ABOUT THE COALITION

​The Building Decarbonization Coalition (BDC) unites building industry stakeholders with energy providers, environmental organizations, and local governments to help electrify New York homes and workspaces with clean energy. Through convening, policy analysis, and consumer awareness building, the Coalition is pursuing fast, fair action to accelerate the development of zero-emission homes and buildings that will help New York cut one of its largest sources of climate pollution, while creating safe, healthy, and affordable communities.

Burning fossil fuels for heating and cooking poses a serious threat to our health and the planet. Here in New York, where buildings are over one-third of the state’s climate pollution, we have an ambitious climate law – the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act – that calls for addressing this problem but does not lay out a clear plan to address these emissions.

New York state has mandated bold emissions targets across the economy through the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, advanced the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority’s (NYSERDA’s) Buildings Decarbonization Roadmap and finalized the scoping plan to begin implementation of New York’s Climate Law. Moving New York homes and buildings off of fossil fuels will improve public health, cut climate pollution, deliver cleaner air, and cut monthly energy bills, all while creating tremendous economic and job creation opportunities. But realizing all those benefits requires activating and coordinating leadership from communities, workers, industry, and government.

POSITION SUMMARY

The New York Chief of Staff position supports the BDC’s vision and is key to our work in New York. Reporting to the New York Director and working collaboratively with a small and rapidly growing team, the Chief of Staff plays a critical role in the evolution of the Coalition’s work in NY. Specifically, the Chief of Staff is responsible for supporting the NY Director in ensuring effective and efficient implementation of BDC’s concrete objectives and key results in New York; overseeing the pace, sequencing, and execution of strategic plans for BDC's NY growth and scale; and acting as a liaison between the NY team and the rest of the organization to ensure alignment between NY-specific and organization-wide values, vision, and mission.

The Chief of Staff is an emotionally intelligent, cross-functional leader, holding both significant functional authority and responsibility and whose success is ultimately dependent on facilitative, collaborative, and horizontal leadership with the NY team and other executive team colleagues across the organization.

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS

Strategy Development & Implementation

• Support the NY Director in developing an ambitious and inspiring NY strategy and ensuring that the organizational values, vision, and mission are fully reflected and integrated across the New York team and the organization.
• Help the NY Director foster strategic alignment between NY-specific and organization-wide goals and objectives.
• Help the NY Director with managing the pace, sequencing, and execution of strategic plans for BDC's national growth and scale.
• Help the NY Director identify strategies for closing necessary gaps and course correct if we are falling short of our stated objectives and ambitions.
• Oversee production of high profile reports, studies, research and other strategic documents to advance BDC’s NY agenda and establish the Coalition as the go-to resource for key stakeholders involved in building decarbonization.
• Help the NY Director identify and pursue high-leverage growth and positioning opportunities for BDC in NY, including but not limited to, leveraging policies that support building decarbonization, partnership opportunities with other organizations in the building decarbonization ecosystem, efforts that grow industry value propositions, and consumer awareness building campaigns.
• Stay apprised of the evolving building decarbonization/electrification ecosystem, participating in network-building and learning opportunities, while lifting up shifts in the landscape that may impact BDC’s positioning.

Organizational Alignment

• Lead the development of team structures, procedures for maintaining effective alignment with other teams across the organization, strategic planning with the NY team and across the organization, implementation plans, and staffing and growth strategies, defining clear, actionable, and time-bound objectives, outcomes, and annual benchmarks.
• Lead ongoing and annual internal planning, evaluation and learning to refine operating plans and provide quantitative and qualitative data in internal and external reporting.
• Set the standard for bridge-building across departments to ensure that organizational priorities are leveraged and synergistic.
• Act as a sentry for organizational needs pertaining to NY, develop systems to analyze opportunities to accelerate BDC’s efforts in the state.

Budgeting & Resource Development

• Lead the management of the budget for the Coalition’s New York work, including oversight of resource allocation, the NY team’s annual budgeting process, and quarterly updates, ensuring the alignment of resources to the organization’s near-, medium- and long-term objectives.
• Partner with the NY Director and the Fundraising team to support fundraising, grant reporting and other revenue-generating efforts (memberships and partnerships) for the Coalition’s New York work.

