Overview
Murray McIntosh is delighted to have partnered with the leading and respected trade association, CropLife UK, who are the influential voice of the crop protection industry.
CropLife advocates for the essential role of science and inventive solutions in ensuring the security of our food production, natural environments, and critical transportation networks like roads and railways, and their members are integral in the creation, production, and approval of a diverse range of agricultural solutions. These innovative developments are crucial for safeguarding and nurturing our crops, guaranteeing our food supply, and elevating the beauty of our parks and communal areas.
We are seeking a dynamic Head of Policy to join their dedicated Policy, Public Affairs and Regulation team.
The role will lead and shape the future of UK policy within their industry, and drive positive change. It will also manage policy activities and a variety of stakeholder relationships within regulation, the membership and government, and drive thought leadership and influence.
Essential criteria:
- Demonstrable experience in policy development, preferably in a highly regulated sector.
- Exceptional skills in building and maintaining professional relationships with various stakeholders, including senior civil servants and politicians.
- Outstanding written and oral communication abilities.
- A degree-level education or equivalent qualifications or career achievements that demonstrate equivalent knowledge.
- A keen and demonstrable interest in the subject and industry.
Desirable:
- Knowledge of policy issues relevant to the agriculture/horticulture sector.
- Familiarity with crop protection, biotechnology, food, or environmental issues.
- Experience in policy work within a membership organisation or government.
- Ability to speak confidently and authoritatively in front of diverse audiences.
- An interest and desire to work on green and sustainable matters.
CropLife UK operates a hybrid working environment, combining home working with time spent meeting as a team, meeting with member companies, and at external events, often in London.
Other key team members are based in Norfolk, York and Kent. Applicants must be prepared to travel UK wide on a regular basis.
This is a full-time permanent position and applicants must be eligible to work permanently in UK. Unfortunately, sponsorship cannot be offered.
Murray McIntosh is proud to be an equal opportunity agency on behalf of its clients. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, colour, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability or age.
Anna Kelly
Senior Consultant – Policy, Public Affairs & Strategic Communications
We moved ahead with a retained engagement, offering us the most thorough search with a quicker turnaround than other engagement types we had experienced before.
We first contacted Anna in August 2022. We were looking for help to fill a vacant Policy Advisor role within our team. In a tricky market we had been struggling since the start of the year to find the right candidates through our usual channels. Anna took the time to understand the challenges we’d experienced, the support we needed, and nature of the role, before providing a solution.
We moved ahead with a retained engagement, offering us the most thorough search with a quicker turnaround than other engagement types we had experienced before. Given our needs, this approach seemed like a no-brainer! As an executive non-departmental body, we have quite specific supplier terms, which Anna was able to accommodate. This willingness to be flexible and collaborative to get the terms right enables us to work together in the longer term.
Anna worked with us speedily and met for a role brief to define expectations before establishing a strict timeframe to ensure we could close the vacancy before Christmas. We got going at the end of November with a timeframe of 6 weeks. However, following a one-stage interview process with 5 strong candidates, we made an appointment after just 5 weeks, and the successful candidate has now joined the team and is already an asset!
Ben Hardy - Policy & Government Relations Manager at CITB
We will use the retained search again as they demonstrated that their network and market mapping process uncovers a strong selection of candidates.
We have recently placed our Head of Public Affairs using Murray McIntosh, an important hire for us as we are about to enter a period of transition for the organisation so the role is key support to our Director of Policy and Public Affairs. We had engaged another agency but did not see the quality of candidate we needed.
Lauren talked us through the retained search method and explained how this ensures a thorough search, tied to a timeframe. Our PPA Director found this particularly useful, as we could work around his diary in advance.
We met to brief the role and define expectations on both sides, including a check-in point halfway through the market mapping process to ensure a relevant shortlist was coming together. Lauren was insightful, reliable and very transparent throughout and the process proved to be very efficient.
We started in January. The role was placed 6 weeks later after seeing 6 video interviews on The Lobby platform, inviting 3 candidates for first stage interview, and seeing 2 for a final stage.
We will use the retained search again in future as they demonstrated for us that their network and market mapping process uncovers a strong selection of candidates. That being said, they only introduce those who have demonstrated their interest and commitment to the role, so our time wasn’t wasted by dropouts and the offer process for our favoured candidate was very straightforward.
HR Manager - HR Manager at London chamber of Commerce and Industry
Multiple successful placements across our Public Policy team as well as our Communications and International department.
We started working with Murray McIntosh in 2016, and have since made multiple successful placements across our Public Policy team as well as our Communications and International department. From Economists to niche Tech and Innovation policy roles, to our first permanent Government Affairs hire based in Brussels, they’ve shown a real understanding of the market and our organisational needs,
The MM team always make the effort to understand requirements thoroughly and beyond that, appreciate the importance of culture fit, too.
Working on a retained basis, they develop their process to suit our timescales and always produce shortlists of talented individuals who are well qualified on skillset as well as motivation.
Of our most recent process for a Senior Policy Manager, working on trade policy, our Head of Policy commented on an extremely strong shortlist of stand-out candidates from which it was tough to make a choice!
Katie Milbourn - Director of Group HR at The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders Ltd
It was critical that we engaged an agency that could work efficiently and knew how to promote us to a competitive market.
Energy UK has recently been through a restructure and this resulted in a number of key vacancies across our policy and communications teams. This not only presented a challenge for volume candidate attraction but also put pressure on internal administration and interviewing- made even trickier with the challenges the energy industry was facing, resulting in extra time pressures on our managers.
It was critical that we engaged an agency that could work efficiently and knew how to promote us to a competitive market. Having worked with Murray McIntosh for over 7 years, we knew that they had a great network and we put a project plan in place to deliver 10 roles in 10 weeks.
Following a salary benchmarking exercise, we developed a schedule for shortlisting, interviews and even 1st stage interview questions that allowed for unbiased assessment.
Candidates were screened by MM and shortlisted using recorded video interviews which really helped to reduce the impact on managers’ time.
MM understood not just role requirements but our values, including our commitment to D&I. The process was account managed, with regular updates and feedback.
We’ve successfully hired talented and enthusiastic new employees that we are confident will help us provide the best possible service to our members.
Nicola Rowland - Head of HR at Energy UK
Extremely helpful and hard-working.
Ms Anna Kelly was extremely helpful and hard-working, could not ask for a better person to assist with the process.
Jordan Jacobs - Public Affairs Executive at Energy UK