Director of Public Sector Partnerships

Employment type: Full time
Reporting to: Chief Commercial Officer
Visa sponsorship: UK national or visa holder preferred, but not a dealbreaker
Salary: £100,000 - £130,000
Location / working pattern: Hybrid, London - 3 days a week in office
Background checks: Due to the non-partisan nature of the work we do with global governments and partners, all employees need to pass background checks, verifying your identity, education (if relevant), work history, sanctions, criminal record, adverse financial history, and right to work. To ensure we maintain high standards of political neutrality, we also perform media and social media checks.

About Apolitical

Apolitical's mission is to make governments smarter for people and the planet and we reach over 40 million public servants through our partnerships with governments globally. We are the largest global network for governments, used by 500,000+ public servants in 170 countries to find and share best practices and gain skills on critical topics from AI to climate change to emerging technologies.

Governments use Apolitical to solve public sector transformation challenges from AI augmentation to reskilling. We offer governments five interoperable components: research and analysis, workforce productivity tools, customisable training, vibrant learning communities and high impact convenings. Everything we do is powered by our unique global network and real-time data.

Apolitical is trusted by 60+ governments and leading organisations that work with governments. Governments include schools of government, departments, ministries and government adjacent bodies in the UK, Canada, India, EU, UAE, Brazil, Ethiopia, Singapore and more. Global foundation partners include the Bezos Earth Fund, Gates Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation, who view governments as key stakeholders in achieving systemic change.

Apolitical’s corporate partners include organisations such as Google, AWS and Microsoft who work with us at scale with governments and public sector bodies worldwide.

Our flagship AI platform, Futura, helps governments identify where AI can make a difference and equips public servants with personalised learning to put it into practice. PolicyNova and PolicyNavigator support evidence-based policy research, while our Government AI Campus and Frontier Science & Tech and Resilience Platforms provide practical learning to help public servants respond to emerging challenges.

The Role

Apolitical is entering a significant phase of commercial growth. Our priority is to expand government adoption of our learning programmes, communities and AI-powered products through larger, longer-term agreements.

Governments, schools of government, ministries and government-adjacent bodies are our core customers. This role is dedicated to them, working alongside a separate Director who leads our foundation and corporate partnerships.

As a Director of Public Sector Partnerships, you will contribute to our public sector revenue, leading complex agreements with governments from qualification through procurement and negotiation to contract signature. Your immediate mandate is to convert our existing government pipeline into revenue, while growing our current accounts and building a sustainable pipeline of new public sector business internationally.

This is a senior, hands-on role with no direct reports at the start, and scope to build a team as public sector revenue grows. You will work closely with Partnerships and Delivery and Product, and with our foundation and corporate partnerships lead on programmes where a funder supports a government.

You will:

Lead complex public sector sales – own government opportunities through the full commercial cycle, including stakeholder engagement, proposals, tenders and procurement, negotiation and contract signature.
Build and qualify pipeline – generate new business with governments and public sector bodies internationally, and direct effort towards the opportunities with the strongest revenue potential.
Grow existing government accounts – secure renewals and expand our current government partnerships into larger, multi-year or multi-department agreements.
Structure commercially viable agreements – develop pricing and terms that balance government requirements, revenue, delivery costs and margin, including multi-party agreements where a government is the contracting party.
Shape our public sector commercial strategy – contribute to setting priority regions, segments and accounts with the Chief Commercial Officer, and use government insight to shape how we present our offer and develop future propositions.
Manage commercial performance – maintain accurate pipeline data, forecast public sector revenue, monitor conversion and identify risks requiring action.

Onboarding Milestones

Within your first month, you'll:

Develop a comprehensive understanding of our products, commercial model, government partnerships and delivery capabilities.
Assess the existing public sector pipeline and accounts, and agree conversion and renewal priorities with the Chief Commercial Officer.
Establish working relationships with Partnerships and Delivery, Product and our foundation and corporate partnerships lead, and take ownership of priority opportunities.

Within three months, you'll:

Be progressing priority government opportunities through proposals, procurement and commercial negotiations.
Have agreed priority regions and segments, and established a qualified pipeline of new public sector business against them.
Have renewal and expansion plans in place for our key government accounts, developed with Partnerships and Delivery.

Within six months, you'll:

Have secured revenue-generating agreements with governments and demonstrated measurable progress against agreed commercial objectives.
Be independently managing your pipeline and accounts with reliable forecasting and clear visibility of commercial risks.
Be contributing government insight that shapes our commercial priorities, pricing and propositions.

Ongoing

Success in this role is measured by new public sector revenue closed against your annual target, renewal and expansion revenue from existing government accounts, the quality of your qualified pipeline and the accuracy of your revenue forecasts.

About you

You will have experience securing significant, multi-year agreements with governments or public sector bodies, whether through selling technology-enabled products and services or through institutional partnerships. You understand how governments set priorities, fund programmes and buy.

You'll thrive here if you:

Have personally owned and closed significant agreements through complex, multi-stage processes, including formal procurement.
Can build credibility with senior government officials and influence decisions across ministries, agencies and approval layers.
Bring strong commercial judgement, including opportunity qualification, pricing, negotiation and margin management.
Can translate our products into clear propositions that address government policy goals and workforce challenges.
Are disciplined in pipeline management, forecasting and prioritising commercial effort.
Operate effectively with autonomy and ambiguity across different government systems and cultures, taking responsibility for decisions and outcomes.
Are motivated by helping governments become more effective for people and the planet.

Show us in your CV if you have:

Experience selling AI, data, learning or software products to governments or public sector bodies.
Experience securing multi-year contracts or funding from governments, or from bilateral or multilateral donors.
Experience working with public sector buyers in more than one country or region.

Don't meet every requirement? Studies show that women and people of colour are less likely to apply for roles unless they meet every qualification. We're committed to building a diverse and inclusive team, so if you're interested in the role but don't tick every box, we'd still encourage you to apply.

This probably isn't the role for you if…

Your experience is primarily in relationship management without personal accountability for securing and signing agreements.
You're seeking a role focused on managing a team now rather than personally owning complex government deals.
You prefer short, transactional sales cycles rather than long procurement processes with multiple approval layers.

Our application process

We use skills-based assessments and structured interviews to focus on what predicts success in the role. Each stage is designed to give us high-quality evidence of your skills, judgement and ways of working, while giving you a clear view of the role, the team and what working at Apolitical is like.

You can see more about the stages of our hiring process on our careers page

You can expect to hear from us, no matter the outcome, by 18th November 2026.

Using AI in your application

We embrace new technologies and encourage the use of AI in our work.

You're welcome to use AI tools to help structure and refine your application. What matters to us, though, is understanding your thinking, experience and perspective, so please make sure your application still sounds like you.

Director of Public Sector Partnerships