Management & Culture Building

• In partnership with the New York Director, oversee the build out of the Coalition’s New York team, including the recruitment, hiring, onboarding and ongoing support of program staff.
• Continuously refine the NY team’s design and structure with a focus on excellence in execution, learning, and impact.
• Ensure ongoing mentorship and professional development opportunities for the New York team.
• Oversee contracts and supports the New York team in contractor relationships for NY consultants and contractors.
• Contribute to BDC’s continuous improvement of approaches to internal communications, all-hands meetings, and organizational culture building opportunities for a nationally distributed team.
• Contribute to a team and organizational culture that is values- and purpose-driven, team-centered, inclusive, results-oriented, and joyful, rewarding performance, productivity, positivity, and all-around collegiality.
• Oversee the NY team’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, integrating best-in-class practices into recruitment, hiring, team building, culture setting, and professional development/advancement, while centering equity in all of our programs and operations.
• This position will not immediately manage any direct reports but may do so in the future.

Who You Are

The incoming Chief of Staff will be driven by their belief in and commitment to BDC’s values, vision, and mission. Through their track record as a cross-functional team builder and implementer of efficient systems and structures – ideally with experience growing/scaling successful teams – the successful candidate embraces the dynamism of doing big things and demonstrates humility, curiosity, and a learner’s mindset in all that they do. We are looking for a builder and a partner in this role, someone who recognizes that the stakes of what we are trying to accomplish depend on a high-functioning, passionate, and trusting team. The Chief of Staff is the organizational glue who quickly and authentically builds rapport with people from diverse backgrounds, connects the dots internally and externally, and operationalizes values and vision for maximum impact.

The successful candidate leads with a belief in what is possible, demonstrates a zeal for organizational efficiency, and models excellence and integrity in all they do. The selected candidate will possess the following qualifications:

SKILLS & QUALIFICATIONS

Core

• Strong commitment to the mission and goals of BDC.
• At least 5 years of increasing responsibility in organizational strategy, organizational effectiveness, or change management, ideally in the building decarbonization, climate or clean energy space.
• Outstanding people and project management abilities to ensure that BDC works in a highly collaborative, cross-functional, and synergistic manner.
• Mastery of relationship-building skills with a wide range of diverse internal and external constituencies.
• Outstanding oral and written communications skills.
• Ability to manage a small and growing team with competing demands; not easily flustered nor easily overwhelmed by and able to execute on a high volume of activity and projects, with speed, excellence and humor.
• Sets and achieves high-performance expectations that are motivating and results-oriented.
• Seeks out and delivers timely and direct feedback that contributes to the ongoing development of oneself, team members, and a positive organizational culture.
• Promptly resolves problems through timely consultation in an environment of mutual respect.
• Highly collaborative work style with the ability to operate as a peer and thought partner to the NY Director, senior organizational leadership, and other organizational teams.
• Experience designing and executing processes and products that generate a strong and cohesive organizational culture, actionable operating plans, and dynamic tools for continual evaluation and iteration.

Preferred

• Bachelor’s or advanced degree.
• Experience scaling an organization, company, or agency, ideally from start-up phase.

WORK ENVIRONMENT, SCHEDULE, & TRAVEL

The Chief of Staff will work remotely from their home and can be based anywhere in New York. Some travel will be required, respective of Covid-related health and safety guidelines.

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made for individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. This is a remote, full-time, salaried position with comprehensive benefits. Typical work hours are Monday through Friday, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM.

COMMITMENT TO EQUAL EMPLOYMENT

The BDC values diversity in all its forms and is committed to an inclusive and transparent recruitment process. We recruit and hire without regard to race, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, gender, sexual orientation, sexual identity, age, religion, creed, disability (actual or perceived), medical condition including genetic characteristics, marital status, domestic partnership status, citizenship, military service, height, weight, HIV/AIDS status, or any other characteristic protected by state or federal law or local ordinance. BIPOC and people of diverse backgrounds are strongly encouraged to apply.

COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS

The salary range for this position is $120,000-$140,000 commensurate with experience, plus a competitive benefits package including paid health insurance coverage, retirement benefits with company matching, unlimited flexible paid leave, 12 paid holidays, access to professional development resources, and much more.

DISCLAIMER

The job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee. Duties, responsibilities and activities may change or new ones may be assigned at any time with or without notice.