Head of Trade Sanctions Compliance, Licensing and Enforcement

Trade sanctions is a high-profile area which sits at the heart of DBT’s business and trade agenda and across DBT’s domestic and international interests. DBT works with UK businesses and with domestic and international partners to support the UK’s global sanctions and economic deterrence objectives. Sanctions is a key priority for Ministers across a number of Government departments, with whom we work in close partnership on shared policy and implementation objectives.

Ministers have just announced the creation of a new unit in DBT, called the Office of Trade Sanctions Implementation (OTSI). OTSI’s objective is to enhance the impact of the UK’s trade sanctions regimes by helping businesses to understand and comply with trade sanctions and it will have a new civil enforcement toolkit to help it take agile and proportionate action against sanctions breaches, including issuing civil monetary penalties.

This new team is located in the Trade Defence Directorate, which sits within the Trading Systems Group. We work closely with sanctions policy teams in DBT and with teams leading DBT’s work on export and import controls to ensure that the Government’s trade sanctions regimes are effective. This is a priority area which is regularly scrutinised by DBT’s Executive Committee.

This is an exciting time to join OTSI – you will be breaking new ground in DBT as you set up and run teams to lead on trade sanctions compliance and enforcement, and on trade sanctions licensing. You will also play a pivotal role in shaping the overall design, direction and ethos of this new function, which will triple in size by next year. You will directly line manage at least 3 Grade 7s and oversee a team of around 20 by mid 2024 (with the potential to grow further).

Initially the focus of the role is on establishing the end to end process for licensing and enforcement, and building capacity and capability across the teams. Your focus will then evolve to leading high-performing operational teams, equipped with the resources, skills, processes, systems and information to manage often complex and sensitive cases. You will need to build diverse and inclusive teams that are motivated to deliver and develop a supportive culture and an ethos of continuous improvement, especially in the early stages of your teams’ maturity.

You will lead the design and establishment of the new compliance and enforcement function which we are establishing from scratch in anticipation of receiving new powers to issue civil monetary penalties next year, learning from similar functions elsewhere in government.

You will lead the transition and integration of trade sanctions licensing activity from its current home in the Export Control Joint Unit to OTSI.

Effective stakeholder engagement will be key – many enforcement and licensing cases will require cross-Government and multi-agency agreement and action. You will also have an important role in supporting and influencing business and stakeholder activity and policy development. You will also need to build excellent relationships with teams across DBT that have an interest in sanctions. International cooperation is also a growth area for sanctions implementation and there will certainly be international engagement opportunities for this role.

As a senior leader in the team, you’ll help to make strategic connections across OTSI e.g. feeding into policy making on new sanctions and approaches, and developing operational responses to novel policy challenges. You will also help to run the team with the DD and other G6s, steering the team from set-up phase into early maturity and beyond. You will help to set the overall direction and culture across the whole function and ensure that resourcing and capability across the team is fit for purpose. You will also be a member of the extended SLT for the Trade Defence directorate, supporting the running of the directorate and taking on a corporate leadership role at that level.

This role is being advertised as fixed term until end March 2025, with the potential to extend subject to funding. The hiring manager would be happy to discuss options with interested candidates.

Essential Criteria

• Making effective decisions: proven ability to confidently make robust decisions, including getting up to speed with and weighing up complex, sensitive and fragmentary evidence and making decisions in line with legal and procedural requirements.
• Leadership / Managing a Quality Service: proven ability to lead and motivate a successful team and deliver a service that meets – and exceeds expectations, runs efficiently and is responsive and adaptive to changing requirements.
• Communicating and Influencing: evidence of communicating effectively with a range of stakeholders from government colleagues to businesses to international counterparts.
• Seeing the big picture: a track record of identifying strategic trends and using them to influence future decisions.

Desirable Criteria

• Evidence of success in leading teams working on enforcement, licensing and/or other types of investigative casework is highly desirable and would be a distinct advantage.
• Prior experience or understanding of trade sanctions would be helpful.
• Existing SC or DV clearance. Owing to the nature of OTSI’s licensing and enforcement work, successful candidates must be willing to undergo Security Check (SC) security clearance before starting and Developed Vetting (DV) security clearance once in post if these clearances are not already held.

Personal Attributes & Skills

We would like to hear from candidates who:

• Have the right set of skills for this operational role which requires excellent strategic leadership and who demonstrate the values of our team, directorate and department.
• Are intellectually curious, motivated to play a key role in sanctions implementation, and who can quickly develop their understanding of and effectively navigate a complex and sensitive area.
• Are equally comfortable and adept in dealing with the big strategic issues as with the technical details of a specific case.
• Are authentic leaders who inspire people they work with and want to further develop their leadership skills by building and leading a large team.
• Are motivated by building and leading high performing teams to deliver an effective and responsive service, underpinned by efficient processes and systems, and have the skillset to do this successfully.
• Are skilled in delivering with and through others, and have the communication and interpersonal skills that help them build trusted and resilient relationships with stakeholders and delivery partners.
• Are team players and are enthusiastic about shared leadership challenges and achievements as we set up and establish this new function.

We’ll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Seeing the Big Picture
• Leadership
• Managing a Quality Service
• Making Effective Decisions
• Communicating and Influencing

• Learning and development tailored to your role
• An environment with flexible working options
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity
• A Civil Service pension with an average employer contribution of 27%

We recognise the challenges that people with (multiple) protected characteristics may experience on the job market and in their career progression. We are fully committed to being an inclusive employer and ensuring equal opportunities. We are keen to make our workforce as diverse as possible, and we hope to attract applications from underrepresented groups, including ethnic minorities, people with a disability, and people with gender diverse identities.

Please refer to the attached candidate pack for further information on our benefits.

Job contact :

• Name : Anna DeibelJung
• Email : Anna.DeibelJung@businessandtrade.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : dbtrecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk