Engagement Lead (2) - Australia Only

Are you passionate and knowledgeable about sustainability? Are you a strong stakeholder manager with excellent engagement and advocacy skills? Then the World Benchmarking Alliance (WBA) is looking for you because we are recruiting for two Engagement Lead roles in Australia:

Engagement Lead for Nature

Multistakeholder Engagement Lead

The World Benchmarking Alliance (WBA) is a global non-profit organisation that measures how business impact people and planet, so that together we can hold companies accountable for contributing to sustainable development. We publish publicly available and free benchmarks that inform and empower business leaders and investors, as well as governments, civil society and other key stakeholders to act. WBA insights aim

to serve as an accountability mechanism, incentivising companies to become a successful driver of change and deliver on the SDGs. Together with our Alliance, we are building a movement that enables transparent dialogue, and ultimately action towards a more inclusive, fair and sustainable world.

WBA’s Engagement and Communications Function drives forward engagement and advocacy with multiple stakeholders, so that we focus working with and through others, accelerating action on key topics and learnings from our benchmarks. We aspire to use storytelling to convey complex and technical issues in a human way, ensuring the impact of companies is understood and acted upon. Our team is made up of both thematic (e.g. nature, food and agriculture, climate) and stakeholder (e.g. policy maker, investor, civil society) experts so that we bring deep content knowledge to stakeholder groups in a way that most supports their needs.

We are recruiting for two engagement leads who will focus on driving impact on nature and food and agriculture related issues in Australia. The roles will work closely together and many of the skills required will be similar, whether you will be working from a thematic or stakeholder point of view. The key differences are explained below; you may apply for one, or both roles at the same time but please clearly explain your rationale and skills match.

Accountabilities

Engagement Lead Nature

• Build and nurture relationships with different stakeholder groups in Australia throughout the Nature Benchmark cycle, including “SDG2000” companies, civil society organisations, investors, business platforms, academia and policymakers, identifying needs and opportunities to use benchmark data in their work and serving as point of contact for multistakeholder requests and queries.
• Identify needs and opportunities to make the Nature Transformation data relevant and useful to stakeholders in Australia. Set objectives and develop relevant and compelling narratives to support closing the corporate accountability gap.
• Proactively engage Australian companies by organising Communities of Practice, outreach and engagement with business platforms etc.
• Support the Nature Transformation to build relationships that enable WBA to input into relevant UN processes (e.g., UN CBD, UNEP).
• Thought leadership to support the Nature Transformation strategy (e.g. speaking at relevant events, writing opinion pieces of publications).
• Support the Nature Transformation’s Collective Impact Coalition (focused on pushing more companies to assess and disclose their nature-related risks, impacts and dependencies) by identifying and engaging relevant members, and planning and delivering multistakeholder actions for the Coalition.
• Work closely with the Nature Transformation to prioritise and strengthen the reputation, credibility, and relevance of the Nature Transformation, as well as WBA.
• Champion WBA’s monitoring, evaluation, and learning efforts, including support for quarterly/annual reporting and funding proposals.
• Work closely with WBA’s Alliance team to make the most of our close partners and community of Allies, designing and implementing more national ways to engage.
• Share experiences and learnings internally, to ensure a professional and aligned strategy, troubleshooting issues, and supporting larger organisational priorities.
• Contribute to WBA’s culture, including modelling the values of TEAL and the appreciation of differences.

Multistakeholder Engagement Lead

• Build and nurture relationships with different stakeholder groups, including “SDG2000” companies, civil society organisations, investors, business platforms, academia and policymakers, identifying needs and opportunities to use benchmark data in their work and serving as point of contact for multistakeholder requests and queries. Focus on Australian stakeholders, but ensure relevance at the global level, working across the seven systems, bringing insights from WBA’s data of 2000 companies.
• Create and enable delivery of a focused Australian stakeholder engagement strategy, enabling a national movement to close the corporate accountability gap, supporting a campaign for change.
• Support outreach with Australian companies through focused Communities of Practice
• Build key relationships (including with UN bodies and national governments) to ensure WBA inputs into UN processes and outcomes focusing on COP31.
• Thought leadership to support WBA’s Engagement & Communications strategy (e.g. speaking at relevant events, writing opinion pieces of publications).
• Support WBA’s Transformation teams to build WBA’s Collective Impact Coalitions by mapping the landscape of investors and civil society coalitions and campaigns, drafting expectation documents, linking to public policy priorities and building relations with key stakeholders who can play a role in engagements.
• Engage proactively with WBA Transformation teams, advising on external context to support plans and strategies specific to different benchmarks’ goals.
• Champion WBA’s monitoring, evaluation, and learning efforts, including support for quarterly/annual reporting and funding proposals.
• Work closely with WBA’s Alliance team to make the most of our close partners and community of Allies, designing and implementing more national ways to engage.
• Share experiences and learnings internally, to ensure a professional and aligned strategy, troubleshooting issues, and supporting larger organisational priorities.
• Contribute to WBA’s culture, including modelling the values of TEAL and the appreciation of differences.

Engagement Lead – what we typically look for

• 6-8 years’ relevant multistakeholder experience in the field of sustainability.
• Experience of engaging the private sector (e.g. advocacy/campaigning/engagement roles, or working for a financial institution or real-economy corporate) would be an advantage.
• Strong coordination and project management skills.
• Ability to navigate between and among different sustainability themes, including biodiversity and nature, food and agriculture, decarbonisation and energy, finance, etc.
• Ability to provide expertise on engagement with different stakeholders while maintaining neutrality.
• Excellent verbal and written English communication skills, including ability to distil and translate complex data into relevant insights.
• Ability to multi-task and perform under pressure, often with competing deadlines.
• Ability to work across different virtual teams and global cultures, comfortable in an evolving ‘Teal’ working environment that promotes flexibility, self-management and wholeness.

Our offer

This role is only open to candidates based in Australia with unrestricted working rights.

We encourage personal development and believe in flexible working arrangements. The compensation range for this role is 98.000AUD - 115.000AUD. We have offices in Amsterdam and London, as well as many employees that work all around the world.

Interested?

Send us your resume by clicking the 'apply for this job' including a brief cover letter explaining why you’d like to join WBA and how you match the role description. For any questions regarding the role, please reach out to careers@worldbenchmarkingalliance.org with the subject ''Questions for Engagement Lead''

We encourage you to apply as soon as possible, no later than 8 January 2025 at 23.59 CEST. We will review the application after 8 January 2025. Virtual online interviews will be held for this role. For more information about WBA and our benchmarks, please see our website or follow @SDGBenchmarks.