Strategy Lead
Changing the way the world deals with death
Dealing with death — losing a parent, a partner or a best friend — is the hardest thing most people ever go through. For too long, it’s been a dreary affair with top hats, paperwork, and bureaucracy. We think it’s time for things to change.
At Farewill we build the best products in the world for dealing with death. Beautifully designed, easy to use, built for taking care of the people you love.
About Farewill
One of the fastest-growing startups in the UK, in the last 12 months we’ve:
- Averaged an NPS of 82
- Hit 8,500 Trustpilot reviews at 4.9/5
- Grown from 50 to 125 people
- Grown revenue 800%
- Closed our £20m Series B
- Won major National Awards (Consumer Business of the Year, Economic Innovator of the Year, Employer of the Year to name a few)
- Featured in the Top 20 Companies to work for in London in 2020/2021
- Featured in the The UK's 100 Best Mid-sized Companies to Work For 2021
- Raised over £370m for charity
We’re looking for our first ever Strategy Lead, reporting to the Chief of Staff at Farewill.
This role is a unique opportunity for someone with strategy and/or consulting experience to deliver on critical projects that will provide a shared understanding of Farewill’s opportunities. These could be new geographies, products, business models, M&A targets - the big questions that will shape our overall company strategy.
In this role you’ll collaborate with the whole Exec team as well as other leaders. You’ll help to level us all up on innovative thinking, through bringing the outside in, playing a critical role in Strategy offsites, and bolstering proposals from the wider team. You’ll get exposure to our Board and potential investors, as the authority on questions relating to our market and long term plans coming out of projects you’ve led.
In the next 12 months you will:
- Lead on the delivery of Strategy projects. This will include running the kickoff and subsequent workshops, setting goals and timelines, sourcing and analysing data, and reporting to the Exec team on progress and outcomes.
- Partner with business sponsors to collaboratively scope the project, evolve its direction and generate shared outputs that can be taken forward by their team.
- Work alongside the Strategy Analyst, and mentor & coach them to build their skills, guide their focus and approach, and check accuracy of their work.
- Create compelling documents on the market and opportunities, and present your findings to the wider team and investors.
- Build an external network of contacts through attending industry events and reaching out to experts
There may also be opportunities to get involved in more operational projects, depending on where your own interests lie!
Requirements
Hopefully, you’ll have some or all of the following:
- Stakeholder management. You’re experienced with figuring out who needs to be in the loop, surfacing their perspectives and giving them space for discussion. You provide visibility on progress and outputs, with ample opportunity to input. You have good instincts for incorporating feedback vs providing reasoned pushback.
- Presentation & storytelling. You’re an expert communicator, with a strong track record of getting everyone on the same page. You know how to build confidence from both the team and investors, even under pressure.
- Self-managing and commercially aware. You’re confident to plan and run your own processes. You naturally take the initiative, and think outside the box. You’re used to incorporating the wider business context, and can be trusted to make calls on budget and prioritisation.
- Problem-solving. You’re quick to understand what others are stuck on, and find the simple questions that cut to the heart of the matter. You’re skilled at mapping potential options with pros & cons to resolve the issue.
Some extra skills that would be great:
- Ingenuity. You find inspiration in unexpected places and spot patterns that others don’t. You’re endlessly curious, logical and original in your thinking, enabling you to come up with creative solutions and shortcuts.
- Gap detection. You’re quick to identify mistakes, sloppy thinking, logical disconnects, or holes - without saying ‘I told you so’! You’re generous with support to reconcile those inconsistencies.
- Systems thinking, simple talking. You see the wood, the trees, the forest and the root network. You’re able to hold complex structures in your head and understand the interplays. You make it easy for others to understand what’s going on through sharing the most important nuggets, and using analogies.
- Masterful meetings. You know how to plan and host kick offs, workshops and presentations in ways that get the best use out of everyone’s time, draw out their perspectives, make them feel heard whilst moving the discussion towards objective decision-making, and give the participants confidence in the process you’re running.
Benefits
What we offer in return:
We’ll make sure to provide you with clarity and autonomy in your role so you’re not held back by too many cooks or constraints. We value challenge to our thinking, and will provide an environment for you to offer it safely and feel that it’s appreciated. We’ll care deeply about your development, and you’ll get dedicated coaching, training and support from your manager (ex-McKinsey, with a decade of experience in strategy projects, entrepreneurship and scale-ups).
In addition:
- Competitive salary and generous stock options
- 28 days of annual leave plus the usual public holidays
- Flexible working including when you start & end your day, and how often you come into the office*
- Personal development budget of 3 days and £1000 per year
- Regular ‘passion talks’ and a range of team socials
- Santander cycles membership!
- A chance to make a meaningful contribution to people's lives and deaths
- And much more!
If this sounds like what you’d love to be doing, we can’t wait to hear from you. If you’re not sure that you exactly fit the above criteria, get in touch anyway. Ability and attitude is just as important as experience! But apply soon as application close on July 16th.
*Currently our lovely office in Haggerston is available if people want — and only if they want. Previously, we had work from home Wednesdays, however, our current plan is to move to a mix of office-based and remote working.
At Farewill, our mission is to change the way the world deals with death - to make it simple, personal, fairly-priced & accessible to everyone.
To do that, we want to build a workplace that’s great for everyone, that celebrates diversity in all its forms, and where everyone who works for us feels like they can be themselves, bring their whole selves to work, and be treated fairly, equitably and respectfully.
We believe flexibility is important, so we’re happy to chat to you about flexible/remote working options. And, If you need any flexibility or adjustments in our interview process - to help set you up for success - then please let us know too.
About Farewill
At Farewill, we’re out to change the way the world deals with death. Helping people to take control, personally and financially, of what matters to them after they’re gone.
We launched our first product - our will-writing service - in December 2016, and since then we’ve grown to be the largest will-writer in the UK. We launched our second product, Probate, in early 2019, and recently our third, Cremation.
Our growth to date has been driven by an exceptional product (see our customer reviews) and key strategic partnerships. We’ve been featured in Forbes, The Times, The Guardian and on Radio 4 among others. We're also making waves in the charity world, with over £300 million raised for charities on our platform from gifts left in wills.
Our team
We’re a creative, focused team who love what we do. We have backgrounds in design, technology, behavioural psychology, and management consultancy. We love to learn from each other and our customers, and grow together as a team.
We’re backed by some of the best investors in Europe - from the founders of Transferwise and Zoopla, to Augmentum, Kindred Capital, and (in our Series B round that we closed mid-2020) Highland Europe.
This is an unusual, fascinating, and emotional area to work in – if you’re up for a big challenge we’d love to meet you.
If you’d like to understand our culture and product better, here’s a few articles for you to read: About Farewill, Life at Farewill, Are you worried about your will?