Director - Research - Sustainability/Tech (5-25 yrs)

About the Company:

GIST Impact is a leading impact data, analytics and product solutions provider that has been measuring, quantifying and valuing corporate impacts for more than 16 years. With a team of 100+ scientists, engineers, data scientists and environmental economists, GIST Impact delivers market-leading impact platforms and datasets, covering 14,000+ companies with geographically precise, time-series data.

GIST Impact works with pioneering companies across all sectors and with investors representing over $8 trillion in assets under management. GIST Impact also partners with some of the world's largest ESG data providers, business networks, and fintech platforms to enable impact measurement across global markets. Founded by Pavan Sukhdev (ex-banker, environmental economist, President of WWF International, and winner of the 2020 Tyler Prize for the Environment), GIST Impact is at the cutting edge of measuring impacts using a scientifically sound and economically rigorous methodology that provides unique and unparalleled insight into how companies impact society and the environment.

About the Role:

Lead GIST Impact's 15-person Research and Innovation Lab ("RIL") to deliver timely product research that forms the core of our innovative, tech-enabled, scalable ESG and impact data products, adding value to an increasing number of investor and corporate clients.

Drive GIST Impact's unparalleled thought leadership in the evolving fields of impact economics and impact metrics. Hire, develop, and support staff to achieve exceptional quality and productivity for RIL, and work closely with engineering, product and customer teams to transform research into product components, and enable their delivery.

Your responsibilities will include:

- Organise, task, and manage the RIL team to deliver optimally across its four key output areas.

- Thought leadership publications Ensure new product research & development is prioritised and delivered to quality and on time; maintain a balanced research portfolio of resource investments, roughly: core enhancements 70% (e.g., regulatory updates, updates to coefficients, etc.); adjacent growth 20% (new research into known domains, e.g., new biodiversity products); net new 10% (totally new innovations that push industry boundaries)

- Ensure GIST Impact coefficients are updated annually in an efficient and timely manner

- Ensure that a regular thought leadership calendar of high-quality, topical, client-focussed research is published on evolving regulations, market trends, impact/ ESG metrics, etc.

- Manage and deliver one or two carefully selected, externally funded, profitable research projects in the domain of impact valuation/true cost accounting that add value to policy making or business practice and strengthen GIST Impact's thought leadership

- Provide strategic inputs for and act as a partner to the CEO's outreach to regulatory bodies and influencers worldwide in our key knowledge domains

- Collaborate with others across the executive bench, as a key senior thought leader at GIST Impact, to enable delivery against major business milestones and strategic objectives

- Develop and lead RIL's publications calendar, collaborating with Marketing & Communications on media engagement, and social media presence to optimise RIL's output for thought leadership and marketing value generation

- Build and maintain strong working relationships with senior colleagues (in Corporate Services; Investor Services; Engineering; Data Delivery and Assurance) to optimise the business value of RIL's outputs

- Constantly learn and stay abreast of developments in the sustainability landscape, gaining fluencym rapidly in all subject matter through which GIST Impact has established its competitive advantage

- Respond to both internal and external correspondence, working closely with the leadership team where appropriate

- Manage RIL talent pipeline through our key campus relationships (INSEAD, TISS, IIT-Bombay, IIT-Kanpur, etc), and external hires

What we are looking for:

- First and second degrees in natural sciences and/or economics/social sciences

- Core consulting and presentation skills achieved from working in a sustainability consulting context

- People management skills and experience in a "research & development" context

- Project management skills and experience in a "research" context

- Experience in navigating complex business organisations

- An academic overachiever with an innate business sense and commercial orientation

- Experience with communications/corporate writing whether through industry, thought leadership, or academia (published papers)