Team Leader - Overseas Territories Climate Finance Support Programme

Team Leader - Overseas Territories Climate Finance Support Programme

Team Leader - Overseas Territories Climate Finance Support Programme

About Palladium

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.

Palladium is part of GISI’s Consulting Group, which aims to create solutions for the world’s most complex challenges. With annual revenues of $14 billion, GISI’s approximately 15,000 employees are engaged in projects across 100 countries worldwide providing construction, program/project management, and engineering consulting services.

About the Climate Finance Support Programme

The Climate Finance Support Programme (CFSP) is a proposed FCDO programme designed to support UK Overseas Territories (OTs) to strengthen climate resilience, address infrastructure vulnerabilities and improve access to climate finance. The programme is expected to provide technical assistance, project preparation support and advice on the strategic use of a capital allocation for climate resilient infrastructure.

The programme is expected to support priority investments in energy security, water security and food-system resilience, with nature-based solutions and biodiversity safeguards embedded where relevant. It will aim to strengthen local project development capability and support OTs to develop investible propositions and sustained public, private and philanthropic finance relationships.

The Opportunity

Palladium is seeking an experienced Team Leader for the CFSP. This role offers a unique opportunity to lead a high-profile programme at the intersection of climate finance, resilient infrastructure, blended finance and technical assistance. The Team Leader will provide overall strategic direction and delivery leadership for the Programme Delivery Unit (PDU), working closely with FCDO, OT governance, technical experts, investors and delivery partners to develop investible climate-resilient projects and support decision-making on capital allocation.

The successful candidate will bring senior programme leadership experience, strong climate finance and infrastructure expertise, and the ability to manage complex donor-funded delivery in politically nuanced, multi-stakeholder environments. This role will be subject to project award.

Location

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

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Leadership, Client Engagement and Representation

• Provide overall strategic leadership and accountability for delivery of CFSP, ensuring the programme meets agreed objectives, milestones, quality standards and contractual commitments.
• Act as the senior point of contact for FCDO, OT stakeholders, consortium partners and technical experts, representing the PDU in programme governance, advisory and stakeholder forums.
• Build strong relationships with OT governments, Governor’s Offices, delivery bodies, utilities, project sponsors, investors and funders, while respecting OT government ownership, local political context and the constitutional relationship.

Programme Management, Governance and Adaptive Delivery

• Lead rapid mobilisation and delivery of the PDU, including the inception phase, delivery plan, tasking arrangements, governance systems, annual work planning and front-loaded technical pool mobilisation.
• Ensure delivery is adaptive, politically informed, evidence-based and responsive to emerging priorities across participating OTs, including differing levels of readiness, ODA eligibility and capacity.
• Oversee high-quality, timely delivery of core outputs, including reporting, risk management, stakeholder engagement, capacity building, benefits realisation, technical assistance missions and investment pipeline development.

Climate Finance, Project Preparation and Capital Allocation Advice

• Oversee climate finance mobilisation, blended finance structuring, investor engagement and project preparation activities, ensuring these remain within the regulatory and contractual parameters agreed with FCDO.
• Guide the development of a prioritised pipeline of bankable, climate-resilient investment projects across energy, water and food security sectors, including through concept screening, business case development and investor-facing materials.
• Ensure high-quality recommendations, due diligence, environmental and social safeguards, fiduciary controls, arrangements and reporting are in place to support decision-making on capital allocation.

Team Leadership and Management

• Lead and motivate a multidisciplinary programme team and flexible technical pool, fostering a collaborative, inclusive and high-performing culture.
• Ensure the programme has access to the right technical expertise, including specialist climate finance, infrastructure, and sector expertise, with clear ways of working, decision-making and quality assurance processes.
• Ensure delivery meets FCDO requirements, Palladium policies and relevant UK Government standards, including safeguarding, modern slavery, fraud prevention, anti‑corruption, data protection, subsidy control and EDI.

Required Qualifications

• Senior programme leader with a strong track record delivering complex, high-value donor-funded programmes, ideally for FCDO or another UK Government client.
• Strong expertise in climate finance, blended finance, investment readiness, project preparation and/or climate-resilient infrastructure financing.
• Experience working in UK Overseas Territories, small island developing contexts, remote island settings or comparable multi-jurisdictional environments is highly desirable.
• Experience working on climate-resilient infrastructure in areas such as renewable energy, water security, food-system resilience, nature-based solutions or biodiversity.
• Confident operating in politically sensitive, multi-stakeholder environments, including with governments, small administrations, Governor’s Offices, utilities, investors, funders and multi-jurisdictional programmes.
• Excellent stakeholder engagement, communication and relationship management skills, with the ability to influence senior decision‑makers, partners, investors and funders.
• Strong programme, financial and risk management capability, with sound judgement on compliance, safeguarding, fiduciary controls and value for money.
• Demonstrated ability to lead rapid mobilisation, inception planning, technical pool deployment, project pipeline prioritisation and delivery sequencing within compressed implementation timelines.
• Collaborative, adaptive and resilient leadership style, with fluency in written and spoken English.

Equity, Diversity & Inclusion

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. These include: (but are not limited to) socio-economic background, age, race, gender identity and expression, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, nationality, veteran, marital or Indigenous status.

Should you require any adjustments or accommodations to be made during the recruitment process (due to disability, neurodiversity, or for any other circumstance), please email our team at accessibility@thepalladiumgroup.com and we will be in touch to discuss.

Safeguarding

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.

EEO Statement

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.