Director of Organisational Effectiveness

Director of Organisational Effectiveness
Contract type: Permanent 
Full time: 34.5 hours, we are open to a conversation about how you work these hours
Location: Hybrid between home and our London office (1-2 days per week in the office)
Salary range: £119,500 - £127,500

Are you a strategic, values‑led organisational leader who thrives on shaping capability and performance at scale? Do you have the vision and influence to redesign how an organisation thinks, works and leads?

We’re looking for a Director of Organisational Effectiveness to play a pivotal role in building a more agile, inclusive and future‑ready Macmillan.

About us

At Macmillan you'll find talented people working together to do whatever it takes to support people living with cancer. We're going all out to find even better ways to help even more people who need our support. Our values are at the heart of who we are and everything we do, inspiring our thinking and guiding our actions.

Our new organisational strategy sets out how we’ll fight even harder to make every pound raised count for even more. With your help, we’ll transform cancer care for good.

About the role

As our Director of Organisational Effectiveness, you will provide strategic leadership across organisational design, leadership development, culture, performance, capability and change. You will ensure Macmillan is optimally structured, skilled and culturally aligned to deliver our mission in a rapidly changing environment.

Acting as a trusted advisor to the Chief People & Culture Officer and Executive Team, you will lead the design and delivery of strategic interventions that strengthen organisational agility, leadership capability and inclusion. You will champion modern, evidence‑based approaches to learning, performance and change, ensuring we have the right people with the right skills to deliver our strategic ambitions.

This is a rare opportunity to shape the future of one of the UK’s most loved and trusted charities - building a dynamic, inclusive and high‑performing organisation that can adapt, thrive and deliver for people living with cancer.

Key responsibilities:

• Provide strategic leadership for the Organisational Effectiveness Division, setting a clear vision aligned with Macmillan’s People & Culture Plan.
• Lead organisational design and development to ensure structures, roles and governance enable agility, clarity and accountability.
• Advise the Executive Team and Board on organisational capability and effectiveness.
• Direct leadership and talent strategies, strengthening leadership capability and building robust succession plans.
• Oversee learning and capability development, ensuring colleagues have the skills and behaviours needed to deliver strategic ambitions.
• Forecast and plan workforce needs, assessing current capacity, forecasting future needs and developing strategic action plans to address gaps.
• Lead the evolution of performance management, fostering accountability, growth and continuous improvement.
• Partner with the Director of Inclusion & Culture to embed equity, diversity and inclusion across all org design, learning and talent practices.
• Provide organisational development expertise for transformation and change programmes.
• Use insight and analytics to evaluate effectiveness and inform decision‑making.
• Build and develop a high‑performing OE team and manage budgets to maximise impact and value.

Please refer to the Role Profile attached below for the full list of responsibilities.

About you

You have extensive senior leadership experience in organisational development, effectiveness or transformation within a large, complex organisation. You will also bring:

• Proven track record of leading large‑scale structural and cultural change.
• Expertise in organisational design, leadership development, and workforce / capability planning.
• Experience embedding performance, learning and engagement frameworks that deliver measurable improvement.
• Strong knowledge of change management and experience building organisational adaptability.
• A collaborative, values‑led leadership style with a commitment to inclusion.
• Experience leading high‑performing teams with a coaching‑focused approach.
• Exceptional influencing and communication skills, with the ability to engage and inspire at Executive and Board level.
• Advanced analytical capability and data literacy.
• Postgraduate qualification (or equivalent experience) in OD, Psychology, HR, or related field (desirable).
• Fellowship or professional membership of CIPD or equivalent (desirable).
• Experience in the charity, health or social care sectors (desirable).
  
  

In return, we offer a range of benefits including:

• 25 days holiday plus flexible bank holiday options, increasing by 1 day every year of service up to 30 days
• Pension matched up to 7.5%
• 120+ learning and development offers, with access to external professional qualifications
• Flexible working patterns, such as compressed hours, flexibility to work earlier or later around our core working hours of 10am-4pm
• Holiday buying and selling scheme, life insurance, free wills, retail discounts and much more

Recruitment process

Application deadline: 23:59 on Monday 2nd February
Interview dates: Interviews will be held in mid-late February

To ensure fairness and consistency to select the best candidate for this role, all our applications are anonymised up until an interview has been confirmed.

So we can support you to be at your best during the application or interview process, please contact Macmillan TA Team TATeam@macmillan.org.uk for advice and reasonable adjustments. 

We welcome applications from everyone who meet the criteria and strongly encourage individuals to apply who have a disability, impairment or health condition or individuals who identify as Black, Asian or from another minority ethnic background, as these groups are currently under-represented at Macmillan. Our Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy here along with our internal employee representation body, ‘Our Voice’ and 8 Employee Network groups help us promote fairness and belonging, becoming an engaged and inclusive organisation for all our people.