Director, Climate Solutions

About the Organization

CEA Consulting is an environmental consultancy based in San Francisco, CA. For over 40 years, CEA has worked at the intersection of markets, business practices, public policies, and philanthropic, nonprofit, corporate, and impact investment strategies to achieve positive environmental outcomes. Our work is guided by a deep knowledge of the scientific, financial/economic, cultural, and sociopolitical underpinnings of our most pressing environmental problems.

With roughly 30 employees across the firm, CEA strives to create a work environment that is collaborative and inclusive. We work to ensure our consultants are supported, do work they are passionate about, develop professionally, and bring their whole selves to their career. We believe that a wide array of perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences promotes innovation and makes our team more creative, flexible, and productive. CEA is explicitly working to create more diversity, equity, and inclusion throughout our organization and has a formal DEI Committee that oversees the ongoing implementation of the firm's DEI priorities. For a more in-depth description of our approach to work, please see our Vision, Mission, and Guiding Principles. For a more in-depth description of our services and examples of past work, please see our website.

CEA's Work

CEA supports environmental foundations, family offices, nonprofits, sustainability-oriented businesses, government agencies, trade associations, and impact investors. We pride ourselves on being client-oriented, insightful, and responsive. Our work covers a wide range of environmental topics, including climate change, marine conservation, climate resilience and justice, sustainable agriculture, land use and conservation, transportation, and freshwater management. We also occasionally work on wildlife protection, pollution, environmental justice, and urban sustainability. We often work at the intersection of these issues. Many of our projects are international in scope. Our primary offerings include:

• Strategy: We engage in a wide range of strategic initiatives with our clients, grounded in the best available data, clear priorities, and actionable plans. Examples include:
  • Developing grant-making strategies
  • Crafting organizational or initiative-level program strategies
  • Conducting field or sector-level landscaping and analysis
• Operational Support: We provide practical, flexible, and hands-on solutions to help organizations build capacity, strengthen internal systems, and adapt to evolving needs. Examples include:
  • Incubating initiatives, including start-up staffing support
  • Sourcing and conducting diligence for grants
  • Convening and facilitating grantee collaboration, meetings, and workshops
• Analysis and Thought Leadership: We conduct analyses and secondary research that support client decision-making and contribute to field-level learning. Examples include:
  • Creating and analyzing grant databases
  • Assessing sector-level climate mitigation strategies
  • Evaluating field-level state-of-play assessments
• Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL): We support clients in designing impact measurement frameworks, assessing program progress, and learning from their investments. Examples include:
  • Designing and implementing multi-year monitoring and evaluation programs
  • Refining logic models and theories of change
  • Conducting third-party evaluations
  • Conducting emissions reduction potential (ERP) analyses for impact investors

About the Role

We are seeking a Director to expand and lead CEA’s climate-related engagements. This position interacts with leaders in the philanthropic field on work spanning a wide range of environmental issues. The Director position is the senior-most consulting role at CEA, leading projects, contributing to the firm's strategic direction, and directly managing team members. They are responsible for day-to-day management of complex consulting engagements, including large environmental and climate-focused foundations, family offices, NGOs, impact investors, and bilateral and multilateral agencies. This role will be responsible for climate solutions business development, leading and landing proposals with new clients while building and stewarding existing relationships, in order to grow the firm’s portfolio.

Our work environment is collaborative and intense. It requires intellectual rigor; excellent interpersonal and communication skills; strong research, analysis, and writing capacity; the ability to synthesize findings from a range of sources; superb project management skills; attention to detail; and a passion for climate solutions and environmental issues.

The Director role at CEA allows for flexibility in terms of leadership-style, approach to project execution, and engagement types. Depending on previous experience, interests, and client needs, Directors can operate in different professional capacities. We often serve as advisors, providing strategic guidance and support. We might be engaged to provide operational support, serving functionally as Program Officers or Managers. When aligned with CEA’s interest and values, Directors have latitude to build out business and client relationships in new areas.

We are interested in candidates coming from a range of professional backgrounds, including consulting, nonprofits, academia, finance/impact investing, private sector or corporate ESG, government agencies, foundations, and think tanks. Given the requirements of the position, consulting experience is highly desired.

About You

You are a self-starter and find joy and fulfillment from a job well done. You have proven business development experience, the ability to lead client engagements, and run complex projects on time and on budget. You believe individual and team success are fundamentally connected. You support your teammates and firm leadership in creating a collegial, inclusive, and healthy work environment. You enjoy supporting other colleagues’ growth and fulfilment through mentorship and management, benefiting others with your experience and expertise. You are intellectually curious and an adept problem solver. You work effectively in teams and independently. You seek and incorporate feedback as you grow your knowledge base and skills. You demonstrate resilience when faced with unexpected challenges. You are passionate about having an impact in the field of climate change and can bring an equity lens to this work.

