Membership Director

Associate Director of Member Development & Insights – Trade Association

Location: Central London (Hybrid)

Salary: £85 - 100k (depending upon experience)

Working Pattern: Full time, hybrid (three days a week in Central London)

Please make an application promptly if you are a good match for this role due to high levels of interest.

Membership Bespoke is recruiting for an Associate Director of Member Development & Insights on behalf of an influential organisation supporting some of the UK’s most recognised premium brands. This is a senior, strategic role for an experienced leader who combines exceptional relationship‑building with sharp analytical judgement and a deep understanding of how market intelligence shapes programmes, research and member value.

Key Responsibilities

• Build and maintain trusted relationships with senior leaders across the membership, ensuring a rich, current understanding of market conditions, strategic priorities and member needs.
• Develop and nurture relationships with major consulting and insight partners, ensuring access to high‑value intelligence and early visibility of global trade trends.
• Set strategic direction for research, insights and thought‑leadership programmes, defining purpose, ambition and the arguments Walpole should advance.
• Act as Summit Director, shaping the editorial ambition, theme and speaker strategy for the annual flagship event.
• Provide strategic leadership for flagship programme, defining its narrative, long‑term vision and role within sector development.
• Set priorities for the international programme, agreeing annual strategy, defining market focus and ensuring activities deliver tangible commercial value for members.
• Lead the member‑facing sustainability and ESG offer, ensuring programmes stay ahead of sector needs and produce meaningful, measurable outcomes.
• Translate external intelligence into sharper programmes, stronger research questions, better event formats and a more coherent strategic narrative.
• Establish a regular rhythm of intelligence‑sharing across the organisation, ensuring Membership, Policy and Communications work from a shared, current picture of the sector.
• Identify gaps in the member offer and bring forward proposals to strengthen value and relevance.

About You

• Significant senior experience combining external relationship‑building with analytical or intellectual responsibility (consulting, professional services, trade bodies or equivalent).
• A proven ability to build trusted relationships with CEOs, founders and senior leaders, using those relationships purposefully to improve organisational impact.
• Experience setting strategic direction for complex programmes, defining purpose clearly enough for capable colleagues to execute independently.
• Strong judgement in commissioning or shaping research, insight or thought‑leadership work.
• Deep knowledge of premium sectors or evidence of rapid ability to develop sector expertise.
• Experience of international market intelligence, commercial access or business development.
• Warm, credible and authoritative with senior stakeholders; intellectually curious, strategically confident and generous in sharing insight.
• A collegiate peer to fellow directors and a brilliant support to the CEO, bringing clarity, honesty and capacity rather than demands.

Apply today.

Membership Bespoke is acting as a recruitment business in relation to this role. Membership Bespoke positively encourages applications from suitably qualified and eligible candidates regardless of sex, race, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, religion or belief, marital status, or pregnancy and maternity. xwzovoh Membership Bespoke is the most experienced membership‑focused recruitment firm in the UK, with 14+ years of experience delivering tailored permanent, temporary, interim and Executive Search recruitment solutions to Trade Associations, Regulatory Bodies, Political Parties and Professional Bodies.