A senior member of CIFF’s Climate Programme team, leading on a number of high profile and significant portfolios and accountable for strategy development and programmatic implementation.

This includes, but is not limited to, being CIFF’s leader on air quality, on the decarbonisation of transport and of cities, and on the intersection of all three – taking a long-term view on what strategies, solutions, and partnerships are needed to deliver accelerated and reinforcing action; and oversight of CIFF’s global work on cooling.

CIFF is an evolving organization and priorities adapt with the latest evidence and needs of the community and the wider philanthropic sector. This role will require the ability to evolve and flex with that, stretching and developing existing portfolio areas, fostering meaningful and innovative connections with other portfolios and taking on other portfolio responsibilities as required.

The role is required to provide world class thought-leadership, innovation and connectivity across internal and external strategies and partners, while being grounded in implementation detail and political and economic realities.

The role will include representing CIFF at Board level with some of our major strategic partners and to pursue co-funding relationships for this and CIFF’s wider portfolio to leverage in more resources.

Role’s responsibilities

Strategy & planning

• Direct CIFF’s global strategies related to clean air, sub-national climate action (esp. cities), and transport decarbonisation – uniquely positioned to see the intersection between these three areas and opportunities this presents.
• Oversight of CIFF’s international cooling work including CIFF’s global partners on HFC phase-down and connectivity across CIFF’s regional work and partners.
• Provide strategic leadership, working alongside CIFF’s global grantees, CIFF’s regional teams, partners, and the wider funder community in the areas of clean air, cities and sub-national, transport and cooling.
• Develop new strategies, opportunities, capacity/skills and partners needed to deliver accelerated action in the next 3-5years. For illustration, this could include but not be limited to: developing CIFF’s work in shipping and aviation; deepening CIFF’s sub-national work beyond cities (e.g. states, provinces, regions), covering planning action and accountability; extending air quality work; using air quality as a bridge to strengthening the intersection between the climate and health communities more broadly; deepening CIFF’s cooling work to ensure an equity focus.
• Lead the preparation and presentation of high-quality analysis and insight for the CIFF Board/ Trustees, as required, to support determining future strategic priorities and setting operational plan.
• Lead the production of programme strategy and the associated evidence base, guiding and coaching other members of the climate team to provide relevant inputs, prior to a proposal’s submission for approval.

Programme development, delivery & performance

• Personally manage a portfolio of live programmes in priority CIFF strategy areas, with a value c. $70m including some of CIFF’s long-standing partners and a high-impact funder collaborative as well as developing an active pipeline of potential opportunities in accordance with the sector priorities and plan. This involves overseeing the strategic relationship with partners (including Board-level representation) as well as being accountable for and understanding the specific details of the programme objectives and progress against delivery.
• Lead CIFF’s overall portfolio approach to clean air, cities and transportation, providing direction to regional and sectoral teams, partners strategies (including specific investments in India and China and indirect investments across Europe, Strategic Communications, Litigation and Finance) to capture opportunities, understand and address barriers, share learnings and advise on course-correction.
• Lead CIFF’s global cooling work and cooperate with regional and sectoral teams, partners strategies (including specific investments in India and China and indirect investments in Finance) to capture opportunities, understand and address barriers, share learnings and advise on course-correction.
• Maximise the value of CIFF’s cross-cutting investments through well-coordinated engagement/feedback with the wider CIFF Climate team, and by providing value-adding insights and support to CIFF’s partners and networks (including new and existing funders) to enable them to flourish.
• Against key corporate and / or sector team indicators and targets, monitor and report internally on the performance of the strategy portfolio and individual programmes; and draw out insights and analysis from this reporting about the portfolio and sector’s performance. As part of this, lead engagement with the sector team’s Evidence, Measurement and Evaluation (EME) Business Partner, to identify and embed appropriate monitoring and evaluation processes to all proposals and programmes.
• Oversee and actively programme manage the strategy and partners, conducing regular reviews of the progress and performance of programmes and overseeing course correcting action when targets are not being met or investments are not delivering as expected.
• Lead accountability for applying due diligence and risk management protocols appropriately throughout the development and delivery of proposals and programmes, to ensure the interests and reputation of the Foundation are protected.
• Conduct structured feasibility analysis on investment proposals, using an appropriate range of methodologies and techniques, to ensure they are based on logical and robust assumptions, which can withstand scrutiny from the Executive Team (ET) and CIFF Board.
• Lead work either with sector colleagues or independently, to prepare summary reports, board reports and portfolio investment reports, ensuring these are produced to a high-standard and in a timely fashion, often within tight timeframes.

