Head of Climate Response

at  NESTA

WE ARE RECRUITING FOR A HEAD OF CLIMATE RESPONSE TO JOIN CHALLENGE WORKS

The successful candidate will be passionate about harnessing the power of entrepreneurship and technology to mitigate climate disaster and to enable adaptation. We are looking for someone with substantial experience in innovation associated with climate response, who can come up with ambitious ideas and build credible partnerships and teams to deliver meaningful change.

PERSON SPECIFICATION

We are looking for someone with substantial experience in innovation associated with climate response, who can come up with ambitious ideas and build credible partnerships and teams to deliver these. Whilst climate adaptation will be your priority, you will be aware of the connections between adaptation and mitigation in order to also explore integrated approaches and have the skills and flexibility to engage across a wide set of associated themes.
You will be able to navigate the landscape of climate change and wider issues related to climate on the natural the space confidently, and have strong networks, but you could have built up this experience and these networks in a variety of contexts for example in consultancy, industry, through technology policy or from your own experience as a climate entrepreneur.

EXPERIENCE:

The successful candidate will be passionate about innovation and bring a creative mindset to delivering impact through harnessing the power of entrepreneurship and technology.

• A strong track record of leading teams or organisations and of delivering at pace
• Strong track record of coming up with big ideas and scoping new opportunities, and converting these into new projects.
• Experience and contacts in science and technology ‘futures’, academia, industry and government.
• Excellent partner and client relationship management, with experience of collaborating with a diverse range of partners e.g. government, philanthropists, businesses, foundations, including securing significant funding
• Experience securing funding and negotiating complex programme scopes and budgets with ambitious partners and backers to ensure resources and timescales match ambition.
• Natural networker and convener and can manage a multitude of external relationships.
• A skilled communicator and influencer adept at speaking to senior audiences in a range of different organisations.
• Experience and interest in managing and supporting team members to deliver the greatest possible impact through innovation.

THE ROLE

As the primary expert on innovation in climate response within the Challenge Works team, you will lead the development of a portfolio of related prizes, creating new ideas, securing partnerships and unlocking funding to take these forward.
You will have a lot of flexibility to shape the portfolio, exploring opportunities (both in the UK and globally). The opportunities could be across both mitigation and adaptation and although you might have more experience in one rather than the other you will also need to be aware of the connections between the two in order to also explore integrated approaches.
You’ll be an advocate for innovation as a response to climate change, and passionate about the creation of ground breaking new technologies, ideas, uses of data, businesses or services to contribute towards a better future.
You will be able to navigate the landscape of climate change and wider issues related to climate confidently, and have strong networks. Our prizes are multi-million pound endeavours and we create them through partnerships with the likes of the UK Government, USAID, ARIA, UK Space Agency, Ofwat and Toyota Mobility Foundation. We are looking for someone capable of building a portfolio of climate related programmes that match this ambition.