NRDC is seeking a Director of City Strategy and Engagement with the American Cities Climate Challenge (ACCC) in the Healthy People and Thriving Communities program. The ACCC is an unprecedented opportunity for 20 ambitious cities to significantly deepen and accelerate their efforts to tackle climate change and promote a sustainable future for their residents. The Director of City Strategy and Engagement provides leadership and oversight, builds and maintains key relationships and leverages opportunities to bring senior and mayoral level decision-making to bear on project policy and program objectives. This role has senior strategic and leadership responsibilities and serves as a critical point of coordination and information sharing between different elements of the ACCC. They will have management oversight of all city engagement managers.
- Leverage existing relationships with mayors, sustainability directors and other key city stakeholders to accelerate and deepen city climate action, in furtherance of goals of ACCC; develop new relationships with additional decision-makers and key policy staff at the city level
- Integrate existing contacts and develop new political relationships to enhance build-out of ACCC networks.
- Work in close collaboration with the Project Director and Buildings and Energy and Transportation Directors to:
- Develop the overarching strategies for getting programs and policies advanced in the 20 cities
- Develop and implement political, advocacy and stakeholder strategy in alignment with overarching strategy for policy success
- Oversee all city engagement within ACCC, through a dedicated city engagement team, ensuring effective communications, coordination, and partnership with critical stakeholders within and across cities.
- Interface with the ACCC Technical Strategists to ensure coordination and information sharing among these work streams.
- Supervise all city engagement managers to ensure effective coordination of day to day activities across all cities; collaborate with and mentor city advisors.
- 10-15 years of related experience at the city level, overseeing and directly securing and implementing clean energy and transportation policies and programs.
- Experience managing teams and being part of large, cross-sector, multi-partner initiatives.
- Extensive network among mayors, sustainability directors, and other key stakeholders.
- Ability to participate in teams that work collaboratively towards shared outcomes
- Excellent writing skills, strong verbal communication, and confident public speaker
- Willingness to travel to participating Challenge cities throughout the United States, as well as to other NRDC offices and U.S. locations as needed