All Things Urban

C40 connects more than 90 of the world’s greatest cities. It is focused on tackling climate change and driving urban action that reduces greenhouse gas emissions and climate risks, while increasing the health, wellbeing and economic opportunities of urban citizens.

C40’s new Business, Data & Innovation team has been created to act as a service to member cities in overcoming a number of existing barriers to climate action. This includes projects and programmes to help present the economic case for climate action, assist cities in optimising their internal operations and capability in the use of data, and enhance collaboration with the private sector to drive innovation.

The Business and Innovation Programme Manager will lead in expanding C40’s service offering to member cities relating to the acceleration of climate solutions by building relationships across sectors (e.g. public, private, academic etc.). The key emphasis of the role would therefore be to develop partnerships between global C40 cities and private sector partners to enable technology and data driven solutions to the climate change related challenges that cities are facing when implementing their Climate Action plans.

• Lead the delivery of the C40 City Business Alliances and the City Solutions Platform as different but related models to engage with the private sector to generate collaborative solutions necessary to implement the cities 1.5 plans. This will involve putting in place global, city based partnerships with businesses and business hub organisations. The CBAs will be long term structures that bring together cities and business in collaborative partnerships focussed on the delivery of 1.5 plans. CSP is a programme that rapidly solves specific climate challenges through city business innovation workshops.
• To support the development of the embryonic start-up cities programme that seeks to engage cities with their start-up eco-systems to generate innovative solutions to climate challenges.
• To ensure effective knowledge management across C40 business and innovation programmes. This will involve the leveraging of knowledge gained through our networks into the city challenges as well as the dissemination of learning from CSP challenges
• Oversee the full lifecycle for the delivery of city climate solutions from seeking expressions of interest from our cities, on-boarding and challenge scoping, engaging and forming agreements with local delivery partners and delivering co-creation workshops. Finally ensuring that there is a clear roadmap to implementation, including a handover to other C40 programmes such as the CFF where appropriate
• To support the Director of Programmes Business and Innovation, and work closely with the C40 - - Funding Team in developing long term sustainable funding streams for the City Business Alliances and the City Solutions Platform and related activity.

• Experience of successfully delivering complex, global, multi stakeholder programmes
• A result focus and the ability to align multiple stakeholders around the achievement of agreed goals
• Experience of successfully delivering city innovation programmes from initial challenges to the delivery and implementation of successful outcomes – including leading scoping discussions with cities, engagement of solution providers, event logistics, event management, and workshop facilitation
• Knowledge and experience of the private sector including an understanding of the drivers for private sector partners as well as the constraints
• Knowledge and experience of innovative climate solutions (technologies and methodologies)
• Knowledge and experience in city engagement and excellent relationship management skills
• Strong management experience.
• Strong interpersonal skills and the ability to engage professionally with stakeholders
• Problem-solving and strategic thinking capabilities and attention to detail and a delivery-oriented approach
• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• International experience, particularly working across different cultures, languages and time zones, would be preferred
• Strong English language skills required with preference to candidates speaking one or more languages from C40 cities.

We’re not fully sure whether this role is open to international candidates. If you would need visa sponsorship or work authorisation, we recommend checking directly with the employer before applying.