Growth Lead

Description

About the role

Bloomsbury Football Foundation is on a mission to transform the lives of young people through the magic of football, delivering programmes that support young people’s development on and off the pitch. And our provision is backed by a financial assistance model that makes football accessible to all, regardless of ability to pay. We believe Bloomsbury Football Foundation has a powerful product: football that genuinely transforms young people’s lives – and an offer for schools that is unlike anything else on the market. And we’re on a mission to deliver outstanding provision at scale across the UK.

In just six years, BFF has grown from an idea into a movement reaching over 6,500 young people across London every week. A central part of that story is our Schools programme. We currently work with over 50 primary and secondary schools across London, reaching more than 3,400 young people every week with our high-quality, inclusive football sessions that help students build skills for lifelong success – making us one of the biggest school delivery organisations in London.

The School Sales Lead is a new role at BFF, created specifically to take us from 50 schools to 100 in the next 12 months. You will build and own the end-to-end process that makes that happen: mapping the market, identifying the highest-potential schools, developing user-centred outreach and conversion pathways, and continuously refining your approach based on what works. You will lead conversations with headteachers, PE leads, and school business managers, moving prospects through the pipeline from first contact to signed agreement. Once a school is on board, you hand over to our Communities Leads, who manage the delivery relationship from there.

This is a different kind of sales role, because what you are selling is different. Our schools offer is subsidised, mission-driven, and built around what young people actually need – not a commercial product with a margin to protect. You will be comfortable working to clear metrics, but the role is also about more than just the numbers. The role leads with impact on young people at the forefront, connecting the right schools with something that will make a difference for their students.

The role also provides real scope to shape how BFF talks about its schools offer, to develop materials that make our proposition land, and to contribute to the strategy that takes us from 100 schools in London to a national footprint.

Key Responsibilities

School acquisition & pipeline management experience:

• Build a strong pipeline of prospective partners aligned with BFF’s mission and model, identifying target primary and secondary schools across London, Leicester and other cities as we scale across the country.
• Develop a targeted acquisition strategy that maps the London schools landscape – by school type, geography, and programme fit – building a repeatable and scalable approach to outreach that grows with BFF’s ambitions.
• Lead outbound outreach to schools – including emails, calls, visits, and attendance at relevant education and school sport events – to introduce BFF and generate genuine interest in our provision.
• Develop a deep understanding of each school’s context, needs, and priorities, shaping BFF’s offering compellingly around what matters to them – whether that is PE coverage, extra-curricular provision, SEN inclusion, or girls’ football.
• Organise and run free taster sessions as a key conversion tool, giving schools a direct experience of BFF coaching quality and culture.
• Lead on conversations with school decision-makers, including headteachers, PE leads, and school business managers, guiding them from initial interest through to signed agreement.
• Track progress against acquisition targets and report clearly on pipeline activity, conversion rates, and school growth.

Communication & stakeholder engagement:

• Act as BFF’s lead voice with prospective school partners, providing a consistently professional, warm, and mission-led experience from first contact to sign-on.
• Build and maintain relationships with key education stakeholders across London, including PE networks, multi-academy trusts, local authorities, and school sport partnerships.
• Represent Bloomsbury Football Foundation at relevant education events, school sport conferences, and community forums, championing the role of football in young people’s development.

Materials, data & continuous improvement:

• Work collaboratively with the wider Programmes and Marketing teams to develop and refine sales collateral, school-facing materials, and the way BFF presents its schools offer.
• Develop compelling, tailored pitch materials and proposals that communicate BFF’s value clearly and persuasively for different school contexts.
• Maintain accurate and up-to-date records of school prospect activity, pipeline status, and outcomes in Salesforce, ensuring strong data quality at all times.
• Proactively build the market intelligence that sharpens BFF’s approach – from understanding procurement decisions, to national policy trends – and how they inform BFF’s offer.
• Use data and school feedback to continuously improve the sales approach, refining messaging, targeting, and materials based on what is and isn’t working.
• Contribute ideas and insights to help shape BFF’s broader schools strategy, identifying patterns, opportunities, and barriers across the London schools landscape.
• Uphold BFF’s safeguarding policies and values at all times across every product line.

What We're Looking For

You are driven, people-centred, and energised by the idea that football can genuinely change young people’s lives. You understand that great sales in a mission-led organisation is not about pressure – it is about helping the right people understand why something matters, and making it easy for them to say yes. You know our product is exceptional. Your job is to make sure every school in London knows it too.

