Commercial Business Partner

At Partou, we believe every child should feel free to be themselves. Our nurseries are safe, joyful spaces where children can grow, play and discover, supported by teams who care deeply about what they do. We are one of the largest childcare providers in the UK. As we grow, so does our ambition to build an inclusive, high-quality childcare experience and a compelling place to build a career. Why This Role Is Important to Us The Commercial Business Partner is a key role in Partou's future Commercial model. The role exists to provide Nursery Managers and Area Managers with a single, proactive commercial partner who understands their nursery, their capacity, their demand, their staffing constraints and their growth opportunities. This is not a reactive sales administration role. It is a commercially focused business partnering role, designed to help each nursery make better decisions about occupancy, enquiries, tours, room mix, session availability, future starts and recruitment implications. What You`ll Be Doing As Commercial Business Partner, you will work closely with Nursery Managers and Area Managers to improve nursery-level commercial performance. You will use data, local insight and strong working relationships to identify where each nursery's growth is constrained, then help turn that diagnosis into practical action. You will support the journey from enquiry through to place acceptance, ensuring families receive a clear, informed and joined-up experience, while making sure that commercial activity is aligned with real operational capacity. You will act as the link between central Commercial, Operations, Marketing, Recruitment, and nursery teams, ensuring decisions are made with a shared view of demand, capacity, staffing and commercial opportunity. Key Responsibilites And Accountabilities Commercial performance and occupancy Maintain a clear, up-to-date view of demand, waitlists, occupancy, available capacity, future starts, room mix and staffing constraints across your nursery portfolio. Build and track nursery-level occupancy action plans with Nursery Managers and Area Managers. Identify the key constraint(s) to growth at each nursery, such as demand, tour conversion, staffing, reputation, room mix or availability. Support nurseries to prioritise the actions most likely to improve occupancy and revenue. Monitor enquiry, tour, registration and starter performance, identifying where conversion is strong or weak. Diagnose nursery-level conversion issues and work with Nursery Managers to improve follow-up, tour preparation and family engagement. Escalate recurring blockers into the relevant central teams, ensuring action is visible and followed through. Enquiry and conversion management Support the triage, prioritisation and routing of family enquiries, with particular focus on high-value, complex or capacity-constrained opportunities. Assess enquiries against availability, start date, room mix, funding expectations and staffing constraints. Work with Nursery Managers to ensure families receive accurate pre-tour information and a strong first impression. Follow up on priority enquiries, tours and conversion blockers. Ensure accepted places are handed over clearly to the Family Experience Team, with agreed sessions, funding assumptions and family context. Planning and resource alignment Translate future occupancy plans into clear implications for recruitment, labour planning, room mix and capacity. Ensure staffing requirements for future starts are identified and visible to Area Managers, Nursery Managers and relevant central teams. Work with Operations and People teams to ensure recruitment decisions are informed by future commercial demand. Support scenario planning for room moves, session changes, growth opportunities and capacity risks. Provide practical challenge where commercial plans are not deliverable due to staffing, quality or operational constraints. Business partnering and stakeholder management Build strong, trusted relationships with Nursery Managers and Area Managers. Translate data into clear, practical conversations that help nurseries act. Work collaboratively with Marketing on local activation opportunities and nursery-specific demand generation. Work with the Family Experience Team to ensure the family journey is joined up from enquiry to onboarding and in-life support. Share insight with Commercial leadership on recurring themes, risks and opportunities across the estate. Systems, reporting and continuous improvement Maintain accurate CRM and reporting discipline for enquiries, tours, conversion, occupancy and action plans. Use dashboards and reporting tools to identify trends and risks. Support the development of standardised ways of working across enquiry management, commercial planning and nursery partnering. Contribute to continuous improvement of the commercial operating model Provide data to the setting to support pricing reviews and actions. How You`ll Succeed - What Does Success Look Like? Success in the role of Commercial Business Partner would be characterised by achieving key performance indicators (KPIs) across various aspects of the commercial performance of your nursery portfolio and ensuring Nursery Managers and Area Managers feel better supported, better informed and more commercially empowered: Nurseries have clear, practical occupancy action plans that are actively used and increase occupancy across the nursery portfolio. Future occupancy plans are connected to recruitment and labour planning decisions. Tour conversion, registration conversion and starter conversion improve across the relevant nursery portfolio. Parent experience improves through clearer communication and better-prepared nursery interactions. CRM and reporting are accurate, timely and trusted. Overall, success in this role is demonstrated by achieving and surpassing these KPIs, ultimately leading to increased revenue, customer satisfaction, and commercially empowered Nursery Managers. Professional Knowledge, Skills And Experience Professional Knowledge: Ability to understand nursery capacity, occupancy, staffing ratios, room mix and session availability. Strong understanding of commercial performance drivers, ideally in a multi-site, consumer-facing or regulated environment. Good understanding of sales funnels, conversion management, customer journeys and local trading performance. Knowledge of early years funding, nursery operations or childcare systems would be advantageous. Skills: Strong commercial judgement and analytical capability. Ability to interpret data and turn it into practical action. Excellent stakeholder management and relationship-building skills. Strong written and verbal communication. Ability to challenge constructively and influence without direct line authority. Comfortable using CRM, nursery management systems, Excel, dashboards or reporting tools. Highly organised, with strong follow-through and action tracking. Experience: Experience in commercial operations, sales, business partnering, revenue management or multi-site operational support. Experience working with performance data and translating insight into action. Experience supporting or influencing local teams to deliver commercial outcomes. Experience in childcare, education, healthcare, retail, leisure or another multi-site environment would be desirable. Why Partou? Become a Partou team member and join a supportive, caring community where you can enjoy a fulfilling and rewarding career. With access to world-class childcare research, resources, and expertise, we help you develop skills, and empower you to create a positive impact on the development of the next generation, as they lead us into a better future. Learn more about working at Partou: Safer Recruitment: All applicants will undergo EnhancedDBS checks and thorough vetting. This role is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1975. Partou is proud be a part of the National Partnership in Early Learning and Childcare (NPELC) - a group of 10 of the largest childcare providers across England. Together, we operate over 1,300 childcare settings, employ more than 38,000 people, and take care of over 160,000 children. #J-18808-Ljbffr