CLOSED: Co-Director, Migration Exchange

About MEX

Migration Exchange (MEX) is an informal network of independent funders. Established a decade ago, and hosted at Global Dialogue since 2015, MEX aims to improve the lives of people who migrate, and receiving communities in the UK, by informing public debate on migration and supporting welcoming communities.

There are brilliant organisations and people around the UK working on issues of migration, integration and refugee protection, and polls show broader public support for immigration than ever before. Yet people are forced to navigate a deliberately dysfunctional, hostile immigration and nationality system and face huge challenges of structural racism, inequality, and injustice. To try to address this, MEX developed a vision of an immigration system that welcomes newcomers, treats people with dignity and respect, and which has public confidence and consent.

MEX works collaboratively and strategically with a wide range of partners including charities, academics, think tanks, journalists and other funder networks in the UK and Europe. Our achievements include:

Aligning funding and analysis through the network, leading to the formation of key infrastructure including The Migration Observatory, British Future and IMIX;
Developing a COVID-19 response programme, Respond and Adapt, for the migration sector distributing over £2.4m to 130 organisations across the UK;
Developing a Leadership for Social Change programme tailored to emerging and established migration sector leaders, with a focus on lived experience.

This is a key moment

The movements and changes in public opinion galvanised by the Windrush scandal, the Black Lives Matter movement, and an end to free movement after Brexit have all had major impacts on this agenda. That is why we need a more ambitious mission and strategy that will build on our achievements and enable us to create and build ever stronger and more effective collaborations, partnerships, and networks. In order to meet these opportunities Global Dialogue is now recruiting a Co-Director (part-time, job share) who will work in partnership with Sarah Cutler to shape and lead this strategy and its delivery.

The Role

This is a strategic and relationship-based role that will, amongst other things:

Co-lead and shape this collaborative network with shared purpose around this key social issue
Maximise the potential to translate ambition and shared purpose into action that has wider collective benefit
Shift entrenched power dynamics and ways of working within philanthropy
Work with Sarah to set up and oversee the appointment of a new advisory group with a broad range of perspectives and backgrounds

About you

The Co-Director could come with experience from a range of social change issues; they may have already held a Director position, or they may be someone who feels ready to co-lead for the first time. Whatever your background, we will be delighted to hear from you, especially if you are a skilled and senior person with significant experience of working collaboratively on social change issues and building successful programmes and partnerships in the UK or elsewhere. Lived experience of the issues facing people in the immigration, asylum or nationality system and the intersection with structural racism will be welcomed and valued.

We value, welcome and respect all the differences that make us who we are, including: age, cultural background, disability and mental health, ethnicity and race, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, and social background.