Principal Consultant — Strategy & Transformation in London

As a Principal Consultant in our Strategy and Transformation team, you will be client-focused, leading, project managing and supporting projects that allow organizations to develop and implement sustainability strategies. You will be an experienced sustainability practitioner, with fluency across topics and expertise in specific areas. You will be well-versed in sustainability strategy development, have strong commercial acumen and significant transformation-related expertise. This should include experience of operating model design, change management and implementation of large transformation programmes, preferably in a sustainability context. You will be meticulous on the details, but also get the wider picture – providing an informed market view and an ability to articulate business value and benefits. Alongside this, you will contribute to our long-term growth through supporting the development of our market proposition, line management responsibilities and business development.

Key Responsibilities

• Client & Project Delivery – 65% of time
• Project Management – managing the delivery of agreed consulting engagements/projects on time, on budget, and to high standards of quality.
• Deliverable Drafting & Presentation – preparing and delivering high quality reports, presentations, and workshops in line with project scope.
• Expert input and QA – reviewing project work and providing expert viewpoint and quality assurance on deliverables.
• Client Relationship Building – earning the confidence and trust of client teams, and representing our direct clients’ interests effectively inside their organisations.
• Business Development – 20% of time
• Service development - contributing to the development of our strategy and transformation service offerings and/or streamlining and improving existing service offerings including creating delivery and proposal templates, providing training and acting as internal expert on strategy and transformation programmes.
• Key Account Development – helping to guide and support deeper and longer-term partnerships with valuable and impactful clients over time.
• Proposal / Bid Writing & Presentation – discussing, framing, designing, pricing and presenting project proposals (with the guidance and support of colleagues).
• Thought Leadership & Marketing – supporting the team and wider business in lead generation and brand-building through the creation of IP and marketing materials.
• Organisational & Personal Development – 15% of time
• Training & Personal Development – using the ACE (Anthesis Centre of Excellence) learning and development platform, and guided by your line manager.
• Line Management – supporting more junior colleagues to guide and manage their growth and performance within Anthesis.
• Strategic & Organisational Initiatives – contributing to important internal initiatives, proposition development and innovation.
• Recruitment – contributing to growing the team through recruitment.

Skills, Knowledge & Expertise

We believe that great contributors can come from various backgrounds, and we welcome those shifting into the sustainability space from adjacent fields. As guidance, at this level, we’d typically look for:

• 6+ years experience in strategy/transformation consulting from a leading management or sustainability consultancy.
• Or 7+ years’ experience in-house, in a related organisational function/field, where strategy development and implementation was part of role.
• Fluency across multiple sustainability topics, with expertise in specific areas (e.g. climate, circularity).
• Operating model design and large programme implementation experience are essential.
• Understanding and experience of applying best-practice strategy and transformation frameworks, and change management approaches.
• Experience in sustainability governance and progress management desirable.
• Ability to understand commercial data sets, develop financial models and build sustainability-linked business cases.
• Confidence in talking to Board level stakeholders including CFOs and financial professionals in client organisations.
• Extensive sustainability network in UK/EMEA and demonstrated success in proactively building pipeline and growing accounts.
• Strong working familiarity with MS Office Suite is required, with high levels of numeracy and strong Excel skills preferred.
• Previous experience with working on corporate purpose programmes is a nice-to-have.
• Fluency in AI and ability to embed AI usage in internal and client-facing work.