Community Specialist, Water Innovation
: Job Details :

This is a temporary role that concludes August 2027, with possibility for extension. Please Note: This role requires the ability to work on site 3 days per week per company policy. The annual salary range for this role is $80,000-85,000 in New York. The World Economic Forum, committed to improving the state of the world, is the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation. The Forum engages the foremost political, business, and other leaders of society to build coalitions, projects and initiatives - digitally and physically - to address industry, regional and systemic issues. The Centre for Climate & Nature seeks to bring innovation and frontier approaches to help the international system be more agile and equipped to respond to today's challenges. The Centre does this by helping the international community leverage public-private cooperation, the Fourth Industrial Revolution, systems thinking and a platform approach for improved management of the global commons and building sustainable markets for the 2030 development goals. The Food and Water team is seeking a Community Specialist for the Water Innovation and Resilience Agenda, reporting to the Head of Strategy and Resilience Solutions, Food and Water, at the World Economic Forum. The Community Specialist will work closely with the Forum's UpLink team. This role will coordinate the management and active engagement of the water innovation community as well as thought leadership activities within the initiatives to accelerate the innovation agenda for healthy and resilient freshwater ecosystems. Why we are recruiting Whether too much, too little, or too polluted , the world's water systems have long been imbalanced and vulnerable. Hindered by chronic under-investment and the impacts of climate change, water insecurity is a top global social and economic risk. Water must be seen as an enabler and impact multiplier-creating domino effects across SDG agendas, revitalizing jobs, and ensuring global health-rather than competing against these equally important economic and social priorities. Innovation-in the form of new ideas and technology applications, fresh approaches, and collaboration models- and systemic resilience are required at scale and speed. At its Annual Meeting 2022, the Forum announced a new partnership with HCL, a global technology company, to support water-focused entrepreneurs - aquapreneurs - to drive innovation in freshwater resource management. Reporting lines and interactions The role will be based at the World Economic Forum's New York office, within the Centre for Nature and Climate (CNC), reporting to the Head, Strategy and Resilience Solutions, who is based in the Forum's Geneva office. This position will work closely with the Forum's UpLink team. In addition, this person will work with colleagues in the broader CNC, as well as a wide range of other Forum teams and colleagues. Externally, this person will work with Forum partner companies, and a broad range of stakeholders including governments, multilateral development organizations, civil society, and academia. The selected candidate will be responsible for: Strategy Implementation and Project Management

• Support the Food & Water team to manage the workflow and keep the ongoing water initiatives and deliverables on track and meeting timelines
• Support the implementation of the strategy for the water agenda at the CNC

Stakeholder Engagement

• Support the efforts to build a core group of high-level champions to raise ambition and commitment to water and innovation in collaboration with the wider Food & Water team.
• Coordinate the management of strategic relationships with key business, government, and academia partners.
• Organize and support activities to engage a multi-sectoral community of external partners and build and ensure continued interest and engagement across the innovation workstream and wider water work.
• Engage with all relevant internal teams to ensure visibility and understanding of the work and how their respective constituents can contribute, and to shape an attractive value proposition. This includes, but not limited to, teams in: CNC, UpLink, industry, regional, public engagement, partner engagement, finance.
• Develop and keep updated partner engagement materials
• Help shape the Forum's engagement and its key stakeholders in the run-up to major events.

Programme Development and Delivery

• Coordinate the delivery of programming and community interactions, events and/or sessions to help deliver on the strategy, which includes conceptualization, organization, logistics and operations, and on-site/virtual delivery

Preferred requirements and experience:

• 2+ years of experience and a bachelor's or graduate degree in related field, e.g., geography, water engineering, environmental science, sustainability, sustainable development.
• Understanding of sustainability and some of the issues core to the global water security agenda, including climate change, resilience, nature, and circular economy
• Demonstrated ability to interact with senior leaders
• Strong network-building, relationship management, and collaboration skills to effectively build trust-based relationships and networks, and foster cooperation across stakeholders
• Responsible, independent and self-motivated; demonstrates excellent organizational, strong work ethic, project and time management skills, and possess high attention to detail
• Creative thinker with an ability to frame compelling communications
• Ability to thrive in a flexible environment and situations of ambiguity
• Strong communicator with excellent written and verbal communication skills. Fluency in English.

Why work at the Forum: The Forum believes that progress happens by bringing together people from all walks of life who have the drive and the influence to improve the state of the world by building awareness and cooperation, shaping mindsets and agendas, and driving collective action. Join us and become a driver for positive change!