Job Description

Employer: Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility

Work Type/s: Permanent, full time

Salary: $160–185K + super depending on experience

Sector/s: Not For Profit (NFP)

Location: Any Australian location, working from home; or Sydney, Melbourne or Canberra office.

Applications close: 9am AEDT on 7 November

• Likely interview period: 17 November 2025 – 28 November 2025

Role: ACCR seeks to meaningfully accelerate fossil fuels phaseout, through catalysing effective action by institutional investors to mitigate physical and systemic climate risk. This senior role provides strategic and relational leadership of a large group of staff within ACCR in pursuit of that mission. This group or ‘system’ leads ACCR’s work to surface scientific, analytical and strategic insights, and ensure they are understood, and acted on. The diversely qualified experts in the system include analysts, strategic communication staff, climate scientists, publications editors and research managers. The system also has a close connection with ACCR’s strategic litigation and its positioning for influence. The position-holder is part of ACCR’s executive leadership team which ensures alignment of work across ACCR, providing strategic direction, effective decision making and cross team collaboration.

Staff in the system and across ACCR may be based in Australia and Europe so this role will need to be available to work until 6pm AEDT/5pm AEST, and for some evening meetings (up to 3 evenings/week, especially during the Australian summer months), with flexibility for hours around these commitments. Travel within Australia every few months and possibly to Europe is part of the role.

You’ll love this job if:

• You love managing people and building a positive team culture. You lead by example. You are a skilled and motivating ‘conductor’ of an ‘orchestra’ of stellar performers of diverse expertise. You bring out their best and the greatest impact as a group and in how they interact with others. You remind people of what unifies them and can draw them together towards an agreed strategy.
• You are a strategic thinker – fostered from years of experience achieving change in complex external environments. You enjoy growing that strategic nous in those you mentor. You listen well, communicate early and often, and bring about what’s best overall, not just for your team or work. You are not above getting into the weeds as needed, but in everything you ensure the bigger goal is the main driver and that all effort is well-directed.
• You understand influence, publicly and behind the scenes. You know how hard it can be to change core assumptions, but you are resolved to keep trying, especially when the fate of the planet is at stake.
• You enjoy cross-disciplinary work and can quickly get on top of new areas. However, you’ll hit the ground running more quickly if you have had some exposure to how research and analysis can be an effective tool within advocacy, how narratives can shift, how strategic litigation can form part of a campaign or messaging strategy, how the reality of science can be ‘heard’ by audiences who don’t seem interested.

Responsibilities

The role will include the following types of tasks:

• Lead the system’s work by integrating the diverse functional strengths, including analytical insights, climate science and strategic communications, to ensure the effectiveness of relationships with other parts of ACCR and the integrity of ACCR’s public interventions, that enable ACCR’s insights to land with power, relevance, and real-world traction.
• Co-lead ACCR with the Executive Director and two other system leads, modelling and promoting accountability for delivery and to our values, to provide strategic insight and direction, effective decision making and cross team collaboration to ensure the health of the whole system, enabling ACCR to achieve its strategic imperatives in line with its mission and values.
• Nurture collaborative cross-organisational relationships, and proactively, promptly and appropriately manage conflict to enable effective alignment of work efforts and the ability for ACCR to deliver maximum impact.
• Develop the system’s people by providing coaching and feedback, aligning people’s goals and skills with organisation needs, and encouraging teamwork to ensure a healthy, high performing system and culture that enables ACCR to achieve success.
• Monitor and manage the work of the system, including workload management, optimal resource management, and troubleshooting to ensure the work delivers against strategy, effective relationships are built and there is alignment with the wider systems initiatives and goals.
• Execute strategy imperatives within the system, assess their progress and success, and contribute to the development and enhancement of ACCR strategy.
• Manage and monitor the consolidated budget for the system to ensure compliance and effective use of financial resources to deliver against strategy.
• Identify, assess and manage risks, and create risk mitigation strategies, to ensure compliance with all regulations, appropriate opportunities are embraced and ACCR is protected in alignment with ACCR’s Risk Appetite.
• Contribute to ACCR’s fundraising efforts through providing strategic input into funding proposals and oversee the delivery of work and reporting on impact for the system in conjunction with ACCR’s Development Lead and Impact Strategy Manager.

Criteria

You may not have done this type of role before, yet we are looking for someone with these types of skills and experience:

• Substantial experience and aptitude for managing staff well, including the ability to manage staff with significant and diverse expertise, manage tension productively, and lead effectively within and across teams in line with ACCR’s values.
• A strategic sense that is both considered and can be agile, with a mature appreciation of how to assess opportunities in a high-risk environment.
• Experience relating to one or more of the following: financial, scientific and/or company research and analysis, publications, strategic communications, advocacy strategy. Experience relating to climate change, shareholder advocacy and/or within the non-profit context would be a strong advantage.
• Outstanding interpersonal skills, with a high capacity to manage internal and external stakeholders.
• Capability and credibility to undertake high stakes communication e.g. as a media spokesperson, facilitating workshops and meetings, engaging with senior staff, funders and board members.
• Integrity and financial literacy to oversee a team budget and support compliance with organisational policies and procedures.
• A commitment to ACCR’s mission and values including demonstrating respect and genuinely valuing diversity.
• Flexibility to work overlapping hours with colleagues in Europe and travel occasionally.
• Comfort working in a remote virtual context – connected to colleagues elsewhere, possibly with some colleagues and an ACCR office within the same region depending on location, but also able to work from home, and thus having an ability to operate fairly autonomously.

If you don’t meet every point above, please still apply if you can see your skills well used in this role.

Accountable to: The Executive Director

Key Relationships: Other system leads; system staff

Background: ACCR is a non-profit shareholder advocacy and research organisation founded in 2012. We seek to meaningfully accelerate fossil fuels phaseout, by catalysing step-change across industries and financial markets, in the interests of investors, planetary systems and people. More information about our latest work can be found in our FY24 Annual Review.

ACCR has a dynamic team of almost 40 driven and experienced staff, mostly based in Australia, working globally. Our growing team has a wide range of expertise – climate science, communications, engineering, law, equities analysis, finance, investor relations, IT and more.

What we offer:

• We enjoy flexible work hours and supportive home-based working.
• Personal leave is double the statutory requirement, plus additional paid leave from Christmas to New Year. Option to purchase additional leave.
• We value peer learning and each of us has a professional development budget.
• Our Employee Assistance Program includes a discount for friends and family.
• ACCR offices are accessible and further detail can be provided.

How to Apply

We use Applied as our recruitment platform, helping us reduce the risk of unconscious bias in our hiring process.

APPLY HERE

We use Applied as our recruitment platform, helping us reduce the risk of unconscious bias in our hiring process.

We will ask you to answer 3 questions designed to test your ability to do the job. Please give it your best effort, your scores on these questions will be the primary consideration in whether you are invited for an interview. To avoid bias, we do not look at CVs until later in the process.

Once started, you can save and return to your application before submitting. For example;

• What conditions need to be right to give research and/or publications the best chance of achieving change in complex global challenges? Give one example of an endeavour to bring about change that you were directly involved in as part of your answer. [250 word limit]

Please note, for this role, ACCR is only able to employ those who have the pre-existing legal right to work in Australia.

We value diversity, equity and inclusion in our workplace. ACCR encourages applications from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and people of all cultures, abilities, sex and genders.

ACCR is committed to improving accessibility to enable the full participation of a diverse workforce. If there are any alterations to this recruitment process that would assist you in applying, please let us know.

Job Categories: Finance / Investing. Job Types: Full-Time. Job Tags: $160-185K + super depending on experience. Salaries: 100,000 and above.

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