South Pole – Regional Senior Lead, Article 6 Project Development, Africa

Job summary

South Pole is looking for a Senior Managing Consultant to strengthen our team in Africa and play two key roles: enhance our company’s engagement with governments and contribute to regional consultancy assignments and business development efforts. As the Senior Managing Consultant, you will ensure good relationships with key government departments to support South Pole’s business development activities and promote the company as a thought leader in carbon markets. You will also ensure the timely delivery of high-quality consultancy assignments to international, regional and local clients.

You will be responsible for developing and implementing a targeted government engagement plan and the overall management of proposals on climate change policies, carbon markets and climate finance, and projects implementation. In addition, you will provide technical guidance to consultancy assignments and act as the main point of contact for specific clients when implementing assignments.

Short-listed candidates will have an excellent understanding of global and regional climate policy as well as an established network of relevant policy-makers, ideally with prior experience working in government engagement and policy development-related work and/or in consultancy.

Main responsibilities

• Manage and supervise large/complex consultancy assignments throughout their entire project cycle: initiation, planning, design, execution, monitoring, controlling and closure
• Develop and implement a comprehensive engagement plan with several governments in Africa on topics related to carbon markets and Article 6
• Represent South Pole and lead some business development efforts in the region
• Provide technical leadership for the development of proposals and implementation of advisory mandates for the corporate and public sector clients on topics such as carbon market instruments, Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, climate policy implementation and financing, sustainable development plans and strategies (e.g. NDCs), and carbon offset procurement strategies
• Interact and build relationships with our international, regional and/or local clients and manage the timely delivery of assignments
• Contribute to knowledge-sharing activities and expand skills and knowledge linked to the topics and services offered by South Pole
• Lead and directly manage small teams of consultants in a multi-cultural and multi-geography context
• Contribute to the development of South Pole’s thought leadership activities, services, products, marketing materials and offerings.
• Support the Sourcing team to implement and deliver South Pole’s carbon project portfolio in Africa by assisting project partners and South Pole to understand the impact of Nationally Determined Contributions and policy.
• In coordination with Country/Regional staff, represent South Pole as required in meetings with senior decision-makers and international meetings of relevant agreements and institutions.
• Put in place partnerships with organizations that can complement our offer to Governments and help us scale our work
• Enable relationship maintenance and consistent engagement with key relevant stakeholders
• Conduct policy research
• Lead on advocacy communications internally and externally, in partnership with communication teams and other departments to raise visibility of South Pole’s work
• Able to to provide project-specific recommendations in order to handle policy uncertainty in various African REDD+ countries, such as DRC, Zambia, Angola, Tanzania, and others as needed.

Essential profile requirements

• University degree, ideally at a Master’s level or higher, in a sustainability-related field
• A minimum of 10 years demonstrable experience in the development of Nationally Determined Contributions and policy, strategy and investment plans to deliver on these commitments
• Strong experience of working in government or intergovernmental institutions
• Significant experience with the UNFCCC climate negotiations and processes and supporting climate adaptation and climate resilience
• An expert and thought leader in climate policy and delivery with an extensive network of relationships with relevant policy makers
• Extensive experience working in the field of climate change or sustainability
• Relevant network of regional and national climate policy-makers in Africa

• Excellent understanding of carbon markets and climate finance developments in the region
• Excellent project management skills, from both a technical and administrative standpoint, and proven ability to guide project teams in a multi-cultural and multi-geography context
• Excellent writing skills, with proven expertise in creating and reviewing high-quality written documents (proposals and deliverables)
• Excellent stakeholder and client management skills
• Autonomous and proactive, yet strong ability to work collaboratively
• Demonstrable commercial skills and good business sense so as to be able to identify and seize opportunities in a challenging and competitive market environment
• Excellent prioritisation and time management skills
• Excellent working knowledge of all Google Suite applications and MS products (Word, Excel)
• Fluency in English and Kiswahili required. Fluency in French and/or another common language used in Africa is beneficial.

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