Senior Director, Solutions

Key Responsibilities

Leadership, Management, and Mentoring

Lead and support a distributed, global team of five direct reports across multiple time zones to identify the solutions and strategies that are most important for climate impact.

• Set strategy and vision for the Solutions team and measure outcomes accordingly.
• Lead the team in setting ambitious goals, support direct reports in establishing high-impact individual goals, and mentor and hold team members accountable for achieving them.
• Ensure team members receive regular input on their work by incorporating feedback loops into internal team processes, cross-functional deliverables, and from external NGO relationships.
• Partner with peers across the organization to model leadership and management best practices and champion a healthy, high-performing team environment appropriate for Climate Lead’s current and future organizational age and stage.
• Model a collaborative work environment within and beyond the direct-report team that promotes results, innovation, and teamwork.
• Embed Climate Lead’s values and working norms into team meetings, retreats, systems, processes, and practices, leading with integrity, care, courage, collaboration, a growth mindset, and purpose.
• Be a good steward of Climate Lead’s resources by discerning the best use of travel, conference, and consulting budgets.

Sourcing Climate Solutions

• Oversee complex multi-donor sourcing and diligence efforts, including initiatives such as Audacious.
• Set priorities and strategic vision for the Solutions team, monitor global trends on climate and high-impact climate solutions, and guide sourcing tools and processes, including convenings of global experts on specific topics.
• Develop and pilot strategies to scale new and innovative vetting approaches; manage and prioritize the vetting queue; and oversee the consultant team that helps to source and vet solutions.
• Supervise Solutions team directors to increase the number of scaled strategies with the potential to draw eight- and nine-figure philanthropic investments into ripe strategies that pursue ambitious impact goals.
• In collaboration with the Managing Director, GCS and in coordination with the Philanthropy and Communications teams, lead climate content and strategy contributions, including sourcing projects, curating expert reviewers, diligencing projects, and documenting findings.
• Maintain a “beat” on key sectors, geographies, and levers through regular communication with expert funders, participation in funder strategy meetings, and other learning opportunities.
• Serve as strategy relationship manager for specific NGOs by staying current on the evolution of their strategies, coordinating with the Philanthropy team on donor stewardship, serving as the GCS communication point to NGOs, and documenting communications in the knowledge management system.

Moving New Climate Philanthropists to Impact

• Lead team efforts and contribute to the production of high-quality, timely, on-demand products, both bespoke and proactive, and deliver presentations that move philanthropists toward impact based on specific areas of expertise.
• Support team efforts to identify, vet, recommend, and help prepare solutions and experts for tailored donor events; provide speaker recommendations and responsive expertise to Communications and Advisory teams as needed for event content and other requests.

Partnerships and External Networks

• Lead day-to-day management and engagement with a network of advisors, specifically the Climate Lead Council and Opportunity Circles.
• Build strong external relationships with climate experts, funders, and NGOs.
• Build or leverage deep and authentic relationships with experienced funders and experts who provide expertise on strategy, vetting, and sourcing.
• Proactively and independently engage leading climate funders to assess the readiness of scaled strategies and giving opportunities for new donors in critical thematic areas, and lift gaps for the field when there is a need to build out new giving pathways.
• Cultivate authentic relationships with NGOs grounded in mutual trust and transparency while respecting donor confidentiality.

Cross-Team and Team Operations

• Help promote a culture of learning across Climate Lead, including guiding the GCS team in tracking the impact of funding Climate Lead has catalyzed, as well as providing input into the Climate Lead learning committee on high-impact solutions appropriate for organization-wide learning.
• Support the Managing Director, GCS in socializing and implementing organizational priorities, onboarding new staff, annual planning, recruiting, strategic planning, operations planning, and budgeting.
• Serve as a senior member of the GCS team and provide support to the Managing Director, GCS on strategic priorities and special projects as needed.

