Director, GCS in London

About Us

Climate Lead empowers philanthropic leaders everywhere to take immediate and far-reaching climate action. By serving as an impartial guide, Climate Lead equips new climate philanthropists with the information and insights they need to drive transformative solutions. We cut through the complexity by curating roadmaps, in partnership with a diverse network of experts, to help philanthropists make a bold impact on climate.

Summary

The Director, Global Climate Strategies, is responsible for curating major climate content and leading the development of high-impact climate strategies and solutions. In partnership with the Senior Director, Global Climate Strategies, this role leads efforts to source, vet, and curate climate strategy and mitigation solutions while at the same time building a robust, dynamic knowledge repository for products, vetted solutions, and the network of specialized experts and advisors that Climate Lead taps for its work. This role serves as a broker for the field to connect new donors with high-impact solutions and experts.

Managerial Responsibilities

This role does not have any managerial responsibilities.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Climate Solutions (70%)
• Source and diligence climate solutions.
• In collaboration with the Managing Director and Senior Director and in coordination with the Philanthropy and Communications teams, lead climate content and strategy contributions - including sourcing projects, curating expert reviewers, diligencing projects, and documenting findings.
• Lead GCS contributions to develop scaled strategies frameworks and curate big ideas that have the potential to draw eight - and nine-figure philanthropic investments into ripe strategies that pursue an ambitious impact goal.
• Responsible for keeping a "beat" on various sectors, geographies, and levers through regular communication with expert funders, attending funder strategy meetings, and other learning opportunities. Beats for this role include climate finance and climate solutions in the European region.
• Responsible for managing relationships with specific NGOs (“Strategy relationship manager”) by staying up to date on the evolution of their strategy/ies, coordinating with the Philanthropy team on donor stewardship, serving as the GCS communication point to the NGO, and documenting communications in our knowledge management system.
• Help move new climate philanthropists to impact.
• Responsible for producing high-quality, timely on-demand products (bespoke and proactive) and delivering presentations that move philanthropists to impact based on specific areas of expertise (or beats).
• Responsible for identifying, vetting, and helping prepare solutions and experts for tailored donor events; providing speaker recommendations; responding to requests from Communications and Philanthropy teams for donor event content; and responding to other requests as-needed.
• Contribute to knowledge management.
• Regularly update the Knowledge Management System (a Salesforce database) to ensure key sourcing and vetting information is captured.
• Contribute to ensuring strategies and solutions sourced and vetted are captured in a way accessible to the entire team across Climate Lead, including the level at which a solution has been validated per Climate Lead’s frameworks and materials.
• Contribute to developing a robust, dynamic knowledge repository for knowledge products produced for new climate philanthropists, vetted climate mitigation solutions, and the network for specialized experts and advisors that Climate Lead taps for all its work.
• Partnerships (15%)
• Build strong external relationships with climate experts, funders and NGOs.
• Build or leverage existing deep and authentic relationships with experienced funders and experts who provide expertise on strategy, vetting, and sourcing.
• Proactively and independently engage leading climate funders to assess the readiness of scaled strategies and giving opportunities for new donors in critical thematic areas and lift gaps for the field when there is a need to build out giving pathways.
• Build authentic relationships with NGOs, cultivating mutual trust and transparency while respecting the confidentiality of donors.
• Convene experts (“Opportunity Circles”) to guide the development of solutions for specific sectors or geographies as needed.
• GCS Team Operations (10%)
• Serve as a senior member of the GCS team.
• Together with the Managing Director, Deputy Managing Director, and the Associate Directors, foster a collaborative GCS team environment.
• Provide proactive mentorship and leadership for new and existing teammates.
• Support the MD and DMD in implementing organizational priorities and conducting special projects, as needed.
• Support onboarding of new staff and annual planning.
• Support recruitment and onboarding of Climate Lead staff.
• Contribute to annual operations planning and budgeting processes.
• Cross-Team Operations (5%)
• Promote a culture of learning across Climate Lead.
• Support the onboarding new staff joining other teams.
• Under the direction of the Deputy Managing Director, lead specific Climate Lead-wide learning sessions and processes.
• Contribute to Climate Lead organizational goals and culture through active participation in cross-team workshops and working groups (e.g., Values Working Group, X-team process workshops, etc).

Success Criteria

• Entrepreneurial: Self-starter with a strong entrepreneurial orientation thriving in new, fast-paced ventures. Energized by helping to build something new and innovative. Capable of hands-on implementation and administration.
• Advisory Orientation: Enjoys work environments built around active inquiry and learning; thrives by creatively synthesizing ideas and input from multiple sources, and has an ability to recognize excellence; pinpoint key questions, distill frameworks, weigh competing points-of-view, and synthesize actionable findings with rigor and speed. Appreciates working in an advisory or consultative setting.
• Communication Skills: Brings outstanding communications skills, particularly as a writer and with a clear point of view on how to most effectively tailor content to generate powerful narratives. Understanding how to translate complex material into relatable and digestible content is imperative, but also remain respectful and true to the complexity and depth of the issues at hand.
• Embrace Collaborative Teams: Brings a genuine respect for Climate Lead’s collaboration model, which works in a participatory way across the organization and through Climate Lead’s extensive global networks. Effectively engages with external partners, such as consultants and retained experts, in order to create leveraged capabilities and operations at scale.
• Emotional Intelligence: Comfortable considering multiple points of view and encouraging constructive feedback.

Qualifications

This role will bring an objective approach to the full breadth of climate strategies and solutions in order to work effectively across a wide spectrum of networks, partnerships, and funder groups. It requires a significant understanding of the philanthropic tools and levers available to achieve change in the climate field.

Knowledge, Skills, Abilities

• Climate expertise: Candidates must have 10+ years of broad strategy and content expertise, ideally working across sectors and geographies. In addition, this position requires experience working on climate finance and at least five years of experience working in the European region.
• Leadership skills: Brings multiple years of experience overseeing complex projects or programs with limited oversight; demonstrated success working across different teams and programs; prior management of people or consultants; accountability to deliver high quality results to senior organizational leadership.
• Network activation: A background operating in global and regional climate networks and ability to activate or tap into leading experts from across the climate and environmental justice communities. Skilled at cultivating and convening trusted networks to achieve common goals.
• Expert broker: Must demonstrate the ability not to be wedded to a single theory of change or climate agenda and instead serve as an expert broker for the field.
• Humility, curiosity, collaboration: Possesses a strong sense of humility and deep curiosity to learn from others about complex issues. A strong collaborator both internally and externally in a variety of roles (e.g. leadership and support roles).

Education and Experience

• Minimum of BS or BA in a relevant field, Master's degree in an applicable field preferred.
• 10+ years of experience in climate, with at least five years working in the European region on climate issues.
• 5+ years of experience leading complex program initiatives.
• Experience working on climate finance.
• Demonstrated experience working in a matrixed or cross-functional environment is required.
• A track record of developing persuasive content focused on conveying issues, movements, or causes is essential.

Salary Range: £156,000-£173,000

Work Environment: Climate Lead is headquartered in San Francisco, CA. This position would be based out of Climate Lead’s hub in London, with potential to be located in Geneva, Switzerland.