Head of policy and stakeholder engagement

over 1 year ago
Full time role
Remote... more
Remote... more

Company

Watershed is the enterprise climate platform. Leading companies like Walmart, Stripe, Spotify, Klarna, and Twitter use Watershed's software to measure, ...

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Job Description

About Watershed

Watershed is a software platform for running a world-class climate program. We measure our success in the carbon reduction achievements of our customers. We are looking for team members who love product-building, want to work hard at a mission-oriented startup, and will collaborate with us in shaping the culture of a growing team.

We have offices in San Francisco and London and remote team members across the US and Europe. We hope that you'll be interested in joining us!

The role

We are looking for a senior climate leader to head Watershed’s global strategy and engagement across policymakers, non-profit partners, foundations, philanthropists, and industry bodies — and in so doing, help set the north star for corporate climate action as a whole. This is a highly strategic role: you will set and execute Watershed’s policy and stakeholder engagement strategy, which will shape the long-term future for Watershed and the broader field of corporate climate. You will be responsible for scaling an experienced international team to drive this work, and supporting them in doing the best work of their careers.

Virtually all global greenhouse gas emissions lie within the supply chain or product footprint of businesses. The climate commitments of companies therefore provide an avenue to decarbonizing the global economy that works in parallel to governmental commitments, and already cover a large fraction of global emissions.

As corporate climate leaders work to bend their companies’ emissions toward zero, they act within a complex, international web of policymakers, non-profit stakeholders, and quasi-standards bodies, who are together building the intellectual and operational frameworks for corporate action. These institutions are tackling questions like:

  • What emissions within a company’s product, operations, and supply chain should they have responsibility for?
  • How should those emissions be measured — or estimated when good data is unavailable?
  • What types of reporting do companies need to do on those emissions, on what timelines, and with what consequences for mistakes or restatements?
  • What timeline to zero is appropriate for companies in each economic sector given the latest science on decarbonization pathways?
  • As goods and services cross borders, how is the embodied carbon disclosed or taxed to protect domestic carbon markets?

Watershed helps our customers navigate this landscape, and contributes back to shape the rapidly evolving field of corporate climate policy based on our unique views into aggregated, cross-company data and our lessons from work with our customers in the trenches of climate implementation.

You will lead this critical and strategic pillar of Watershed’s business. Your work will also require you to collaborate with every other team across Watershed. And by guiding our thinking on foundational corporate climate standards and policy, you and your team will play a central role in shaping Watershed's product and services.

You might be a fit if you:

  • Have held senior leadership roles in climate policy, advocacy, and/or industry bodies
  • Have demonstrated success navigating complex stakeholder landscapes at the highest levels of government, and/or non-governmental coalitions to drive policy changes, shape industry standards, and build durable new coalitions
  • Have experience working in both the US and internationally, especially in the EU and UK — Watershed’s policy and community work will be global from the start
  • Have built and led high performing teams; are excited to coach, mentor, and guide experienced climate leaders and strategists

Bonus:

  • Science, economics, or engineering background
  • Experience working closely with product teams

FAQ

What’s your approach to remote work?

Watershed is hiring team members on all US and EU time zones, and we’re committed to growing a long-term distributed team. We have hub offices in San Francisco and London, and remote team members from Oregon to New Jersey to Ireland. There may be certain jobs that need to be in San Francisco / London or certain locations, and will be specifically noted in the job description or in conversations.

What are Watershed’s return-to-office plans?

We reopened our San Francisco office in June 2021, and treasure the energy and collaboration that comes from working together in person. We’re particularly lucky to have a great rooftop outdoor space, where we can gather for lunch, one-on-one’s, and the occasional outdoor whiteboarding session. We’re also investing deeply to support remote as a first-class hub, with regular Zoom social times, an emphasis on transparency and written artifacts, and periodic offsites to gather everybody in person.

We’re a COVID-cautious company. The office is open to vaccinated team members with regular testing, and we’ll continue to pay close attention to case rates to ensure it’s safe for everybody.

Do I need X years of experience, climate experience, etc.?

No, Watershed is hiring team members with a broad range of prior experience, and we’d love to talk with you regardless of yours. We prioritize mentorship on the job. There maybe certain jobs that will need X years of experience, and will be specifically noted in the job description.

What’s the interview process like?

It starts the same for every candidate: getting to know the team members through 1 to 2 conversations about Watershed, your experience, and your interests. Next steps can vary by role, but usual next steps are a skill or experience screen (e.g. a coding interview for an engineer, a portfolio review for a designer, deeper experience call for other roles) which leads to a (usually virtual) onsite interview after that if the screens go well. We prioritize transparency and lack of surprise throughout the process.

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