About the PRI

The PRI is the world’s leading proponent of responsible investment. It works to understand the investment implications of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors and to support its international network of investor signatories in incorporating these factors into their investment and ownership decisions.

The PRI’s three distinct capabilities relate to the core elements of the PRI’s approach to achieving a sustainable financial system.

• Translate RI (Responsible Investment) thought leadership into insights and practical support that is tailored to what signatories need to progress their RI practice

• Convene our vast network to create opportunities for collaborative action

• Harness our global scale to influence policymakers and regulators to effect system change

Job Description

This role will be responsible for contributing to Spring, PRI’s new stewardship initiative for nature. Spring convenes institutional investors to use their influence to halt and reverse biodiversity loss across the globe by 2030. Spring aims to address the systemic risk of nature loss to societies and secure long-term value creation by enhancing corporate practices, ultimately generating positive, real-world outcomes. In its first phase, Spring focuses on forest loss and land degradation in priority geographies, and on responsible political engagement by companies. We also seek to support the work of other stewardship initiatives on nature, as we recognise the need for multiple approaches to create a sustainable future.

This position sits within the PRI’s Stewardship Initiatives team, which is responsible for facilitating collaborative investor engagement activities on key environmental, social and governance issues.

Stewardship is one of the most powerful mechanisms by which investors and their agents can contribute to the achievement of the PRI’s mission: the creation of a sustainable financial system which benefits the environment and society as a whole. The role is an exciting opportunity to contribute to work that will encourage and enable PRI signatories to fully realise the potential of stewardship to drive real-world outcomes on topics that are part of the broader nature agenda.

Spring is supported by two voluntary advisory bodies: The Signatory advisory committee, made up of PRI signatories that provide guidance on the development and coordination of the initiative; and the Technical Advisory Group, comprised of PRI stakeholders with deep expertise on nature. This role is responsible for the coordination of these two groups.

Spring will facilitate small groups of PRI signatories who in turn will use engagement and other stewardship tools to positively influence companies across a range of sectors to address forest loss, land degradation and other environmental issues. The responsibility of this role includes the facilitation of approximately 10 collaborative company engagements.

Each company engagement group will co-develop a tailored engagement strategy, that will be informed by structured assessments of company performance against Spring’s company assessment framework. This framework will also function to measure progress and results of the initiative. This role will be responsible for the coordination of structured company assessments against this framework.

The role reports to PRI’s Head of Stewardship, Nature and will involve extensive collaboration with the PRI colleagues working on Spring, as well as PRI’s sustainability team – in particular the Climate and Environment team – who are responsible for issue expertise on nature-related topics.

Core Responsibilities:

Development of initiative

• Work closely with the Head of Stewardship - Nature, other colleagues in the stewardship team, and counterparts from the Environment team to develop and execute the overall strategy of Spring.

  • Contribute to finetuning the overarching objectives, strategy and timelines of the Initiative as a whole.

  • Measure and publicly report on the progress of the initiative on an annual basis through benchmarking company performance.

  • Ensure the Initiative continues to support the PRI principles and overall strategy.

• Coordinate Spring’s Signatory Advisory Committee and Technical Advisory Group;

  • Organise quarterly meetings, including setting dates, drafting agendas and sharing notes.

  • Engage members of the advisory groups on an ad-hoc basis to request specific inputs.

  • Build and maintain a positive and constructive working relationship with each of its members.

  • Recruit new members should positions become available.

Engagement support

• Support the coordination of the Spring investor working group.

• Facilitate collaborative engagement groups for approximately 10 companies.

  • Organise periodic meetings to co-develop and evaluate engagement strategies, and prepare for company engagements.

  • Support and attend investor-company engagement meetings, including setting agendas, drafting and circulating notes, and ensuring follow-up.

  • Track the progress of engagements, discuss issues and share information.

• Conduct and/or disseminate relevant company/ sector/ policy research, guidance, and other analysis for investors to use in company engagements both within and beyond Spring.

• Recruit and onboard Participants into the Initiative.

Company assessments

• Coordinate periodic assessments against Spring’s company assessment framework.

  • Liaise with external data providers.

