Associate Director, Water Security

Job purpose and background

If you are passionate about climate and environmental action and want to have a global environmental impact by working at the nexus of private and public sectors - this is the perfect job for you. CDP’s Associate Director, Water Security will be responsible for overseeing delivery of a select number of CDP’s funded projects, ensuring implementation of CDP’s climate change strategy, fundraising, and team management. This role requires you to drive private sector action, provide insights to policy makers and support funding efforts, whilst working to mainstream corporate reporting on this topic by companies and investors as a new business norm.

The successful candidate will be recognized as an expert in the field. You will have a strong record of excellence, and demonstrable achievement of leading teams and initiatives in complex, fast-paced, and fluid environments. You should have experience working in multi-stakeholder settings and be comfortable communicating with senior-level stakeholders from government, sub-national actors, business, finance, and civil society. You should be passionate about CDP’s mission and be able to spot opportunities to develop integrated and inclusive multi-sectoral approaches to systems change, as well as expand and grow CDP’s network. You should have an excellent international network of experts and practitioners.

The successful candidate will sit within the Environmental Practice team at CDP and will work with various teams across CDP to ensure highest impact is achieved; providing strategic input to the Global Director, Water Security; and work collaboratively with CDP’s Stakeholder and Regional teams to implement its ambitious strategy. You will be responsible for managing the successful execution of the water security strategy, drive thought leadership, and directly manage the day to day operations of CDP’s water security team.

Key responsibilities:

• Funded projects: providing oversight and project management for effective and high-quality delivery of identified projects
• Implementation of CDP’s water security goals, working across and within CDP’s teams to ensure the strategy is socialized and implemented, including monitoring and evaluation.
• Fundraising: Work with CDP’s Development team and the Global Director, Water Security on establishing long term, sustainable funding for the program. This would often mean being the content lead for large proposals.
• Team Management: Line management of at least three water security team members.
• Supporting the strategic future of water security questionnaires, scoring methodologies, and accompanying guidance, taking a sector lead where necessary
• Supporting CDP’s cities, states, and regions program, creating synergies between CDP’s work with companies and sub-national actors - providing expert input and guidance as and when needed.
• Maintaining and building thought leadership knowledge and partnerships across CDP’s body of work across water security.
• Deputizing for the Global Director, Water Security externally and internally
• Supporting the Global Director, Water Security in ensuring the diverse range of activities that the water security team works on, including, the Science-based Targets Network, are aligned and working in the best way so as to achieve CDP’s vision and mission.

The precise description and nature of your job may be varied from time to time and you may be required to carry out other duties as necessary to meet business needs

Skills and experience required:

• Around 8+ years of experience working in environmental management, sustainability, or related field
• Demonstrable expertise in water security, in particular the role that the private sector, capital markets and national policy plays in driving change
• Project management
• Ability to deputize for CDP’s senior leaders internally and externally
• Ability to effectively exercise management authority, including performance reviews, recruitment, discipline, and other personnel actions
• Ability to provide inputs into and adapt departmental plans and priorities to address resource and operational challenges
• Ability to work independently in a lean, cross-functional environment
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Good experience of Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook
• Fluency in English

The Associate Director role is a full-time permanent role based in CDP’s London office on Great Tower Street.

Salary and benefits: £61,874 per annum, 30 days of holiday plus bank holidays, generous non-contributory pension provision, annual discretionary bonus (depending on the organisation’s performance), Employee Assistance Programme, life assurance, training and development, flexible working opportunities and other benefits.

Interested applicants must be eligible to work legally in the UK.

Before you apply

We’ll only use the information you provide to process your application. For more details on how we use your information, see our applicants privacy notice. By emailing us your CV and covering letter, you are permitting CDP to use the information you have provided for recruitment purposes.

How to apply:

To apply, please email your CV and a covering letter setting out how you meet the required skills and experience or key responsibilities, which should be no more than two pages, to [email protected] with ‘Associate Director, Water Security’ in the subject, followed by your first name and surname. The closing date is 9am on Monday 14^th June.