Ideal Candidate

Climate Lead seeks a Senior Director who brings broad climate expertise (ideally in the Global South), strong managerial judgment and capabilities, and a deep commitment to helping new philanthropists move quickly and rigorously toward high-impact climate solutions. The ideal candidate will be equally comfortable setting strategy, coaching senior team members, engaging global experts and funders, assessing the readiness of scaled climate strategies, translating complex ideas into actionable recommendations for philanthropists, and operating as a hands-on individual contributor.

Candidates must bring a balanced mix of objectivity, humility, intellectual range, and practical team execution skills. They will be energized by a fast-paced, consultative and advisory environment, able to synthesize competing points of view with rigor and speed, and skilled at building the trust necessary to work effectively with NGOs, expert funders, consultants, and internal cross-functional partners.

Key Success Factors

• Climate Expertise: Brings an objective approach to the full breadth of climate strategies and solutions and can work effectively across a wide spectrum of geographies, networks, partnerships, and funder groups. Has significant understanding of the philanthropic tools and levers available to achieve change in the climate field. Ideally brings expertise on climate solutions in the Global South.
• Network Activation: Has experience operating in global and regional climate networks and the ability to activate or tap leading experts. Skilled at cultivating and convening trusted networks to achieve common goals.
• Advisory Orientation: Enjoys environments built around active inquiry and learning; creatively synthesizes ideas and input from multiple sources; recognizes excellence; pinpoints key questions; distills frameworks; weighs competing points of view; and synthesizes actionable findings with rigor and speed.
• Leadership and Team Development: Supports individual development while prioritizing overall team needs, adapting communication so others understand and engage more easily, creating space for others to fully contribute, and modeling healthy, balanced, and effective work practices in a high-stakes environment.
• Collaboration and Translation: Strengthens working relationships across the organization by facilitating conversations, helping team members build cross-functional relationships, and translating between different perspectives and working styles.
• Team Dynamics: Amplifies individual strengths by facilitating difficult conversations with courage and compassion, celebrating diverse approaches to problem-solving, and building psychological safety.
• Results Orientation: Optimizes for both speed and sustainability by helping the team connect daily work to climate impact, making difficult prioritization decisions with transparency, and protecting the team from unnecessary urgency while maintaining focus.
• Functional Expertise and Learning: Develops others’ expertise while maintaining their own by coaching, asking questions, connecting people to learning opportunities, and modeling continuous learning in a rapidly evolving field.

Required Experience, Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Minimum of 15 years of broad climate expertise, ideally working across sectors and geographies, including in emerging economies.
• Proven track record designing, building, leading, and coaching high-performing and highly collaborative teams.
• Demonstrated record of creating a team and work environment in which people from diverse cultural, social, and ethnic backgrounds can thrive.
• Balanced sense of confidence and humility, along with unimpeachable ethics, judgment, and discretion required when working with and supporting high-profile philanthropists.
• Demonstrated history of effectively engaging and managing external talent, including consultants and retained experts, to create the leveraged capabilities Climate Lead needs to do this work at scale.

Compensation, Location, and Travel

The salary range for the Senior Director, Solutions is $260,000 to $290,000, depending on experience, and comes with a highly competitive benefits package. Climate Lead headquarters is based in San Francisco, and we welcome candidates based in the San Francisco Bay Area or around one of our other hubs in Washington, D.C., and New York City. Staff in the San Francisco Bay Area currently work a hybrid schedule and are in the office Tuesday through Thursday each week and typically work from a home location on other days. Staff in our hub cities currently work from a remote home office. This position will require domestic and international travel.

Climate Lead’s EEO Statement

Climate Lead values diversity and always treats employees and job applicants based on merit, qualifications, competence, and talent. Climate Lead does not discriminate on the basis of, or traits historically associated with, race, color, religion, religious creed, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, sexual orientation, veteran or military status, domestic violence victim status, political affiliation, or any other status protected by state or federal law.

To Be Considered

Please submit your resume and cover letter expressing your interest in the position and fit for the role via the “Become a Candidate” button on GoodCitizen’s website.

For additional questions, please reach out to: climatelead-srdirector@goodcitizen.com

Senior Director, SolutionsClimate LeadSan Francisco, New York, or Washington D.C.

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