Portfolio Manager - CASA 3 in London

Palladium is a global company working to design, develop and deliver positive impact on the lives and livelihoods of people around the globe; broaden access to health, water, power, and infrastructure; build enduring, sustainable, and transformative institutions and market systems to address global challenges; and conserve the natural world. We operate in over 90 countries and have a workforce of 2,100 talented, motivated, and diverse staff of all religions, races, languages, and gender identities.

The Climate Ambition Support Alliance (CASA) is a UK-funded programme dedicated to enhancing the capacity and capability of ambitious, low-income, and climate-vulnerable countries in international climate negotiations. Overseen by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), CASA currently provides support to the Least Developed Countries (LDC) group, the Alliance of Small Island Developing States (AOSIS), the High Ambition Coalition (HAC) and the Independent Alliance of Latin America and the Caribbean (AILAC).

Palladium is seeking a Portfolio Manager to join our proposal for the next phase of the programme. The Portfolio Manager will be responsible for ensuring the smooth day-to-day running of the CASA Portfolio, from stakeholder engagement with downstream technical partners to project mobilisation and risk management, including contract management, procurement, grant disbursement, financial management and value for money. This is an excellent opportunity for an experienced Portfolio Manager to play a critical role in the fight against climate change and provision of support to climate-vulnerable countries. Should the project be awarded, the Portfolio Manager would be expected to start full-time in January 2027. This is a multi-year programme running until January 2029.

Location: The position is hybrid based in Palladium’s London office.

Primary Roles and Responsibilities

• Build trusted relationships with DESNZ, downstream technical partners, consortium members and other key stakeholders.
• Represent the programme in meetings and engagements, providing clear updates on progress, priorities and support needs.
• Maintain effective communication across partners and stakeholders to resolve issues and sustain momentum.
• Lead/support portfolio work planning and delivery, ensuring activities, milestones and outputs are completed on time and to a high standard.
• Oversee mobilisation and start-up, including partner onboarding, operational set-up and implementation planning.
• Manage governance processes, including delivery meetings, action tracking and decision logs.
• Identify delivery risks, issues and dependencies early, escalating where needed and driving practical mitigation actions.
• Prepare concise, evidence-based updates for internal and client-facing reporting.
• Line manage and support project team members as required, providing clear direction, feedback and practical problem-solving support.
• Align technical, operational, finance and MEL inputs so responsibilities are clear and activities are joined up.
• Promote a collaborative, inclusive and solutions-focused team culture across geographies and partner organisations.
• Support resource planning by identifying capacity gaps and prioritising team effort against programme needs.
• Oversee budgets, forecasts and expenditure, working with finance colleagues to support accurate tracking and timely decisions.
• Manage contract, procurement and partner administration processes in line with Palladium and client requirements.
• Maintain audit-ready records and ensure adherence to programme procedures, due diligence requirements and internal controls.
• Apply value for money principles to budgeting, procurement and commercial decision-making.

Required Qualifications:

• Strong academic background, or commensurate experience, in climate change, international development, climate negotiations, climate governance, public policy, programme management or a related discipline.
• Proven experience managing complex donor-funded programmes or portfolios, ideally in climate, environment, governance or technical assistance contexts.
• Strong project and portfolio management skills, including workplanning, mobilisation, milestone tracking, delivery oversight, risk management and adaptive management.
• Experience coordinating multiple partners, consultants or downstream delivery organisations, including supporting onboarding, contracting, procurement and performance tracking.
• Strong financial and commercial management experience, including budgeting, forecasting, expenditure tracking, value for money and compliance oversight.
• Excellent stakeholder engagement and relationship management skills, with the ability to work effectively with government clients, technical partners, consortium members and senior stakeholders.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to prepare concise, high-quality reports, briefings, updates and decision papers.
• Highly organised, proactive and solutions-focused, with the ability to manage competing priorities, maintain attention to detail and support delivery in a fast-paced programme environment.
• Collaborative and adaptive working style, with strong interpersonal skills and the ability to work effectively across teams.
• Fluency in written and spoken English.

Palladium is committed to embedding equity, diversity, and inclusion into everything we do. We welcome applications from all sections of society and actively encourage diversity to drive innovation, creativity, success and good practice. We positively welcome and seek to ensure we achieve diversity in our workforce; and that all job applicants and employees receive equal and fair treatment regardless of their background or personal characteristics.

We define Safeguarding as “the preventative action taken by Palladium to protect our people, clients and the communities we work with from harm”. We are committed to ensuring that all children and adults who come into contact with Palladium are treated with respect and are free from abuse. All successful candidates will be subject to an enhanced selection process including safeguarding-focused interviews and a rigorous due diligence process. Our company provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability or genetics.