Sustainability Programs Director

Overview
As the environmental challenges facing the world grow, so has Microsoft's commitment to ensuring that the company's activities are in-line with the best available science and the expectations of leading stakeholder communities. The Corporate External and Legal Affairs (CELA) Environmental Sustainability (ES) team coordinates overall science-based, measurable, and scalable sustainability investments and outcomes across the company - engaging with business groups to set goals related to reductions in the environmental impacts of business operations and positive environmental outcomes resulting from technology and policy development.
The Microsoft Sustainability Programs Director provides leadership and management of Microsoft's leading operational sustainability goals. They bring a depth of leadership and subject matter expertise around sustainability to provide oversight and innovative thinking to Microsoft's carbon negative, zero waste, water positive and land protection efforts. The Sustainability Programs Director will drive increased alignment and optimization across these efforts, as well as playing a leadership role in cross-company efforts focused on identifying catalytic reduction opportunities and increasing operational efficiency.
This position requires extensive cross-group coordination at all levels of the company, strong sustainability subject matter expertise, robust business acumen, excellent communication skills, the ability to synthesize complex business problems, and devise and execute on plans which address big challenges and opportunities in the environmental sustainability space.
Microsoft's mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond.
In alignment with our Microsoft values, we are committed to cultivating an inclusive work environment for all employees to positively impact our culture every day.
Responsibilities
Sustainability Program Leadership:

• Provide leadership and management oversight for Microsoft's world leading commitments across carbon, energy, water, waste, and ecosystems.
• Manage a team of sustainability program leads and support them in achieving their objectives in alignment with the team priorities including refining program strategies to meet or exceed our sustainability goals, leading coordination of sustainability efforts, and executing at scale.
• Partner with reporting team to ensure that measurement of program progress is consistent with corporate standards and that corporate standards evolves to reflect the most effective methodologies.
• Ensure that Microsoft continues to meet or exceed its leadership in transparently reporting our strategy and progress against operational sustainability targets in external reporting.
• Develop successful partnerships with global business stakeholders and enable cross-company progress towards Microsoft's sustainability goals.

Sustainability Program Optimization:

• Drive alignment and optimization across Microsoft's commitments around carbon, energy, water, waste, and land protection, and integrate environmental justice strategies into these efforts. Ensure that Microsoft has the most effective financial and institutional incentives in place for stakeholders to meet or exceed commitments, including but not limited to internal sustainability fee.
• Maximize investments by surfacing tradeoffs and identifying opportunities for increased value across multiple programs, and drive awareness around this approach to support increased collaboration.

Sustainability Innovation:

• Climate change is the greatest challenge that the world has ever faced, and creative solutions will be required. Think strategically to identify novel solutions to Microsoft's sustainability challenges using strong analytical skills and technical knowledge to drive innovation across the company.
• Development and adoption of creative solutions will require building strong relationships both inside and outside the company and bringing diverse perspectives to the table to find mutually beneficial solutions to today's challenges and others we will encounter in the future.
• Drive financial innovation by collaborating closely with Climate innovation Fund, treasury, and Finance to scale markets and reduce deployment costs for environmental solutions.

Team Leadership:

• Provide effective leadership and foster an inclusive culture for a team covering operational aspects of the sustainability team's overall mission.
• Grow the team with strong hires and create people development plans to strengthen capabilities and individual growth.

Business Integration:

• Identify issues that impede business group success and provide recommendations and implement solutions. Identify opportunities to create cross group collaboration and cross environmental program synergies.

Special Projects

• Drive high-impact cross-team projects as needed to meet the changing business environment and ensure the team is achieving commitments.
• Successful project management, including work with strategy consultants and other external agencies, on strategic efforts that require hands-on experience across multiple functional disciplines and business organizations.

Qualifications
Required/Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree AND 7+ years experience leading environmental Sustainability Programs with diverse stakeholders, at a technology or engineering organization, non-profit, or governmental agency, or related area
  • OR 10+ years experience leading environmental Sustainability Programs with diverse stakeholders, at a technology or engineering organization, non-profit, or governmental agency, or related area
  • Or equivalent experience
• 5+ years of team management experience, driving teams to design, build, evaluate, support, and continuously improve complex cross-functional programs.

Preferred Qualifications:

• MBA preferred
• Demonstrated leadership skills with intuitive people skills, strategic mindset, and an ability to translate science into business results.
• Understanding of global sustainability related policies, regulations, standards, and literature.
• Experience leading and executing projects in a complex organizational environment and working on several diverse projects simultaneously.
• Fluency in market development for the technologies and strategies needed to achieve our sustainability goals, including carbon reduction, water replenishment, and materials and materials management markets.
• Analytics experience including financial forecasting, modeling, and investment analysis related to sustainability initiatives.
• Attention to detail and strategic execution.
• Understanding of technology and associated operational environmental impact.
• Proven track record in project and business management.
• Ability to translate ideas into clear, high impact communications.
• Ability to excel in an ambiguous environment.

Corporate Social Responsibility M5 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $124,800 - $242,600 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $159,000 - $264,000 per year.
Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here: https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay
Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request via the Accommodation request form.
Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.
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