strong pipeline, shaping investment theses and case development, through to deployment of capital in line with the Investment Strategy. Strategic oversight of the direct investment portfolio, monitoring overall performance, and assessing funding needs and exits as the portfolio matures. Maintain close relationships with NS&D departments to understand technology demand signals and shape the investment portfolio to deliver standout capabilities to NS&D.
   
   
4. Fund-of-Fund Investment Strategy: Responsible for NSSIF’s fund‑of‑fund investment activities, empowering the team to deliver effective pipeline development, fund diligence, fund manager selection and accreditation. Represent NSSIF across HMG and with the fund managers, promoting the NSSIF programme to the market and prospective fund managers. Overall accountability for NSSIF attendance at LPAC meetings, sharing best practice, and ensuring effective and insightful engagements with funds and the market.
   
   
5. As CIO, represent NSSIF publicly in the UK and internationally, providing authoritative insight on the NSSIF programme and wider ecosystem, and enhancing NSSIF’s reputation through high‑profile speaking engagements, conferences and stakeholder events.
   
   
6. Portfolio Management: Be accountable for NSSIF portfolio management, including oversight of reporting, administration, and active monitoring of portfolio performance and emerging risks across the diverse portfolio. Anticipate and address issues as they arise, ensuring timely interventions where needed. Lead NSSIF’s investment performance reporting against key programme objectives for the NSSIF CEO, DSIT AO and the NSSIF Board.
   
   
7. Lead ongoing relationships across the Public Financial Institutions including the British Business Bank (BBB), National Wealth Fund and Innovate UK.
   
   
8. Responsible for the overall oversight of the Investment Committee processes and the quality and presentation investment information flowing into governance, including materials for British Technologies Investments (BTI) - the company through which NSSIF’s investments are made - and the NSSIF Board and wider HMG requests including the NAO audit process.
   
   
9. Manage the close relationship with DSIT’s wider technology team, and work with the Board of British Technologies Investments (BTI), ensuring the investment strategy is aligned with DSIT and HMG governance expectations e.g. DSIT’s business case for NSSIF investments, the principles of managing public money, maintaining high standards of transparency, risk management, and performance reporting.

The post holder will be primarily accountable and will report into the NSSIF CEO and through them to the DSIT Accounting Officer. The DSIT AO is the senior civil servant acting on behalf of the DSIT Secretary of State. You will also have a liaison role with the BBB, which is a close partner providing expertise and support for NSSIF.

As a line manager, you will be responsible for working with your members of staff to define their objectives, as well as managing their development and performance.

Essential Criteria

• Significant investment experience within a Venture Capital Fund, CVC or relevant Fund Management
  
• Experience managing a large, multi-stage, complex portfolio of private capital investments, with experience of various investment exits and exit strategies
  
• Conversant in private capital legal agreements and comfortable in regulatory environments
  
• High level of integrity and professionalism
  
• Strong analytical, strategic planning, and decision-making skills.
  
• Collaborative leadership, team-player, steering through growth and change
  
• Exceptional communication skills, with the ability to present complex information clearly to stakeholders, confident in a public environment, and able to advocate for mission and purpose
  
• Strategic thinker, balancing risk considerations with early-stage investing, and an in-depth knowledge of risk management practices.

Minimum SC. If security clearance is not already held, the candidate must be willing to undergo clearance to SC initially then DV level once in post.

Desirable Criteria

• Experience of working with or in national security and defence
  
• Familiarity with operating across Whitehall
  
• Analytical, with data driven approach to reporting and learning lessons
  
• Board experience within deep-tech companies

This is an outline description of the key responsibilities and accountabilities involved in the job. It is not exhaustive and aspects of the role may be revised/developed from time to time.

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Leadership
• Communicating and Influencing
• Managing a Quality Service

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £130,000, Department for Science, Innovation & Technology contributes £37,661 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology offers a competitive mix of benefits including:

• A culture of flexible working, such as job sharing, homeworking and compressed hours.
• Automatic enrolment into the Civil Service Pension Scheme, with an employer contribution of 28.97%.
• A minimum of 25 days of paid annual leave, increasing by 1 day per year up to a maximum of 30.
• An extensive range of learning & professional development opportunities, which all staff are actively encouraged to pursue.
• Access to a range of retail, travel and lifestyle employee discounts.

Office attendance

The Department operates a discretionary hybrid working policy, which provides for a combination of working hours from your place of work and from your home in the UK. The current expectation for staff is to attend the office or non-home based location for 40-60% of the time over the accounting period.