  • Coordinate consultancy contracts for external analytical support.

  • Ensure consistency in methods, reporting templates and scoring frameworks.

• Analyse and report company progress and success of the overall initiative.

Internal processes

• Manage and/or contribute to other initiative-wide projects (as needed), such as sector work/research, signatory accountability, webinars, progress report, etc.

• Work to identify and implement improvements to PRI coordination of collaborative engagement processes, including shareholder resolutions and the role of proxy voting.

• Work closely with other PRI engagement staff to ensure that various initiatives (both inside and outside of Spring) are aligned and coordinated.

• Proactively share knowledge with other PRI stewardship staff on lessons learned from past and ongoing engagement efforts.

• Be responsive to feedback from PRI colleagues, signatories and other stakeholders, proactively following up to ensure any issues are resolved.

• Engage with colleagues to gain a broader understanding of issues and seek to respond to or resolve them.

Networking

• Build and maintain deep relationships with investors to maintain and expand expertise of engagement practices, best practices and needs.

• Build and maintain deep relationships with stakeholders in the business and nature space to inform investors’ expectations and create channels of communication between the investor group and relevant stakeholders.

• Support periodic reporting and updating of PRI’s funders.

• Speak publicly at events, both digital and in person, on Spring, on stewardship and the PRI’s work more generally.

Person Specification

• Demonstrated subject matter expertise on nature, deforestation and corporate political engagement, and strong knowledge of stewardship as relevant to the initiatives that are supported by the PRI.

• Recognised by colleagues, signatories and stakeholders for depth and breadth of specialist knowledge on stewardship, nature, deforestation and/or responsible political engagement. Adds value by sharing specialist knowledge and insights in a professional and objective manner. 

• Excellent analytical and critical thinking skills. Ability to identify trends (and risks) and solve problems in a structured and rigorous way with a view of implementing improvements.

• Proactive approach to keeping up to date with the latest science and research on nature, deforestation and political engagement. Ability to apply knowledge and analysis to identify issues, communicate fact-based insights and develop and evaluate tailored engagement strategies.

• Ability to translate specialist information and providing technical expertise in a clear and understandable format.

• A collaborative and consultative approach to working with others & committed to fostering an inclusive environment. An ability to find consensus among differing perspectives and identifying mutually beneficial solutions.

• Good written communication and verbal presentation skills and quick to respond to queries. Strong public speaking skills with ability to give presentations and lead meetings with senior stakeholders.

• Excellent networking, influencing and interpersonal skills with the ability to build strong and constructive relationships in different circumstances (remote/in-person or internal/external) with a clear understanding of what drives people and how to achieve optimal outcomes.

• Ability to engage Spring participants using their language, tailoring communication style for this audience. Ensuring that engagement asks to companies are framed in actionable and constructive terms.

• Ability to clarify matters by absorbing and understanding relevant information and feeding them back in concise terms. Using effective listening and questioning to enhance understanding of complex issues.

• Very good programme management skills, with experience in delivering complex projects successfully, including directing others that may not be your direct reports.

• A strong sense of execution and delivery, working to agreed deadlines, involving relevant colleagues and allowing enough time for review and quality assurance.

• Ability to capture knowledge at the end of each project/ process/activity, to use and share.

• Effectively captures and structures complex, ill-defined or vague problems and is comfortable handling uncertainty (in own work and that of team members). Offers appropriate guidance or recommendations, including considering examples outside of the PRI.

• As this is a global role, international travel may be required [3-6 travels per year]. Language skills, in particular Spanish, Portuguese and Indonesian Bahasa, are desirable.

We encourage applications from those who do not meet the full list of competencies and experience listed above.

We particularly welcome candidates from under-represented groups, including Black, Asian, and other People of Colour, those with visible or non-visible disabilities, LGBTQ+ candidates and those who are neurodivergent.

The PRI is committed to offering flexibility to our employees, both formal (e.g. part-time work) and informal (e.g. a shift in hours to accommodate caring responsibilities). Please talk to us about how we could make this role flexible for you.

N.B. We reserve the right to close a vacancy before the closing date in the event of an overwhelming response or a change in business priorities.