JOB DESCRIPTION
Job title: Chief Commercial Officer
Band: 1
Report to: CEO
Department: Commercial Services
Contract type: Permanent, Full-Time, 35 hours per week, Monday to Friday
Location: Remote
Job purpose
The Chief Commercial Officer is a key appointment for AbilityNet and will lead the next stage of growth and development across our commercial and consultancy services. The role will help drive sustainable income growth, service quality and long-term relevance as a trusted accessibility partner, while providing dedicated leadership capacity to bring teams together around shared commercial goals.
Reporting to the Chief Executive and working as part of the Senior Management Team, the Chief Commercial Officer will provide leadership across AbilityNet’s commercial ecosystem, including consultancy delivery, market insight, proposition development, marketing, sales, strategic partnerships, customer success and account development.
The role will have a strong focus on leading and developing AbilityNet’s consultancy, professional services and customer-facing expert teams, ensuring they are aligned with customer needs, commercial opportunities and high-quality service delivery. The CCO will also provide oversight of sales and marketing, ensuring these functions work closely with consultancy colleagues to develop opportunities, strengthen customer relationships and grow income, with clear priorities, ownership and ways of working across teams.
AbilityNet has a trusted brand, deep technical expertise and a strong client base, including major enterprise and complex organisational customers. A significant early opportunity for this role will be to strengthen account management and account development, increasing share of wallet within existing clients and ensuring customers benefit from the full breadth of AbilityNet’s expertise.
The CCO will help AbilityNet increase income, deepen customer relationships and develop appropriate partnerships and reach in a way that is sustainable, efficient and aligned with its mission. This will require stronger commercial processes, improved use of CRM and data, practical adoption of technology, and a clear focus on performance, customer value and impact.
The goal is to build a differentiated, scalable and data-led commercial and consultancy function that delivers sustained income growth and margin, enabling AbilityNet to grow its social programmes and increase its public benefit and impact.
Principal accountabilities
Commercial Strategy and Transformation
- Develop and lead AbilityNet’s commercial strategy, ensuring it is aligned with the charity’s mission, market opportunity, consultancy capability and organisational capacity.
- Lead commercial and operational change in a way that improves team working, cross-functional cohesion, performance, scalability and resilience.
- Translate strategy into clear priorities, plans and measurable outcomes.
- Identify and develop new commercial opportunities, revenue streams and strategic partnerships to support long-term sustainability.
- Ensure commercial strategy and growth initiatives maximise both commercial performance and social impact.
- Build a positive, collaborative and accountable culture across consultancy, sales, marketing and customer-facing teams, creating the focus and rhythm needed for busy teams to work together effectively.
- Work with colleagues, including the Head of Innovation, to ensure propositions remain relevant, competitive, deliverable and aligned with customer and beneficiary needs.
Consultancy, Professional Services and Customer-Facing Team Leadership
- Provide active leadership to AbilityNet’s consultancy, professional services and customer-facing expert teams, ensuring high-quality delivery, strong customer outcomes and sustainable commercial performance.
- Engage credibly with consultants, senior customers and partners, including in major pitches, account development and strategic customer conversations.
- Support consultancy and delivery colleagues to identify customer needs, develop opportunities and contribute to account growth.
- Ensure consultancy delivery is closely aligned with sales, marketing, customer success and account development priorities.
- Balance growth ambitions with delivery quality, team capacity and customer experience.
- Strengthen professional services disciplines, including utilisation, planning, pricing, delivery consistency and margin management.
End-To-End Commercial Performance
- Lead and improve the commercial lifecycle from demand generation through to consultancy delivery, renewal and account growth, reducing friction between teams and strengthening the customer journey.
- Align marketing, sales, consultancy delivery, partnerships and customer success around shared priorities, customer needs and commercial outcomes.
- Improve pipeline quality, conversion, pricing discipline, forecasting accuracy and customer value.
- Develop stronger account management and account development disciplines, particularly across large enterprise and complex organisational clients.
- Increase repeat business, cross-sell and up-sell by ensuring customers understand and access the full breadth of AbilityNet’s services.
- Balance growth ambitions with service quality, delivery capacity and long-term relationship value.
Strategic Partnerships
- Develop AbilityNet’s approach to strategic partnerships as a core driver of growth, reach and impact.
- Identify and evaluate opportunities based on strategic fit, commercial potential, customer value and delivery feasibility.
- Structure partnerships with clear objectives, value exchange and governance.
- Ensure partnerships are actively managed to deliver agreed commercial and impact outcomes.
- Integrate partnerships into pipeline development, propositions, account development and delivery models.
- Track partnership performance and potential, refining, scaling or exiting partnerships based on evidence.
Data, Insight and Performance
- Establish a clear commercial data and insight framework across consultancy delivery, marketing, sales, partnerships and customer success.
- Define and embed practical KPIs covering pipeline, conversion, forecasting, utilisation, margin, retention, customer satisfaction, account growth and partnership performance.
- Ensure decisions are based on accurate and timely insight.
- Use data to improve targeting, pricing, propositions, account development and delivery planning.
- Strengthen CRM adoption and data quality so that customer relationships, pipeline and account opportunities are consistently visible and well managed.
- Use market, competitor and customer insight to understand changing buying behaviour, including the implications of AI and technology-led solutions for accessibility services.
Commercial Operating Model and Infrastructure
- Design and embed scalable commercial operating models and ways of working across consultancy, sales, marketing, partnerships and customer success.
- Strengthen core commercial processes, systems and governance, ensuring they support joined-up working and a consistent customer experience.
