Senior Sustainability Strategist

Are you our next Senior Strategist? Have you dreamt of working with a global financial services group to figure out how to drive true financial inclusion? Perhaps you’ve got the ideal skillset to help develop the sustainability strategy for an apparel icon. Or you’re the best person to turn to, to demystify the regulations, and craft a compelling report that’ll actually drive change. We’re looking for a Senior Strategist to join our market-leading sustainability offer. Using our magic blend of technical expertise, strategic thinking and creative storytelling, you’ll be responsible for leading our wide-ranging strategy, reporting and communications work with clients as varied as Microsoft and Danone. Ultimately, you’ll play a vital role in achieving RY’s vision… To create a world that believes in business.

With such a fast-growing offer and limitless opportunities to work with some of the world’s most interesting companies, we’re looking to expand our team at a senior level. Joining a team of ambitious, bright and energetic strategists, you’ll be responsible for leading sustainability strategy, reporting, and wider communications work for some of our biggest and most complex clients, collaborating with designers, project managers and strategists across the agency. We don’t just create belief through our client work – it’s just as important within our own agency too.

Sustainability has been a core aspect of our work at RY for over 20 years, and it’s continuing to grow, driven by an incredible team of ambitious strategists, designers and project managers. Working in the sweet spot between technical sustainability and creative communications, we help some of the world’s biggest, most complex and inspiring organisations define their strategy and then tell their story with credibility and flair.

Remit and responsibilities

• Lead on insightful sustainability reporting programmes. You’ll act as a lead strategist on client accounts to deliver insightful, rigorous and engaging sustainability reporting across a range of channels. Balancing technical knowledge with creative flair and compelling storytelling, your work will span the entire reporting lifecycle, from setting the direction inspired by the latest sustainability developments and themes, to defining the content strategy, advising on appropriate standards and frameworks, interviewing stakeholders, and partnering with copywriters and creatives to bring it all to life.
• Support clients’ alignment with key frameworks. You’ll work with analysts and strategists to help clients prepare for and align with key reporting and sustainability frameworks, standards and regulations (such as ESRS, ISSB, UK SRS GRI, TCFD and PAI) through gap analysis, benchmarking, value chain mapping and identification of relevant disclosure requirements.
• Work on impactful sustainability strategy work. You’ll deliver progressive sustainability strategies for our clients – from in-depth double or context-based materiality assessments to ambitious and communicative strategic frameworks and targets.
• Develop topic-specific communications and campaigns. Whether communicating an organisation’s climate transition plan, or creating a communications plan around specific human rights issues, you’ll lead the development and execution of topic-specific communications and campaigns for clients across a range of sectors.
• Pitch to win. You’ll lead proposals, pitches and new business meetings, working with teams of project managers, creatives and business development partners to win work with new clients and grow existing accounts.
• Raise our profile. Naturally curious and entrepreneurial, you’ll proactively come up with inspiring ideas and unique points of view, and develop content for thought leadership and marketing material. You’ll draw upon your extensive network, building relationships and speaking at events to champion our thinking.
• Build sustainability knowledge internally. You’ll help upskill the broader RY team around sustainability topics, running Sustainability Sessions and training for colleagues in other functions, e.g. employee experience, brand, digital, film.

Requirements

• You’re an entrepreneurial sustainability professional that has been in a senior position for some time, either client-side on in a consulting capacity, with the gravitas and expertise to deliver. You’ve worked with a wide range of strategies, topics or clients of different sizes and across multiple sectors and geographies, at various stages of their sustainability journey.
• You’re totally up to speed with the rapidly evolving landscape of sustainability and ESG frameworks, and have a solid working knowledge of ESRS and ISSB, with demonstrable experience applying these standards. You also know the more established sustainability and reporting standards and frameworks inside out, including GRI, the IIRC Framework and TCFD, plus ratings and indices. Ideally, you’re familiar with context-based strategic frameworks too, such as Future-Fit and the Sustainable Development Performance Indicators.
• You have bucketloads of experience advising on and developing sustainability (and ESG) reporting, from first timers to those leading the pack. You may also have experience inputting into annual reporting as well as delivering Double Materiality Assessments aligned with ESRS that have been successfully assured.
• You’re familiar with communications strategy and can unearth a brilliant audience insight and develop a solid strategy, acting as a springboard for the best creative ideas. You have experience working with creatives and designers to bring ideas and content to life, in service of audience-first reporting.
• You are both an effective line manager (this role will involve some line management responsibilities over time) and a strategic sparring partner with gravitas and authority as you consult with leaders both at RY and client-side daily.
• Commercially astute and with a ‘growth mindset’ you contribute to unlocking and designing for long term growth of our client relationships for commercial, reputational and impact value.

This is a fantastic opportunity to be a part of our award-winning independent, creative agency, with limitless opportunities to work with some of the world’s most innovative and interesting companies.

At RY, you’ll enjoy a fun and inspirational place to work, alongside some of the brightest and best in the business, a competitive salary benchmarked against industry standards, a culture that nurtures learning and development and embraces the flexibility of working from home and days in the office.

If this sounds like the role you’ve been looking for, we’d love to hear from you.