About Anthesis

Anthesis is the Sustainability Activator! We believe that transformative, cross-sectoral action is required to rise to the challenge of the Decisive Decade, and we exist to make sustainability happen.

Our company brings together the largest dedicated group of sustainability experts in the world, working with more than eight hundred clients, across seventeen countries. Our team combines broad and deep sustainability expertise with the commercial and operational capabilities it takes to deliver real change. Our culture is founded on the empowerment of great people, working in agile teams, in a high-ownership, high-accountability environment.

We are proud of what we have achieved so far with Anthesis, but we know we have a duty and an opportunity to contribute much more. Our success will depend on attracting, empowering and growing world-class leaders who can help to harness our capabilities and resources for transformational shared value

Our Water Stewardship team provides comprehensive and practical solutions to public and private sector clients to address water scarcity challenges and issues, climate change impacts, changing regulatory conditions, market pressures, and technology developments. We work closely with our clients to understand their ultimate goals and design customized solutions to achieve short- and long-term objectives that strengthen business continuity, license to operate, and brand value through a holistic water stewardship strategy approach.

Our Water Stewardship team brings a unique blend of capabilities to help assess and manage a broad range of water-related initiatives, including operational performance improvement, risk & opportunity assessment, benchmarking and context setting, target & goal setting, governance, reporting & disclosure, value chain performance improvement, and stakeholder engagement. When needed, we leverage our data analytics and visualization tools to develop data driven and transparent solutions to address shared water challenges.

Summary of Role

We are looking for an Associate Director to lead our Water Stewardship service team. You will be leading a dedicated team taking full accountability for creating and implementing our existing water stewardship services, in close collaboration with, and reporting to the Net Zero & Climate Solutions Lead and Operations Lead. Your projects and clients will span across a diverse set of industries, ranging from Fortune 500 companies to boutique brands, and require engagement with clients, their suppliers, and their various stakeholders (employees, investors, associations and NGOs) around the world with a focus on helping these clients build the foundation for their water stewardship strategies. The successful candidate will have the opportunity to work on high impact consulting projects across our portfolio of water stewardship services, including water accounting/footprinting, water risk assessments, goal/target setting, and water stewardship strategy development and implementation.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and drive the Service Line strategy, go to market and business plan, in close collaboration with the Solution Leader and the Solution Operations Leader

• Lead business development activities related to the waste service offerings, including sales calls, actively engaging with new and existing clients to establish and/or grow the relationships in accordance with our client management approach, and developing and/or stewarding proposals and marketing materials

• Manage the Service Line’s financial and operational activities, working closely with the Solution Operations Leader and internal support resources as may be appropriate

• Define leading offerings to take to the market, including developing supporting materials, e.g. sales materials, proposal, budget, and deliverable templates, etc. as well as monitoring market developments to evolve the current offerings, tools and approaches to meet and exceed client needs

• Contribute to thought leadership on your offering internally and externally

• Responsible for all aspects of quality assurance for the Service Line’s offerings

• Recruit, develop/ mentor, retain and manage talent, to achieve performance excellence, within the Service Line, and under the guidance of the Solution Operations Leader

• Establish close ties and work collaboratively with other Service Line Leaders, in the NA region, and their equivalents, in other regions, and share best practices as well as lessons learned

Key requirements

• 15+ years’ experience as a sustainability practitioner, ideally in a consultancy environment, and/or related corporate or NGO roles, with a demonstrated technical track record in water stewardship

• Bachelor’s degree in a sustainability-related field in Environmental Sciences or Engineering, Economics, Mathematics or other sustainability-related disciplines.

• Ability to work at and navigate all levels of an organization, driving decisions and direction through influence, including executive and senior business stakeholders.

• Highly organized with strong project management skills, interpersonal skills, and a professional presence with the ability to quickly establish personal credibility and demonstrate expertise.

• Subject matter advisor on at least three of the following topics in water stewardship: including water accounting and footprinting, evaluation of business risks and opportunities, target and goal development, water efficiency improvements, stakeholder engagement, and water-related reporting

• Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS) Credentialed Specialist

• Familiarity with standards and tools broadly used in water stewardship work, including ISO 14046, AWS, WFN’s Water Footprint Assessment Manual, WRI’s Aqueduct tools (Water Risk Atlas, Food, Floods), WWF-DEG’s Water Risk Filter, Ecolab-Trucost’s Water Risk Monetizer, and Ceres’ Aqua Gauge

• Additional sustainability experience (e.g., GHG inventories, LCAs, reporting, etc.) preferred

• Experience in training team members on key principles and methodologies applicable to water stewardship