Strategic Partnerships & Innovation Lead

Republic Polytechnic; Singapore; On-site; SGD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Skills and Workforce Development Agency (SWDA) in Singapore seeks a Senior Manager/Manager in Partnerships and Innovation to lead strategic partnerships, design programmes and manage grants that support career planning and CES sector capability-building.

You will drive engagement plans, governance, and funding models across public, private and community partners, translating insights into actionable proposals and evaluation plans. A contract may extend to permanent tenure.

Qualifications

• Experience in partnership management, industry engagement, programme development, and grant administration.
• Experience leading projects with external stakeholders and cross-functional coordination.
• Understanding of public-sector governance, grant processes, budgeting, procurement, reporting, and risk.
• Experience with training providers, employers, sector agencies, community partners and workforce ecosystems.
• Familiarity with innovation methodologies or human-centred design is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Develop and implement partnership and engagement plans with priority stakeholders.
• Build and sustain strategic partnerships across public, private and people sectors to expand career planning support.
• Lead design, implementation and review of programmes, pilots and innovation projects with governance & funding models.
• Translate inputs and data into proposals, budget requests and implementation plans.
• Oversee grant administration: eligibility, disbursements, budgeting, monitoring and audit readiness.
• Collaborate with internal teams to ensure well-governed, resourced initiatives.
• Monitor milestones, partner performance, risk areas and budget drawdown; suggest mitigations.
• Evaluate initiatives to decide refinements, scaling, handover or discontinuation.
• Identify new partnership models and tech-enabled approaches to improve access, quality or impact.
• Prepare updates and management decks for internal and external stakeholders; guide junior staff.

Skills

Partnership management

Industry engagement

Programme development

Grant administration

Funding governance

Innovation

Public-sector governance

Tools

Microsoft Office

PowerPoint

Excel

CRM tools

Dashboards

Job description

Skills and Workforce Development Agency (SWDA) in Singapore seeks a Senior Manager/Manager in Partnerships and Innovation to lead strategic partnerships, design programmes and manage grants that support career planning and CES sector capability-building.

You will drive engagement plans, governance, and funding models across public, private and community partners, translating insights into actionable proposals and evaluation plans. A contract may extend to permanent tenure.