Head of Stewardship, Sovereign Engagement

Job Description

This newly created role will be responsible for overseeing the PRI’s collaborative sovereign engagement on climate change, expanding the initiative from its current pilot focused on Australia to a broader multi-market engagement over the coming months and years.

The initiative will involve the formation of collaborations of PRI signatories who will engage sovereign and sub-sovereign issuers on climate risks to their portfolios as investors. The Head position will oversee this work and lead a highly professional team that will support PRI signatories in their engagement with sovereign issuers.

The position will also provide input and direction for other stewardship resources, policy work, as well as sovereign debt resources and initiatives.

The role reports to the PRI’s Director of Stewardship but will involve extensive collaboration with multiple teams across the PRI, including its climate and environment team, global and regional policy teams, and fixed income team.

Core Responsibilities

Work closely with the Director of Stewardship, other colleagues in the stewardship team, and other relevant teams across the PRI to manage the launch and early stages of the new multi-market engagement. Once launched, lead the activities of the initiative, including:-

• Strategic direction
• Chairing of investor working group meetings
• Organising involvement of participating investors
• Coordinating an advisory committee and potentially a technical advisory group for the initiative
• Ensuring alignment with PRI procedures for collaborative stewardship initiatives
• Project planning and management
• Outreach to investors and other stakeholders
• Keeping on top of key developments relating to sovereigns and climate change
• Grow and manage a team to work on the initiative (initially 1-2 direct report, likely growing to 2-3 by end of financial year 2024/25, with potential for more in future). Deploy excellent people management skills including supporting team members’ professional development and their wellbeing.
• Working with the Partnerships team, manage the budget and grant process for any grant funding to support the initiative.
• Input into other PRI and non-PRI stewardship projects, initiatives, guides and other documents that relate to sovereign engagement.
• Work closely together with the other members of the PRI stewardship team to ensure that the ambition of the PRI’s Active Ownership 2.0 strategy is implemented throughout all work.
• Maintain excellent overall knowledge on stewardship, sovereign engagement, climate and nature issues, and public policy on climate change, nature and economics.
• Build and maintain deep relationships with investors to maintain and expand expertise of stewardship practices, best practices and needs, and channel those relationships to further the PRI’s objectives.
• Build and maintain deep relationships with key partner organisations that will feed into the work on the project.
• As this is a global role, occasional (approx. five times per year) international travel will be required as well as frequent (approx. 2-3 days in each week) calls/meetings outside of normal working hours due to time zones.

Person Specification

Team and Stakeholder Management

• Track record in general management of teams and projects, involving co-ordination of multiple stakeholders.
• Proven people management and leadership skills, committed to fostering an inclusive environment.
• A collaborative and consultative approach to working with others, including appropriately involving the right people, with the ability to inspire trust and drive good decision-making.
• Excellent relationship management and interpersonal skills, including the ability to forge long-term relationships with relevant stakeholders (e.g. industry leaders, civil society, peer organisations) and drive decision-making in diverse, multi-stakeholder groups.
• Excellent facilitation skills, including the ability to support collaborative activities involving investor coalitions with varying backgrounds.

Strategy and Planning

• Ability to lead a programme of work, including planning and managing activities, and driving decision-making processes that balance different needs and perspectives.
• Openness to developing and implementing innovative approaches to addressing complex issues, regularly evaluating success and course-correcting accordingly.
• Ability to understand multiple perspectives and framings of a problem, analysing root causes and identifying potential solutions and relevant risks and opportunities.
• Experience in developing and managing strategy, business plans and resourcing requirements.
• Experience in designing and implementing internal and external communications strategies that encourage participation and buy-in from key stakeholders.

Subject Matter Expertise

• Demonstrable expertise on stewardship, in particular sovereign engagement or investor policy engagement, through experience, qualifications and/ or higher education.
• Demonstrable expertise on climate change and related issues through experience, qualifications and/ or higher education.
• Demonstrable expertise on climate change policy / politics and/ or political economy through experience, qualifications and/ or higher education.
• Ability to communicate with varied stakeholders on sovereign engagement, empowering them to develop their expertise in sovereign engagement and technical understanding.
• Understanding of key networks and initiatives related to investor stewardship on climate change.
• Understanding of the investor role in addressing risks linked to system-level sustainability issues, including a knowledge of fiduciary duties as they apply to system-level sustainability issues, and of concepts including universal ownership and system stewardship.
• Understanding of climate change policy at the national level in multiple G20 countries consider an advantage.

Written and Verbal Communication

• Strong written communication and verbal presentation skills with the ability to deliver high quality briefings, reports and presentations with minimal supervision.
• Proficiency in languages other than English is desirable, but not essential.

We particularly welcome candidates from under-represented groups, including Black, Asian, and other People of Colour, those with visible or non-visible disabilities, LGBTQ+ candidates and those who are neurodivergent.

The PRI is committed to offering flexibility to our employees, both formal (e.g. part-time work) and informal (e.g. a shift in hours to accommodate caring responsibilities). Please talk to us about how we could make this role flexible for you.

N.B. We reserve the right to close a vacancy before the closing date in the event of an overwhelming response or a change in business priorities.

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