Things you need to know

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Strengths and Experience.

As part of the application process you will be asked to complete a CV and personal statement. Further details around what this will entail are listed on the application form.

Please use your personal statement (in no more than 1000 words) to outline your motivation for applying for the Chief Investment Officer role and explain how your skills, experience, and leadership track record meet the criteria outlined in the job description. In your response, please highlight any relevant experience conducting fund due diligence, allocating capital to venture capital or private equity funds, and constructing or managing diversified fund portfolios. Where relevant, please also describe your experience evaluating investment managers and gaining exposure to deep-technology sectors through fund investments or manager selection.

Applications will be sifted on CV and Personal Statement.

In the event of a large number of applicants, applications will be sifted on the CV only.

Candidates who pass the initial sift may be progressed to a full sift, or progressed straight to assessment/interview.

The interview will consist of behaviour and strength-based questions.

Interviewees will be asked to deliver a presentation; further details will be provided nearer the time.

Sift and interview dates to be confirmed.

Further Information

Existing Civil Servants and applicants from accredited NDPBs are eligible to apply,and can be considered on loan basis (Civil Servants) or secondment (accredited NDPBs). Prior agreement to be released on a loan basis must be obtained before commencing the application process. In the case of Civil Servants, the terms of the loan will be agreed between the home and host department and the Civil Servant. This includes grade on return.

Reasonable Adjustment

We are proud to be a disability confident leader and we welcome applications from disabled candidates and candidates with long-term conditions.

Information about the Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) and some examples of adjustments that we offer to disabled candidates and candidates with long-term health conditions during our recruitment process can be found in our DSIT Candidate Guidance. A DSIT Plain Text Version of the guidance is also available.

We encourage candidates to discuss their adjustment needs by emailing the job contact which can be found under the contact point for applicants section.

If you are experiencing accessibility problems with any attachments on this advert, please contact the email address in the 'Contact point for applicants' section.

If successful and transferring from another Government Department a criminal record check may be carried out.

New entrants are expected to join on the minimum of the pay band.

A location based reserve list of successful candidates will be kept for 12 months. Should another role become available within that period you may be offered this position.

Candidates who meet the minimum benchmark may be placed on a Reserve List for consideration for similar roles, including those at a lower grade. Candidates who narrowly miss the benchmark and are not placed on the Reserve List may still be considered for an offer in a similar role at a lower grade.

Please note terms and conditions are attached. Please take time to read the document to determine how these may affect you.

Any move to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax Free Childcare; for further information visit the Childcare Choices website.

DSIT does not normally offer full home working (i.e. working at home); but we do offer a variety of flexible working options (including occasionally working from home).

DSIT cannot offer Visa sponsorship to candidates through this campaign. DSIT holds a Visa sponsorship licence but this can only be used for certain roles and this campaign does not qualify.

In order to process applications without delay, we will be sending a Criminal Record Check to Disclosure and Barring Service on your behalf.

However, we recognise in exceptional circumstances some candidates will want to send their completed forms direct. If you will be doing this, please advise Government Recruitment Service of your intention by emailing Pre-EmploymentChecks.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk stating the job reference number in the subject heading.

Applicants who are successful at interview will be, as part of pre-employment screening, subject to a check on the Internal Fraud Database (IFD). This check will provide information about employees who have been dismissed for fraud or dishonesty offences. This check also applies to employees who resign or otherwise leave before being dismissed for fraud or dishonesty had their employment continued. Any applicant’s details held on the IFD will be refused employment.

A candidate is not eligible to apply for a role within the Civil Service if the application is made within a 5 year period following a dismissal for carrying out internal fraud against government.

For further information on National Security Vetting please visit the Demystifying Vetting website.

Feedback

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see theCivil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).

Apply and further information

This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

• Name : Rachel Maze
• Email : rachel.maze@dsit.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : dsitresourcing.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

Further information

Appointment to the Civil Service is governed by the Civil Service Commission’s Recruitment Principles. If you feel that your application has not been treated in accordance with the recruitment principles, and wish to make a complaint, then you should contact in the first instance DSITrecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk . If you are not satisfied with the response that you receive, then you can contact the Civil Service Commission. For further information on bringing a complaint to the Civil Service Commission please visit their web pages: Click here to visit Civil Service Commission/Complaints.

Attachments

DSIT T&Cs v1.2 Opens in new window (docx, 179kB)