Pros
Nesta has the potential of being a great employer. Lots of intelligent and thoughtful people with a healthy dose of empathy and compassion among staff - you can find great colleagues if you look in the right places. Rather good salaries for a charitable sector (to 'attract talent'), a nice benefits package for a charity, a good office space and flexible working to support work-life balance. Given that Nesta endowment-based, it has also all the potential to generate value-driven innovation, thought leadership, and balance quality and pragmatism in delivering outputs.
Cons
Having seen both the old and the new leadership in action, the new one started off with high ambitious and a promise of focus. As an organisation, it feels somewhat lost though. It could be that the leadership team has a clear plan (lots of politicking and hidden agendas brought into daily operations, so hard to tell) and it's just the rest of the staff that feels a bit lost. Decision making power is concentrated in the hands of just few. There's an increasing disconnect between individual teams both vertically and laterally. While there was a lot of change post re-structure, the change continues. Partially in the light of Nesta's acquisition of the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT). It's no longer clear who is running the show - BIT or Nesta. With many key members of Nesta's senior leadership team having joined from BIT, existing staff numbers to be bolstered by BIT secondees, and a strong focus on Nesta integrating with BIT , Nesta seems to be on a mission to be more like BIT. Perhaps that was the plan all along... If you don't care much for the plurality of worldview, are committed to tackling big social issues via insights from psychology and behavioural economics, and are seeking for a place to have means to put that all into practice then Nesta is likely to be a place to thrive.