Chief Executive

Flexible location with a London HQ and a Cardiff office

Circa. £80,000

“I spent the first 40 years of my life being told I can’t do anything and was stupid. That’s why receiving that letter from PET saying I’d been funded… it is difficult to express how amazing that was - that someone was believing in me.” ‘Jennie’, PET counselling student

Prisoners’ Education Trust (PET) is a national charity that works in every prison in England and Wales, funding distance learning and offering advice and guidance. We work to ‘fill the gaps’ in prison education by providing funding for around 250 different courses in levels and subjects otherwise unavailable. The impact of our work on people’s lives and their individual stories is transformative; helping to reduce reoffending by creating greater opportunity, greater self-esteem, better well-being and hope for people after their release from prison. 

After seven successful years, our current Chief Executive, Rod Clark, is retiring and we are now looking for a new leader to take the charity forward.  This is an important and exciting time for PET. Despite the huge impact of the events of 2020 on prisons and prison education, we are emerging as an agile organisation with an innovative workforce and we are in a strong position to embrace our next phase of development. As our new CEO, you will have a unique opportunity to shape our future as we embark on a new three-year strategy that will keep prison learners at its core.  

We’re looking for an experienced leader with integrity, ambition, vision and a deep interest in social inclusion. You will be a confident and engaging communicator with high levels of emotional intelligence and the presence to influence across a diverse stakeholder map. A natural leader of people, you will be strategic and pragmatic, with commercial insight to realise opportunities and the skills to lead a talented and committed team. Whatever your background, you will share our passion for, and believe in, the principle of rehabilitation and our commitment to social justice. 

We are committed to building a truly diverse workforce and are working hard to make Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity part of who we are and everything we do. Because we are focussing on becoming an organisation that more closely reflects the society we live in, and the population we serve, we especially welcome applications from under-represented groups and from applicants with lived experience of the criminal justice system. 

To find out more and to apply, please visit https://starfishsearch.com/jobs/pet-chief-executive/

Closing date: Monday 26th October 2020.