Chief Operating Officer Full Time

Comic Relief is a charity that harnesses the power of entertainment, humour, and popular culture to drive change in the world. Through compelling content and experiences, we engage audiences to care about and contribute to a just world free from poverty, and we fund organisations working on the frontlines to tackle poverty and injustice. We are now seeking a strategic and values-driven Chief Operating Officer (COO) to join our executive leadership team and help us scale our impact, strengthen our operations, and build a sustainable future.

The COO will lead and optimise the charity’s internal operations, ensuring that our people, systems, and processes are aligned to support our mission and strategic goals. This critical role oversees core enabling functions—including Legal & Assurance, Finance, People & Culture including Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB), Technology, and Data—and is responsible for evolving our operating model to drive efficiency, innovation, and resilience.

The role will sit alongside a team of executive directors, reporting into the Chief Executive Officer. The successful candidate will have extensive leadership experience, deep expertise in charity governance and finance and the ability to build trusted relationships across Comic Relief’s staff and Board of Trustees.

This role will provide overall leadership to the Operations Directorate, ensuring the directorate is set up to effectively support the charity to achieve its strategy and meet its annual objectives, and plays a key role in commercial decision making. The role will also play an integral part in driving efficiencies and performance improvements across Comic Relief and ensuring that staff are developed and supported to contribute to Comic Relief’s objectives, culture and values. The COO is also a trusted partner and sounding board for Executives and Directors in the company.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

Strategic & Organisational Leadership

• As part of the Executive Leadership Team, work with the CEO to provide leadership in developing, communicating and delivering the strategic vision and direction of Comic Relief.
• Work closely with other members of the Executive Leadership Team to ensure effective cooperation and collaboration across the organisation in support of Comic Relief’s operational objectives.
• Hold accountability, with other Executive Leaders, for achieving the organisation’s strategy, objectives, and board-level KPIs.
• Champion an inclusive, empowering culture aligned with our values and mission.
• Act as a strategic partner to the CEO and Board, contributing to organisational strategy, transformation, decision-making, and financial planning.
• Lead the development and implementation of an operational and financial model that supports delivery of Comic Relief’s current and future strategic plans and optimizes the resources available to the organisation, ensuring they are used to best effect.

Governance

• Lead on Board Relations, attending relevant board and committee meetings.
• Proactively ensure and monitor good governance, and consistently seek out best practice and learnings from the non-profit sector to apply to Comic Relief.
• Ensure that Comic Relief has a robust and effective governance framework that is mirrored in a comprehensive strategic framework.
• Ensure that effective processes are in place to provide robust charitable governance and strategic delivery.
• Support the Board Secretary, Board of Trustees and Committees of the Board to fulfil their duties.

Legal & Assurance Oversight

• Support the Director of Legal and Assurance to ensure that measures are in place to comply with Comic Relief’s statutory, regulatory and transparency obligations.
• Ensure that effective professional legal support is provided to enable Comic Relief’s business objectives and ensure reputational risk management.
• Lead on enterprise risk management, internal controls, and assurance processes.
• Act as the executive lead for safeguarding, governance policies, and whistleblowing frameworks.
• Support Trustees to ensure they have a full picture of Comic Relief’s risks and that there are appropriate plans in place to mitigate and manage these risks in such a way as to safely facilitate the objectives of the charity.

Finance Oversight

• Work with the Head of Finance to ensure alignment of financial and operational performance, ensuring robust financial planning, management, and oversight.
• Oversee annual budgeting, forecasting, and long-term financial strategy in alignment with organisational priorities.
• Ensure strong financial governance, controls, and compliance with all statutory, regulatory, and funder requirements.
• Lead on financial risk management, scenario planning, and the sustainability of income and expenditure models.
• Oversee the investment strategy to assure alignment with the organisations vision and mission and delivery of strategy.
• Present clear, timely financial reporting to the Executive Team, Board, and Committees.

People and Culture Oversight

• Working with the Director of People and Culture, take ultimate responsibility for the People & Culture functions, including DEIB, Human Resources (HR) operations, HR business partnering, learning and development, Employee Value Proposition, performance management, policies and culture.
• Accountable for the charity’s physical office space, ensuring safe, accessible, and efficient working environments. Plan for future office space needs.
• Lead business continuity planning, crisis management and operational resilience.
• Embed a culture of continuous improvement, leveraging technology and process innovation.

Technology and Data Oversight

• Working with the Interim Director of Technology and Data, take ultimate responsibility for the effective delivery of Comic Relief’s Internal Systems, Technology and Data functions, covering the technical services infrastructure that supports the organization.
• Oversee the charity’s IT strategy, infrastructure, cybersecurity, and digital transformation.
• Drive a data-informed culture by developing robust data governance, analytics, and insight capabilities.

Line and team management

• Lead the Operations Directorate, with a focus on continual improvement of structures and processes to be effective and fit for the future.
• Proactively undertake business planning, prioritise activities and set clear and realistic objectives based on capacity, expertise and aspirations
• Provide balanced, constructive feedback, undertake effective performance management to embed accountability and proactively support the professional development and growth of staff
• Maintain regular two-way communication and dialogue with staff, ensuring information is cascaded and escalated as needed.
• Model an enabling, inclusive and empowering leadership style that builds a values-based culture throughout the charity.

ESSENTIAL SKILLS AND COMPETENCIES:

• Significant experience at Executive / Board level, in an organisation with complex stakeholder relationships with cross functional responsibilities.
• A professional accountancy qualification or significant experience of leading strategic financial planning processes and overseeing a finance function.
• Non-profit sector experience with sound understanding of charity governance, legal compliance, and risk management.
• Demonstrated success leading multidisciplinary teams including HR, Finance, IT, and Legal.
• A strong track record of achieving financial results and delivering in an organisation with a significant transformation agenda.
• Ability to inspire others around them and take them through significant change.
• Decisive and able to successfully influence people at all levels.
• Committed to developing an inclusive and high performing culture across the organisation.
• Enjoy working in a fast-paced, audience-focused environment, and be keen to be a strong commercial contributor within the executive leadership team.
• Emotional intelligence, resilience, and collaborative leadership skills to unify all teams and directorates.

Desirable Criteria

• Experience of overseeing large scale change programmes
• Exposure to the media sector.
• Experience as a Trustee, Company Secretary or other involvement in charity governance.
• Experience of People, HR and DEIB strategies
• Experience in overseeing technology and data

Don’t meet every single requirement? Studies have shown that women and people of colour are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single qualification. At Comic Relief we are dedicated to building a diverse, inclusive, and authentic workplace, so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyways. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.

Why work at Comic Relief

There are lots of good reasons to join us at Comic Relief. You can read more about our employee benefits, such as our commitment to flexible and hybrid working. We ask staff to come to the office twice a week, normally on agreed team days, so that we can do all those things that are difficult to do online. Our office is based in Whitechapel, London, There are lots of opportunities to develop your skills and experience at Comic Relief, including opportunities to become a Mental Health First Aider or to participate in our Employee Network Groups that focus on making Comic Relief a more inclusive place to work

Disability Confident employer

As part of the Disability Confident scheme, we take positive action by providing first-round interviews to candidates who have a registered disability, provided they meet the minimum criteria for the role, as demonstrated on their CV or application scores. We ask that candidates that wish to be considered for this scheme email Recruitment@comicrelief.com to discuss further. Please do not email CV’s/cover letters.

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