Program Director, Building Decarbonization

Key Responsibilities

• Policy and advocacy leadership: Working closely with programmatic leadership and policy leads across the organization, establish an ambitious all-electric buildings policy agenda and create compelling strategies and advocacy campaigns to achieve EF’s clean energy and equity goals.
• Program Execution: Lead all planning and implementation of grantmaking strategies, ensuring that policy ideas and advocacy approaches move from concept to action effectively.  Incorporate learnings to refine and iterate on strategies going forward.
• Relationship-building: Work with state, regional, and national partners as well as other stakeholders to address issues equitably and strategically. Build an environment of co-creation and support for grantees and partners based on trust. This includes collaboration with campaigns, networks, and coalitions.
• Staff management: Lead the Building Decarbonization Program team of approximately one to two staff in a remote-work environment, ensuring strong supervision across the team with a focus on enhancing diversity and inclusion, performance management, and individual growth.
• Fundraising: Collaborate with the Vice President, Strategic Partnerships and EF Leadership as well as with colleagues in the Strategic Partnerships and Program teams more broadly to cultivate and maintain funder relationships, while engaging and supporting States and Regions Program and Strategic Communications staff around direct and aligned fundraising goals.
• Thought leadership: Support all communications efforts around EF’s Building Decarbonization Program policy ambitions, its strategies, and its progress. Convene philanthropy around EF’s aligned strategy, bring diverse perspectives together to find solutions, and represent the organization to a variety of thought partners, including with internal and external stakeholders.
• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI): Investigate, partner with stakeholders, and understand the most pressing equity concerns related to electrifying buildings. Develop and implement a solutions-oriented approach to advancing equity through program strategy, management practices, and organization-wide leadership.

Candidate Profile

EF seeks candidates with demonstrated expertise in strategy and campaigns to equitably abate emissions from buildings. Experience at the federal, state, local, or regional level will be considered. The Program Director must know how to engage and lead in policy and campaign development, understand the political landscape, bring exceptional planning and implementation capabilities, and be an effective collaborator and co-creator with diverse stakeholders.

Additional qualifying factors for the Program Director include:

• Knowledge of key topics impacting climate and clean energy at both federal and state levels. Demonstrated experience developing effective policy and/or advocacy strategies to reduce emissions from the built environment and achieve climate policy goals.
• Extensive experience designing and advocating for solutions relevant to climate, clean energy, buildings, and housing.
• Demonstrated management excellence in a complex, multi-site, and multicultural organization, including supporting the personal growth of all employees with a coaching and mentoring orientation.
• Experience developing ideas and approaches that consider and synthesize multiple perspectives into a coherent big-picture strategy and workable plan, prioritizing investments, and evaluating progress; able to facilitate strategy across a network of internal and external partners.
• A service orientation with a commitment to support staff to thrive and for the organization to succeed in meeting its goals.
• Experience that reflects an understanding of the role of philanthropy in advancing policies and campaigns.
• Bring a high degree of cultural competence and emotional intelligence, experience participating in or leading equity initiatives, and a track record of contributing meaningfully to a workplace where equity and inclusion are core values in EF’s internal and external work.
• Respected leader in the field with an ability to establish rapport internally and with funding partners, grantees, consultants, and other stakeholders.
• Skilled in writing and speaking, including being able to present complex information in a meaningful way to the EF Board of Directors, funding partners, and allies.
• Solutions-oriented problem-solver who is committed to working collaboratively in a diverse, dynamic, and complex environment with a combination of local, regional, and national staff and partners.
• Curious and inquisitive, with excellent relationship-building and convening skills, bringing together people from diverse backgrounds and cultures.
• Fundraising experience is a plus, but not required.