Regional Market Access Team Lead (SWE21.413)

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This is an exciting opportunity to join the newly founded DIT Europe Market Access Centre (MAC). The MAC sits at the heart of the Department for International Trade's activity across Europe, supporting businesses to understand the terms of trade following the UK's departure from the EU, and make the most of trade opportunities between the UK and European countries. The successful candidate will lead the Market Access Centre team that oversees regional issues and resolves market access-related enquiries from UK and EU firms, supporting them to navigate the new trading rules, acting as a centre of expertise, proactively providing advice to key stakeholders on forthcoming changes or emerging issues.

The successful candidate will lead a virtual team of five Regional Market Access Advisers, with the aim of building substantial policy expertise on the key regulatory issues in the context of UK-EU trade. They will work closely with the broader Export Support Service in DIT HQ, other Government Departments, as well as Market Access and Trade Policy colleagues at European Posts, to handle enquiries but also advise on DIT's response to existing and upcoming market access challenges. Building relationships with stakeholders in London and across Europe is key, as well as strong leadership skills to manage a virtual team and also coordinate a wider network of Market Access Officers.

The role can be based in any European post listed below, report to the Regional Director leading on Market Access and will directly manage the Regional Market Access Advisers.
The eligible countries for application are: Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Malta, Montenegro, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

The successful candidate will:
. Lead the MAC as a centre of expertise to support UK and EU businesses on trade between the UK and EU.
. Lead the day-to-day running of the MAC, ensuring enquiries for the MAC are responded to with accurate and helpful advice, and within Service-Level Agreements. You will deconflict and help to triage any ambiguous queries, and take decisions on how to proceed with complex enquiries.
. Oversee interactions with Market Access Officers, to ensure smooth running of Europe-wide Market Access system. Build relationships with Country Directors to facilitate problem solving on complex market barriers, as well as accountability for in-market service delivery.
. Represent the MAC to the Export Support Service and Bilateral Trade Relations (BTR) in London and other key stakeholders, leading cooperation with and influencing decisions between the ESS enquiry service, policy hub, and BTR teams, working closely together to ensure a quality service and collaborative problem solving on issues faced by UK exporters.
. Develop deep knowledge of UK-Europe trade, regulation and barriers and the wider political relationship in order to advise Ministers, Ambassadors and other senior stakeholders on whether and when HMG should lobby or otherwise engage on specific barriers.
. Champion the MAC as a European centre of knowledge on market access issues, ensuring MAC members continuously expand their expertise in policy areas under their responsibility, the smooth running of Working Groups, and that the MAC's knowledge bank of information and resources is kept up-to-date and ordered, and is accessible to all colleagues and business as appropriate.
. Build and maintain relationships with key counterparts in UKMIS Brussels and key European capitals to ensure a coordinated regional approach to information sharing, and strategic planning to tackle regional market barriers. Lead team to engage proactively and productively with colleagues across region.
. Represent DIT/DIT Europe in meetings with business, internal task and finish groups, meeting with individual companies and outreach events.
. Continually develop and improve systems and ways of working, from enquiry handling to recording interactions and intelligence. Work closely with project leads in London and across Europe to define new system requirements for the MAC, and work constructively to develop solutions.
. Take a strategic view of how DIT and DIT Europe support exports and exporters - looking beyond market access to help design, build and continually improve a cohesive strategy to supporting UK exporters and wider UK-EU trade.
. Oversee the MAC's communications plans. Lead the team to produce quality and timely content on emerging issues, organise business engagements where appropriate, and work closely with London Departments to coordinate business outreach across Europe.
. Oversee and coordinate training plans for DIT Europe staff to understand Market Access issues in order to support their clients and other stakeholders, and to inform senior colleagues' external engagements.
. Contribute to wider DIT Europe objectives.

The successful candidate will need to confidently oversee a range of activity, from operational management of queries to complex problem solving on market access policy issues. They should be comfortable working with EU and national regulation and processes to propose solutions, as well as confident building a network of strong working relationships to ensure smooth operational delivery and impactful contributions to market access resolution.

According to the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, locally employed staff should either be Swedish citizens, EU citizens or permanent residents of any nationality registered in the population register when beginning their employment. For more information please consult: https://www.government.se/government-of-sweden/ministry-for-foreign-affairs/diplomatic-portal/diplomatic-guide/8.-employment/8.1-locally-employed-staff/