Sector knowledge and profile-building

• Be CIFF’s subject matter expert in air quality, transport decarbonisation, cooling and climate action in cities, keep abreast of key developments, proactively maintain external networks with experts and opinion-formers and establish appropriate information gathering networks and channels to deepen professional knowledge and skills and to ensure the team’s work is shaped by the most up-to-date insights and research.
• Provide world class thought leadership to CIFF’s partners and funders in the areas of clean air, cities and transport and cooling, pushing forward thinking into new areas and intersections and galvanising the grantee and funder community around evidence-based strategies.
• Distil and share knowledge appropriately across the CIFF climate matrix structure and CIFF more widely where relevant (e.g. air pollution and children’s health) in order to enhance programme and strategic outcomes.
• Provide high quality insight on current developments, including to CIFF’s Board as required, on external developments and insights from CIFF’s own portfolio, sometimes at very short notice.
• Proactively contribute to the development of thought leadership, PR, marketing and advocacy materials, to support CIFF’s ambitions to scale-up, mainstream and leverage additional support for its initiatives.

Stakeholder and partner management

• Lead engagement with new and existing funders to build confidence in CIFF’s partners and strategies in the relevant areas, resulting in increased co-funding.
• Provide leadership, quality partnership, support and constructive challenge to CIFF’s existing partners and networks and identify and cultivate new partnerships to enhance strategic objectives.
• With a variety of external audiences, develop and maintain strong partnerships and act as a knowledgeable resource about CIFF’s programmes and priority areas.
• Conduct rigorous research and evaluation of potential partners, using agreed corporate protocols and techniques, to assess their suitability and credentials for collaborating on CIFF initiatives.
• Apply CIFF’s agreed account management disciplines and approaches in all dealings with programme partners and stakeholders, to ensure productive and professional relationships are maintained in a coordinated and strategic manner.

Membership and leadership of the team

• Provide strategic advice to, and perhaps take on direct responsibility for other elements of CIFF’s portfolio beyond the direct city, transport, cooling and clean air remit.
• Be a role model to less experienced team members, demonstrating CIFF’s leadership behaviours and providing mentorship to aid their growth.
• Adopt a coaching approach with colleagues which instills a culture of openness and trust, embraces diverse thinking, and encourages continuous improvement and learning – particularly on land-use and finance.

Requirements

• Over 10 years’ experience in climate policy or implementation at national or international level, ideally in an area relevant to sub-national, transport, cooling or clean air, having held leadership positions of significant strategic projects and programmes.
• Deep experience working with government systems and/or experience influencing the policies of public agencies, private sector organizations or donor organisations.
• Experience of working in/with the NGOs or the philanthropy sector.
• Experience of working in/with both developed and developing countries.
• Skilled in relationship building and strengthening; able to influence others and work collaboratively, uniting groups with a shared purpose, experience of working with stakeholders of all levels (including very senior), internal and external
• Strategic and systems thinker, able to think innovatively and creatively but with a pragmatic and solution-orientated mindset
• Demonstrable experience in analysis and due diligence; policy, planning and programme delivery, including field experience, all within the development sector
• Knowledge of the evidence bases pertaining to programme design and implementation, and belief in the importance of evidence-based decision making
• Strong working knowledge of impact measurement and programme monitoring and evaluation
• Ability to analyse an organisation’s strength of management, vision and adaptive capacity. Ability to recruit, guide, influence and/or advise management teams to effectively implement programmes
• Effectively champions and promotes causes – credible and professional, they always present the Foundation’s programmes in a compelling way to engage the audience
• A proven self-starter, who works with pace and resilience
• English is CIFF’s business language – we expect all of our people to display outstanding verbal and written communication skills across all aspects of their role
• Capacity to work in a range of cultural and socio-economic contexts, adapting style and approach appropriately and in a culturally sensitive manner to maximise effectiveness

Benefits

CIFF operates a hybrid working policy across all locations, which means employees work some of the time in the office and some of the time from home. We are happy to provide more information on this as part of the recruitment process.

Alongside a competitive salary, we offer a generous benefits package here at CIFF that includes, but is not limited to the following:

• Annual leave – 25 days per annum. Increasing by 1 day after each year of service, to a maximum of 30 days.
• Bonus – CIFF currently operates a discretionary bonus scheme.
• Training allowance
• Wellbeing allowance
• Life insurance
• Medical insurance

Please submit your application on or before 8 May 2023