- Ensure effective use of CRM and supporting tools.
- Reduce reliance on manual processes, fragmented data and individual relationships by strengthening systems, account management disciplines and ways of working.
- Ensure clear roles, responsibilities and handovers across marketing, sales, consultancy delivery and customer success.
Technology Enablement
- Champion the practical use of technology, including appropriate use of AI, to improve productivity, insight, forecasting and customer experience, and to respond to changing customer expectations.
- Identify and implement tools and ways of working that improve commercial performance, consultancy planning and account development.
- Ensure technology investment delivers measurable commercial benefit.
Support teams to adopt technology in a way that is practical, accessible and aligned with AbilityNet’s values.
Market Positioning and Growth
- Strengthen AbilityNet’s market positioning as a trusted accessibility and inclusion partner in an increasingly competitive and technology-enabled market.
- Improve the way interest is converted into qualified opportunities and long-term customer relationships.
- Ensure marketing activity reaches, engages and converts priority audiences.
- Use AbilityNet’s strong brand, expertise and client base to open up new opportunities in existing and adjacent markets.
- Strengthen AbilityNet’s external profile and influence, using thought leadership, events, networks and customer relationships to build high-value opportunities, while ensuring external activity is clearly linked to commercial priorities.
Customer Success, Account Development and Retention
- Embed consistent customer success and account management practices that support retention, renewal, account growth and long-term customer value.
- Ensure a consistent, high-quality customer experience from first engagement through to delivery, renewal and ongoing relationship management.
- Work with consultancy, sales and customer success colleagues to identify opportunities for account growth within existing customers.
- Use customer insight to improve services, propositions and delivery models.
- Increase repeat business, cross-sell and up-sell within AbilityNet’s existing client base.
- Ensure major customers receive a joined-up experience and understand the full range of AbilityNet’s expertise.
Leadership and Governance
- Contribute actively as a member of the Senior Management Team, bringing commercial insight, constructive challenge and organisation-wide leadership.
- Provide clear commercial, consultancy and partnership insight to Trustees and Committees.
- Ensure appropriate governance, controls and accountability across commercial activity.
- Act as a steward of AbilityNet’s values and inclusive culture, ensuring these are reflected in commercial decision-making, team leadership and external relationships.
- Build trusted relationships across internal and external stakeholder groups, including trustees, colleagues, consultants, partners, customers, volunteers and the disability community.
- Act as a senior external ambassador for AbilityNet, enhancing the organisation’s profile across accessibility, technology, inclusion and related commercial markets.
Person Specification
Knowledge, Skills and Experience
Essential
- Senior commercial leadership experience in a complex service-based, consultancy, professional services or B2B services environment.
- Experience leading, developing or working closely with customer-facing expert, consultancy or professional services teams.
- A track record of delivering sustainable income growth through improved strategy, systems, processes, sales disciplines, customer journey and team alignment.
- Experience of developing existing accounts, growing share of wallet and building senior customer relationships, ideally with large enterprise or complex organisational clients.
- Credibility in senior customer conversations, major pitches, account development and commercial negotiations.
- Experience aligning consultancy delivery, sales, marketing and customer success around shared commercial outcomes, including through influence across multiple busy teams.
- Strong understanding of pipeline management, forecasting, CRM, data and commercial performance management.
- Experience improving commercial ways of working across multiple teams, including clarifying priorities, ownership, handovers and accountabilities.
- Ability to lead change, build confidence and create momentum across teams, bringing people with them while maintaining pace and accountability.
- Evidence of values-led leadership and an ability to connect commercial growth with mission, customer value and social impact.
Desirable
- Experience of digital accessibility, inclusion, assistive technology or related markets.
- Understanding of changing customer buying patterns, increased competition and the impact of technology or AI on consultancy and accessibility services.
- Experience of charity, social enterprise, membership or purpose-led organisations.
- Experience of strategic partnerships as a growth driver.
- Experience of using AI, automation or digital tools to improve commercial performance.
- Experience reporting to boards, trustees or committees.
- Experience improving utilisation, margin, pricing or delivery models within a consultancy, professional services or complex B2B services setting.
Personal Attributes
- Strategic and commercially focused.
- Customer-focused and relationship-led.
- Credible with expert teams, senior customers and external partners.
- Motivational, practical and delivery-focused.
- Data-led and outcome-driven.
- Collaborative and values-led.
- Able to bring clarity, pace, cohesion and confidence.
- Comfortable engaging externally while building capability in others.
- Able to balance commercial ambition with mission, inclusion and social impact.
Success Measures
- Mission-aligned growth: commercial income growth that also maximises social impact.
- Increased income and margin from consultancy, professional services and commercial activity.
- Stronger account management and increased share of wallet within existing clients.
- Improved retention, renewal, cross-sell and up-sell across the client base.
- Improved pipeline quality, conversion and forecasting accuracy.
- New revenue streams and appropriate strategic partnerships contributing to long-term sustainability.
- Increased income without proportional cost growth.
- Improved customer satisfaction, customer experience and long-term value.
- Effective use of data in decision-making across consultancy, marketing, sales and partnerships.
- Scalable commercial systems and reduced reliance on manual processes or individual relationships.
- Improved team culture, cohesion and collaborative working across consultancy, sales, marketing and customer success.
- Strengthened external profile: thought leadership, sector presence, senior customer engagement and ambassador activity.
Please note that this job description is intended as a general guide to the role. It is not an exhaustive list of duties and responsibilities and may be reviewed or updated in consultation with the postholder to reflect evolving priorities within AbilityNet.
