Job Application for Portfolio Lead - Sovereign AI at Civil Service Jobs

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Sovereign AI

Artificial intelligence is central to the UK's economic and national security. As countries around the world compete to develop and deploy this transformative technology, the UK must ensure it can build, attract and retain the companies that will shape the future of AI. The Sovereign AI Fund sits at the heart of this mission, with a clear mandate to identify, back and scale the companies that will define the UK's position in one of the most consequential technologies of our time.

Backed by up to £500 million, the Fund exists to turn ambition into action, supporting high-potential AI startups and scaleups to become national champions and strengthening the UK's sovereign capability in frontier AI.

The Role

The Portfolio Lead role is responsible for the ongoing support, monitoring and value creation of SovAI's investment portfolio post-investment.

In venture terms, this is closest to a “platform” role: the day-to-day point of contact who makes sure portfolio companies get useful support, while giving the Fund a clear, structured view of how the portfolio is doing.

Key Responsibilities

Coordinate cross-portfolio support, talent, compute access, procurement, in partnership with the R&D and Policy teams.
Build a single source of truth for portfolio data (in Attio and supporting tools) usable across the investment, policy and R&D teams.
Prepare portfolio-level briefing materials for ministerial and cross-HMG engagements, working alongside the investment team and Policy team on materials for government stakeholders.
Act as the day-to-day point of contact for portfolio companies, triaging requests and routing them to the right person, team or external resource.
Partner closely with the Operating Partner, providing dedicated support across their operational workstreams.

Process & Team Building

Establish scalable portfolio management processes and playbooks appropriate to a fast-growing, publicly accountable investment vehicle.
Contribute to the Fund's broader operational build-out, including CRM infrastructure, triage workflows and internal guidance for colleagues.

What Success Looks Like

•   A portfolio CRM and reporting single source of truth adopted across investment, delivery and compute teams.
•   Strong, trusted relationships with portfolio company founders and with key government counterparts.
•   Playbooks and benchmarking data measurably reduce the time it takes to resolve common portfolio requests.

Person Specification:

Experience
•   Familiarity with the UK AI, deep tech or investment landscape is a strong advantage.
•   Experience standing up processes and infrastructure in an early-stage or fast-growing organisation.

Skills & Attributes
•   Rigorous, structured thinker who is comfortable in founder-facing conversations.
•   High personal ownership and discretion; comfortable operating in a small, high-trust team.
•   Collaborative operating style; able to work cross-functionally with investment, delivery and compute colleagues, and external counterparts at HMT, BIST, BBB and NSSIF.
•   Genuine interest in UK sovereign AI capability and the mission of the Fund.
•   Comfortable building and maintaining data and CRM systems, and turning them into clear, actionable views for non-technical stakeholders.

Selection Process:

Application:You will be asked to submit your CV and answer the following application questions:

Why do you want to join Sovereign AI? (250 words max)
Describe your experience working with early stage founders or startups? (250 words max)
This role requires coordinating between investment, policy, R&D and external government counterparts, each with different priorities. Give an example of a time you had to align multiple stakeholders with competing interests to get something done. (250 words max)

Interview 1: Experience and motivations interview.

Interview 2: Civil service behaviours interview with task. The details of the task will be send beforehand and you will be assessed on the following behaviours:

Communicating & influencing
Managing a quality service
Changing & improving

Interview 3: Final stage with senior leadership team.

Salary

£56,850 - £68,570 GBP

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Why do you want to join Sovereign AI? (250 words max)

Describe your experience working with early stage founders or startups. (250 words max)

This role requires coordinating between investment, policy, R&D and external government counterparts, each with different priorities. Give an example of a time you had to align multiple stakeholders with competing interests to get something done." (250 words max)

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Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

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Portfolio Lead - Sovereign AI

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