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 institutional investor signatories in incorporating these factors into their investment and ownership decisions. The PRI acts in the long-term interests of its signatories, of the financial markets and economies in which they operate and ultimately of the environment and society as a whole. The PRI is truly independent. It encourages investors to use responsible investment to enhance returns and better manage risks but does not operate for its own profit; it engages with global policymakers but is not associated with any government; it is supported by, but not part of, the United Nations.

Working at the PRI provides an opportunity to engage with highly motivated, culturally diverse professionals on a wide range of cutting edge issues through the lens of sustainable finance. The PRI provides scope for development at all levels with opportunities for project leadership and management working alongside some of the most influential signatories and leaders across financial markets and economies. In combination with a supportive culture that encourages continuous learning and flexible working policies, the PRI is a highly engaging place to work on truly transformative issues.

This opportunity is within the PRI’s Stewardship team, which is responsible for:

·Coordinating collaborative investor engagement activities on environmental, social and governance issues with companies;

·Defining and providing guidance on best practice stewardship activities to our global signatory base; and

·Addressing system barriers that inhibit high quality, effective stewardship.

The successful candidate will report to the Director of Stewardship. The stewardship team sits within the PRI’s broader content function at the PRI, which operates under a matrix structure. The successful candidate can therefore be expected to work across this structure, but will primarily work closely with members of the environment team, who oversee the PRI’s sustainable commodities strategy

Job description

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 sustainability.

The focus of this role will be on managing and coordinating collaborative investor engagement with investee companies. The PRI see collaborative engagement as one of the most effective ways for institutional investors to use their collective leverage with investee companies to address material ESG risks and drive sustainability outcomes.

The successful candidate will be primarily responsible for coordinating, project managing and facilitating dialogue amongst a group of institutional investors who participate in the PRI’s collaborative engagement initiative on sustainable commodities and deforestation. This will entail maintaining close and effective relationships with participating investors, building an understanding of the focus companies for the initiative (the companies being engaged by investors), maintaining close relationships with colleagues internally – especially the PRI’s environmental issues team, and working proactively to manage the initiative so as to ensure it is best placed to achieve progress on the underlying issues.

Since 2011, the PRI have coordinated the Investor Working Group on Sustainable Palm Oil, this is a group of now over 50 institutional investors who have engaged companies across the palm oil value chain in support of more sustainable practices. Since 2017, the PRI have also coordinated a group of investors to engage with companies across the cattle and soybean value chain to address deforestation and other ESG issues. From 2021, these groups will be consolidated into a single collaborative engagement on these issues. The focus of this collaborative engagement will remain on addressing deforestation in cattle, soybean and palm oil value chains.

This is an area of rapidly growing interest for institutional investors given the important role that addressing deforestation will play in climate mitigation and halting biodiversity loss. This role represents an exciting opportunity to oversee and manage the next phase of this work and to raise the level of ambition and action taken by institutional investors to address soft commodity-driven deforestation through their stewardship activities.

Core Responsibilities: 

■ Manage and coordinate investors’ collaborative engagement with companies across cattle, soy and palm oil supply chains

■ Oversee and monitor engagement progress against set objectives

■ Monitor company performance and approaches to addressing deforestation in cattle, soy and palm oil supply chains.

■ Support institutional investors to set objectives and targets for engagement with specific companies and monitor progress against these targets over time.

■ Work closely with investors to support their engagement efforts with a select group of companies

■ Outreach to and recruitment of investors to join the collaborative engagement

■ Ensure active participation of institutional investors within the collaborative engagement group

■ Identify strategic and industry-wide interventions that institutional investors can take to address deforestation and other ESG issues common in soft commodity supply chains.

■ Plan, host and facilitate/chair conference calls between institutional investors to seek input and discuss plans of future engagement

■ Build and maintain relationship with key external stakeholders and stay updated on other industry-wide initiatives

■ Build and maintain strong internal relationships with key teams, including the PRI’s environmental issues team, to ensure topic expertise is fed into the initiative as appropriate

■ Maintaining regular external communication of the high-level engagement progress

■ Present externally on webinars and at other events on the collaborative engagement

■ Track engagement progress through internal IT systems and other administrative tasks

■ Support the stewardship team on other ad hoc work where necessary

Core Competencies:

The PRI expects roles at a ‘Specialist level’ within the organisation to demonstrate skills across the following core competencies:

 Analytical

•Proactively offers impartial specialist knowledge, insights or input

•Uses business/ specialist knowledge and analysis to identify issues, applying fact-based insight to develop and evaluate solutions or solve issues

•Maintains a professional and impartial stance in assessing all information which feeds into decision making

•Balances rigour with pragmatism in conducting analyses that are fit for purpose

•Effectively reviews and quality-checks all analyses

Business Awareness

Focuses on maximising Signatory or operational value and driving PRI outcomes

•Actively keeps up to date with developments both within the organisation and within area of specialism

•Balances the internal needs of the PRI and that of Signatory Organisations to deliver outputs

•Understands how own area of specialism drives value to the PRI and meets its mission

·Uses market insights and knowledge to suggest and drive strategic initiatives which will enhance signatory servicing.

Collaborative

•Builds consensus and trust with all that engage with

•Is responsive to feedback, proactively following up to ensure any issues are resolved

•Engages with colleagues to gain a broader understanding of issues and seeks to respond to or resolve them

•Provides specialist knowledge and insights to colleagues where requested

Communicative

•Translates specialist information or provides technical expertise in a clear and understandable format

•Clarifies matters by absorbing and understanding relevant information and feeding them back in concise terms

•Uses effective listening and questioning to enhance understanding of complex issues

•Engages the recipient using their language, tailoring communication style for the audience

Developmental

•Actively seeks opportunities to enhance specialist knowledge/ experience

•Constantly reviews own work with the aim of improving outputs

•Applies knowledge or experience to question practices and suggest alternatives

•Actively seeks and shares feedback wherever possible, as a means of improvement

•Uses best practice identified through external networks or evolutions in the field of specialism

Structured

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

•Regularly monitors and reports on progress of work, providing regular updates as appropriate

•Takes a methodical approach to how specialist or technical knowledge is acquired and, distributed (where necessary)

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

Technical Competencies & Experience:

■ Relevant academic background, ideally at Masters degree level, or equivalent experience.

■ Strong interest and knowledge of sustainability issues, ideally in relation to sustainable commodity supply chains and deforestation, and how they interact with financial markets.

■ Good understanding of responsible investment and motivated by the mission of the PRI.

■ Strong understanding of or experience in corporate engagement and/or proxy voting.

■ Strong facilitation skills. Diplomacy, tact, and ability to build consensus.

■ A collaborative and consultative approach to working with others. The ability to foster an inclusive working environment

■ Excellent organisational and project management skills.

■ Excellent written communication and verbal presentation skills. Comfort presenting to groups, speaking in public and facilitating workshops and an ability to adapt communication style to different audiences.

■ Excellent networking, relationship management and interpersonal skills, including the ability to work with and influence a diverse range of stakeholders.

■ Fluent English. Other languages relevant to financial markets desirable but not essential.

■ Willingness and ability to travel, including internationally.

■ Flexibility to occasionally conduct conference calls in different time zones outside normal working hours.

■ Good knowledge of relevant IT (e.g. Excel, Word, PowerPoint and CRM software).