Primary Duties and Responsibilities

• Lead climate-related projects, including climate policy analysis, grant-making strategies, grant-sourcing and diligence for philanthropic climate funders, GHG emissions or mitigation modeling, developing climate-related strategies for NGOs, and helping to operationalize or execute climate-related NGO strategies.
• Develop and win new engagements, including from new and existing clients. This requires maintaining and building relationships in the field, developing new proposals, and initiating new projects either self-lead or handed over to other colleagues. Business development at CEA is often a collaborative process with other senior staff.
• Serve as an engagement manager for projects, including serving as primary client contact, leading project design and execution, and ensuring quality deliverables.
• Build and lead teams in executing multiple assignments for different clients.
• Manage at least one junior colleague, overseeing their longer-term growth and development.
• Design and execute projects that may include the following elements:
  • Formulate and test hypotheses via research, modeling, expert interviews, and data analyses.
  • Facilitate group problem-solving and brainstorming with project teams to generate novel solutions.
  • Synthesize disparate kinds of information to identify patterns, generate findings, and develop clear and succinct recommendations for clients.
  • Develop and communicate recommendations via clear and compelling deliverables (e.g., reports, presentations, briefs).
  • Ensure quality and rigor of outgoing work products and correspondence.
  • Participate in CEA’s journey as it continues to learn and improve to become a more diverse, inclusive, and equitable organization.

Desired Qualifications

• Deep content knowledge and professional interest in climate mitigation and adaptation solutions, including climate change science and policy, energy policy, energy transition, transportation decarbonization, short-lived climate pollutants, hard-to-decarbonize sectors, and/or climate justice
• A Bachelor’s degree and 12 plus years of work experience; 5 plus years working on climate solutions; an advanced degree (e.g., MBA, MS, Ph.D.) is a plus.
• Prior consulting experience is strongly preferred, particularly in senior roles at leading management consultancies or firms advising philanthropic entities.
• A proven history of developing and winning new client work.
• Experience developing and leading projects from start to finish, including creating a defined scope of work, budget, and deliverables.
• Experience with philanthropy and grantmaking, including creating strategies and theories of change, pipeline development, due diligence, structuring grant agreements, and writing grant memos.
• Exceptional writing ability across different mediums and for different audiences.
• Degrees and/or work experience that include training in research methods (quantitative and/or qualitative), leading small teams, and working on multiple assignments concurrently.
• Excellent verbal and interpersonal communication skills, including effectively communicating across internal teams and external stakeholders, including the ability to compellingly deliver formal and informal presentations.
• Ability to work, multitask, and prioritize meeting deadlines and respond and adapt to changing client needs.
• Proficiency in qualitative research methods (e.g., interviews, expert consultation, case studies) and analytical tools (e.g., qualitative data analysis software)
• Ability to handle sensitive matters with discretion and interact with a wide range of stakeholders (e.g., scientists, policymakers, advocates, and industry representatives) with diplomacy and enthusiasm.
• Advanced proficiency in Microsoft’s Office Suite, particularly Excel and PowerPoint. Proficiency in other analytical software (e.g., GIS, Tableau) is a plus.
• Other content knowledge supporting CEA’s work such as ocean conservation, marine fisheries management, area-based protection, land preservation, sustainable agriculture, community-led conservation measures, freshwater management, forestry, environmental justice, and/or air quality, is a plus.
• Familiarity with common service agreement terms and concepts preferred.
• Professional proficiency in a foreign language and demonstrated cultural competency are a plus.

Work Location

CEA’s office is located in San Francisco, and about half of the team works remotely on a permanent basis. We strongly prefer that this position work from our San Francisco office, but remote candidates will be considered. This position requires some travel.

Compensation and Benefits

We offer competitive salaries, excellent health benefits, additional benefits for those working out of the SF office (e.g., commuter benefits and weekly lunches), and a supportive working environment. Salary will be commensurate with skills and experience. CEA compensates its Directors through a combination of salary, bonuses, and a share of the firm’s total revenues each year. The base salary range for this position is $135,000 - $170,000. Additionally, CEA offers an annual performance bonus, revenue sharing, and the opportunity to earn additional bonuses thrice a year when work exceeds billable hour targets. CEA also contributes 3% of total compensation to staff retirement plans. CEA also typically provides raises for all staff annually, usually at or above COLA. Therefore, the total target compensation for this role is in the high $100,000s into the $200,000s.

CEA is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to our legal and ethical obligations to protect job applicants and employees from employment discrimination, harassment, and unfair treatment due to race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, sex (including pregnancy, gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation), age, disability, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, military status, or veteran status.