Lead, Corporate Climate Ambition

The World Economic Forum, committed to improving the state of the world, is the international organization for public-private cooperation. The Forum engages the foremost political, business, and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas. 

The Centre for Nature and Climate seeks to protect, restore, and regenerate global commons, bringing innovation and frontier approaches to help the international system be more agile and equipped to respond to today's challenges. The Centre does this by helping the international community leverage public-private cooperation, systems thinking and a platform approach for improved management of the global commons and building sustainable markets for 2030 goals.

The Centre for Nature and Climate’s Industry Decarbonisation for Net Zero Pillar aims to provide a space that engages, supports and collaborates with a wide network of stakeholders to accelerate climate action, catalyze industry and economic transformation, and deliver a net-zero future with positive societal impact. One of the Centre’s three flagship communities is the Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders – the largest CEO-led global climate alliance in the world with over 130 companies across 24 countries and 12 industries, all committed to raising bold climate ambition and accelerating the pace of climate action by setting science-based targets, disclosing emissions and catalysing decarbonization and partnership across global value chains.

The Net Zero Pillar is seeking a Lead, Corporate Climate Ambition, to drive two strategic objectives of the Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders: (1) lead the business engagement strategy for the Alliance, which includes recruiting and onboarding new members as well as the development and delivery of a new “Net Zero & Resilience Leadership Series”; and (2), manage the delivery of the Alliance Annual Survey. The Lead, Corporate Climate Ambition, will also support other strategic priorities and the delivery of year-round activities of the Alliance, with a focus on mobilizing members towards collective achievements and impactful outputs and deliverables that raise climate ambition and accelerate climate action.

Reporting lines and interactions 

The Lead, Corporate Climate Ambition, will be part of the Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders team, within the Industry Decarbonisation for Net Zero Pillar, and report to the Head of Climate Ambition Initiative; Co-Head of Industry Decarbonisation for Net Zero. Internally, this person will work with colleagues in the Centre for Nature and Climate, Centre for Advanced Manufacturing and Supply Chains, Centre for Energy and Materials, Centre for Global Industries as well as a wide range of colleagues across the Forum within the Business Engagement teams. Externally, the role requires building trusted relationships with Forum partners and experts with businesses, governments, international organizations, civil society, and academia to identify opportunities for innovating, shaping, and scaling collective progress. 

Main responsibilities

• Lead the engagement of Forum partners in the Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders, including ensuring a strong pipeline of prospective partners to grow the Alliance and expand its membership base, leading onboarding calls for new companies joining the Alliance, and ensuring a strong engagement and active participation of existing partners in Alliance activities. The person will also be responsible for preparing and maintaining relevant overview material use for business outreach to bring prospect Forum and potential partners into the Alliance.

• Manage the development and delivery of a new “Net Zero & Resilience Leadership Series” to be launch in the first half of 2025, which aims to provide thought leadership and a collaborative platform to discuss key trends, exchange knowledge and best practices, and collaborate on how to operationalize net-zero strategies and deliver a net-zero future with positive societal impact. The new series will target as audience members of the Alliance’s Senior Advisory Group as well as members from other initiatives across the Net Zero Pillar and the Centre for Advanced Manufacturing and Supply Chains.

• Lead the launch and coordination of the Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders annual survey, which is one of the key instruments to help track members’ progress to emissions reductions and in achieving net-zero targets. The lead will count the support of a Professional Services firm and a project fellow to prepare and launch the survey, collect and analyse the results, and turn aggregate data into insights on Alliance members’ annual progress in absolute emissions reductions across all scopes, since 2019; and compare Alliance emissions reductions with Science-Based Targets initiative’s Paris-aligned pathway to net zero, and with emissions reductions of major economies.

• Support the Head and the Community Lead in delivering other strategic priorities and the delivery of year-round activities of the Alliance, including in-person meetings at Forum flagship events as well as virtual Co-Chairs meetings, CEO Exchanges, and meetings of the Senior Advisory Group.

The successful candidate will be assessed on

• Ability to work at pace in collaboration with a range of stakeholders in moving from “idea” to “impact” in shaping global public-private partnerships for the climate agenda

• Proven track record of working with senior leaders to shape, influence and progress the climate agenda through clear actions and outcomes

• Organizational and project management skills and experience in delivering multi-stakeholder convenings

• Early experience in private sector net-zero decarbonization

• Successfully juggling competing priorities, with shifting parameters, to deliver to the highest standards and to agreed deadlines

• Team players and willing to support and collaborate to advance program delivery

• Excellent cross-cultural verbal, written and PPT communication skills

Education and professional background

• Master’s degree in political science, innovation, climate & environment, economics or a related field of relevance for filling the position

• Understanding of the global climate change agenda, with a specific focus on private sector climate leadership and delivery

• 6-8 years of professional experience

• Outstanding organization, project, team management and collaboration skills

• Fluency in English

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Why work at the Forum:

The Forum believes that progress happens by bringing together people from all walks of life who have the drive and the influence to improve the state of the world by building awareness and cooperation, shaping mindsets and agendas, and driving collective action. Join us and become a driver for positive change!