Investment Specialist – Adaptation Finance

Job Title:         Investment Specialist – Adaptation Finance
Team:              Capital & Investment
Contract:         12-month fixed term contract, with possibility of renewal

Level:               Intermediate Please refer to our Capability Framework
Salary:             Competitive for Not-for-profit organisation
Location:          Remote role possible from any country in which Climate-KIC has an office.
Deadline:          Typically within a few days, when a reasonable pool of candidates is received.

ABOUT US

We are Climate KIC, Europe’s leading climate innovation agency and community.  We are here to help create climate-resilient societies and fight the climate breakdown, building better futures for local communities, globally.

Working hand-in-hand with countries, regions, cities and businesses across the globe, we use innovation to mobilise systems change and bridge the gap between climate commitments and current reality. Together with our partners, we orchestrate solutions and facilitate learning to fuel faster and more ambitious climate action. 

ABOUT THE ROLE

Climate KIC is working to make a rapid change to net-zero and climate resilience possible through innovation. A key part of our work is financial innovation, where we help local leaders identify and secure the different types of finance they require (both public and private) to pursue ambitious climate action and trigger systemic change. We refer to this as systems investing – the work of integrating multiple different financial instruments together to unlock new possibilities in a given place or value-chain.

Our systemic investing work is rapidly expanding – it now covers cities, regional adaptation and argi-food. We are looking to add an experienced investment professional to the team to focus on driving forward adaptation finance investment models that will enable us to move further and faster. This role is wide ranging but has a primary focus on climate adaptation finance, including development of new structures that can attract investment into an underlying portfolio of innovative projects and initiatives.

This work is intended to finance an emerging portfolio of adaptation finance projects coming from regional areas across Europe. The role is to identify, mobilise, and deploy both grant funding and private investment (venture, corporate and institutional) capital to support these innovative climate adaptation actions.

Key Responsibilities

•         Analyse the funding needs expressed by individual innovation projects and integrate these needs into a wider funding plan or financial structure that accommodates differing levels of project maturity.

•         Collect and organise information/data around investment opportunities to enable effective outreach to potential investors (both public and private).

•         Contribute to development of a fundraising strategy that attracts multiple different stakeholders to invest into a coordinated funding plan for a given place or sector.

•         Share your investment experience and knowledge with Climate KIC partners, in particular via the Net Zero Cities Capital Hub and Pathways 2 Resilience programme in training workshops and webinars.

•         Act as key point of contact on adaptation innovation on projects, including facilitation of working groups and collaborative initiatives defined in project plans.

•         Participate in our community of investment innovation partners and help to build a strong community of practice in the field of investing for system transformation.

Typical Tasks

•         Assess projects identified by colleagues for financial viability and provide advice on the range of financial mechanisms that match.

•         Foster collaboration between public and private sector financial institutions to develop large scale investment programmes with high impact potential by hosting working groups.

•         Provide guidance and education to public sector employees around options to leverage public and private financing for greater action.

Key Working Relationships

•         Capital & Investment team – you will join the Capital & Investment team (currently 7 and growing to 9 this year) and work closely alongside the Investment Lead on the topic of adaptation finance.

•         Resilient & Climate-Neutral Regions (RCNR) team – you will be assigned to work on projects lead by the RCNR team that focus on innovation in regional adaptation across Europe.

•         Ireland Deep Demonstration – you will support our Deep Demonstration team on finance mobilisation related to the Government of Ireland’s ambition to decarbonise the agri-food system.

ABOUT YOU

To be successful in this role you will be a technically minded pragmatist that is able to find a pathway forward when presented with a wide array of opportunities. You will have the ability to investigate options and make sound, credible, proposals for new approaches to age old problems. You will be able to identify when stakeholders are using different words to describe the same thing and make connections that translate ambiguity into action.

Education/Qualifications

•         Relevant degree in financial services, business, economics or related fields.

Experience

•         4-5 years working experience in a regulated EU financial services institution (i.e. insurer, bank, investment fund)

•         Experience in project finance, business development and execution, with a primary focus on sustainable finance or adaptation finance highly preferable. 

•         Experience working on complex project financing deals such as large-scale infrastructure investment structuring.

•         Proven experience of fundraising and engagement with public / private sector financing institutions.

Skills

•         Fluent in English

•         Ability to work remotely and digitally across multiple organisations with collaborative IT applications (we use Office365 and Microsoft Teams, as well as Miro, Zoom, etc.)

•         Working knowledge of different financial instruments and their utility in different scenarios.

•         Willingness to develop an understanding of system thinking and how to use innovation to influence system dynamics.

Location

Candidates must have the right to work in the EU prior to applying for the position. Ideally, the successful candidate will be based close to a Climate KIC office, but we support full remote or hybrid forms of working and offer a high degree of flexibility.

Occasional travel may be required to engage with local stakeholders in different projects.

At Climate KIC we are wholeheartedly committed to building a diverse and representative team and an inclusive workplace that values different life experiences and perspectives, and encourages personal development, learning and growth.

When recruiting, we look to achieve diversity in the candidate pool. We actively encourage applications from underrepresented groups and are happy to consider reasonable adjustments to that will foster success in potential employees from diverse backgrounds and life situations. And because our team has differing needs and personal circumstances, we offer a high degree of flexibility to accommodate all working patterns.

To ensure that we can respond to every single applicant, we will close the role once we receive a reasonable pool of candidates to assess.