The BFF Standard:

• Keep high standards, always. You hold yourself to a high standard without being asked. You take pride in your work, and you push for quality in everything you do.
• Take responsibility. You own your work, your decisions, and your mistakes. You work proactively, follow through, fix things when they go wrong, and bring solutions instead of just identifying challenges.
• Pursue growth consistently. You actively push to get better each day. You seek feedback, act on it, and look for opportunities to stretch yourself. You see this role as a place to build something, in yourself as much as in BFF.
• Stay calm under pressure. You stay effective when things get hard, priorities shift, or plans change. You recover from setbacks quickly and don't let pressure affect your performance or the people around you.
• Be a team player. You work well with others, and you add to the team around you. You step up when it's needed to support the end goal and you measure success by what the team achieves together.
• Remain agile. You thrive in fast-moving environments where plans evolve and priorities shift. You don't need everything to be fixed to perform at your best, and you see change as part of growth.
• Do the right thing. Especially when no one is watching. You represent BFF with warmth and professionalism in every interaction, and you take your responsibilities to the organisation and the people we serve seriously.
• Be mission minded. You believe in what BFF is doing – not just in football, but specifically in the power of football to change young people's lives. You're here because of the mission, not just the role.

School Sales Lead Skills:

• A natural relationship builder and persuader. You open doors, build trust quickly, and know how to bring people along on a journey. You are not pushy – you are compelling. You leave people feeling genuinely excited about what BFF is offering and wanting to be part of it.
• Deep intuition for what schools need. You understand how schools work, how decisions get made, and what a headteacher or PE lead is actually worried about. You know that for one school the hook is PE coverage, for another it is girls’ football, for another it is SEN inclusion – and you adjust your pitch accordingly. You shape your approach around what matters to them, not around a fixed script.

Essential Skills:

• Strong alignment with BFF’s values and a genuine belief in football as a tool for social impact
• A natural communicator and relationship builder with demonstrated ability to persuade and engage a range of stakeholders
• Ability to manage a pipeline or workload independently, consistently meeting defined goals or targets
• Clear, professional communication skills with the ability to tailor tone and messaging for different audiences – from a headteacher to a PE coordinator to a school business manager
• Comfortable using data and impact evidence to make a compelling case – you know how to turn a stat into a story
• Motivated by metrics and clear targets and reflective about what is working and what needs to change
• Reliable and detail-oriented, with the ability to maintain accurate records and consistently meet deadlines
• Good grasp of technology and digital tools, including Microsoft 365 and Salesforce or similar CRMs
• A collaborative team player, curious about how the wider organisation works and keen to learn and grow
• Eligibility to live and work in the UK

Desirable Criteria:

• 1-2 years of experience in a sales, business development, partnerships, or fundraising role.
• A sound understanding of what matters to teachers, PE leads, and school decision-makers
• Familiarity with the London education landscape, or existing relationships within London schools
• Experience working in the not-for-profit or social impact sector
• Understanding of the grassroots football landscape and/or youth sports provision

Benefits

• Access to co-working space
• Regular staff socials & monthly ‘Team Talk’ in London with pop-up catering
• Opportunities to attend Premier League, WSL, FA Cup, League Cup, and Champions League football matches
• Cycle to work scheme
• Salary sacrifice workplace pension scheme
• 24 days holiday allowance[SH2] , increasing by one day per year after two years’ service
• Funding toward training and five days of fully paid study leave
• The chance to grow within a mission-driven organisation doing work that genuinely matters

At Bloomsbury Football Foundation, we believe that the best teams reflect the communities they serve. We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive workplace where people of all backgrounds, identities and experiences feel welcome, valued and able to do their best work. We particularly encourage applications from women and people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, who are currently underrepresented in our team. We assess every candidate on their ability, potential and values, nothing else. If you care about what we do and believe you have something to contribute, we want to hear from you.

Bloomsbury Football Foundation is a registered charity founded in 2018 and based in Camden, London, using football to tackle some of the biggest challenges facing young people today. We make football accessible to over 7,000 children and young people every week through a financial assistance model that removes the barriers of cost and targets areas of greatest deprivation, bringing together young people from different socioeconomic backgrounds, ethnicities and nationalities in the process.

In just six years we've grown from a £1m to a £5m organisation, and we're now at an inflection point, expanding beyond London and building towards reaching over 40,000 young people every week by 2031. We're a fast-paced, ambitious team based out of a modern office in Camden Market, and we're committed to the personal growth of every person who joins us. If you want to do meaningful work, be given real responsibility from day one, and be part of something that no other sport-for-good charity in the UK has achieved — this is the place for you.