JOB TITLE: Managing Director
STATUS: Exempt, 40 hours per week
LOCATION: Madison, WI, Portland, OR, or Tucson, AZ, or negotiable based on level of experience
CULTURE AND COMMITMENT AT ILLUME
Our Vision: ILLUME is the premier consultancy for advancing, re-envisioning, and equitably transforming the energy industry. We align with clean energy and social justice imperatives and give primacy to human dreams and aspirations so that all can thrive in a clean energy future.
Our Commitment to Team Values: At ILLUME, we value the diverse lived experiences of our team. We view diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) as an on-going commitment and investment in the growth of our employees, the growth of our company culture, and the growth of our industry. By centering environmental justice, climate change mitigation, and social justice in our work, we aim to transform the way the energy industry looks at its challenges. We believe that our collective well-being depends on how well we explore, elevate, and communicate the experiences of all people who use the electric grid. We quantify the impacts of our public investments to reduce energy demand and mitigate climate change.
ILLUME considers our investment in our team as a long-term and mutual investment. At ILLUME, we’re committed to building a valued business while ensuring rewarding careers to our employees. ILLUME does not discriminate in its employment practices with regard to age, ancestry, religion, arrest record, color, conviction record, creed, cultural background, disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity or expression, marital status, military obligations, national origin, race, sex, or sexual orientation.
JOB SUMMARY
The Managing Director is responsible for leading large and complex projects on behalf of ILLUME Advising. The Managing Director will draw upon the work and expertise of colleagues including ILLUME’s analytical teams to successfully deliver thoughtful work and expert consulting services to our clients. The Managing Director will be responsible for developing and maintaining our relationship with these clients, cultivating additional business opportunities with specific clients and across ILLUME’s existing and potential utility clients, and working closely with our project partners to ensure a seamless, coordinated and exceptional delivery of research, consulting and management services to our utility clients. Projects will be in ILLUME’s core programmatic areas of expertise including evaluation, ethnographic research, data science and analytics and integrated demand side management. The Managing Director will also be responsible for fostering ILLUME’s knowledge in key areas of strategic growth and exhibit subject matter expertise.
PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES & KEY RESULTS AREAS (KRAS)
Below we show the key result areas (KRAs) for these positions. The Managing Director should be at the higher end of these ranges and may have more direct supervisor responsibility over managing consultants or an entire team. Range may also be dependent on area of focus. Levels may vary by individual based on focus areas.
Portfolio & Key Account Oversight
- Lead key accounts while empowering Managing Consultants to ensure projects are delivered on budget and in a timely manner, while meeting ILLUME brand and quality standards.
- Drive business development to grow the account.
- Provide technical oversight and direction to portfolio or project team.
- Align project teams to ensure methodologically sound approaches to the work, foster creativity, and meet or exceed industry best practices.
- Support, mentor, and coach team to successfully deliver projects on tasks, timelines, and deliverables.
- Communicate challenges and opportunities related to key accounts (existing and potential projects) to the executive team.
- Maintain and document the big picture of the client’s needs in the context of their policy and/or organizational environment.
- Ensure that ILLUME executives and the Marketing and Business Development (MBD) team are informed of the account’s status and needs.
- Provide, direct, and deploy ILLUME consulting services to key accounts through one-on-one client interaction, group meetings and conversations, and/or facilitating complex or politically sensitive stakeholder meetings.
- Meet with key accounts (semi-annually to annually) to solicit feedback and identify current or emerging client issues/needs (supporting business development).
Staff Development, Training and Mentorship
- Mentor and develop Managing Consultants as described in project and key account oversight above.
- Develop Managing Consultants and Directors toward portfolio planning and ensure that MCs have the resources needed (training, staff, otherwise) to deliver increasingly larger and more complex projects.
- Provide direct mentoring of the ILLUME consultant and analytical team.
- Provide project- and task-level training and technical supervision to ILLUME staff based on the project teams’ and company’s needs.
- Identify team trainings needs and work with the executive and consultant team to develop and deliver trainings.
Ensure Sound & Rigorous Methodologies are Employed Across Projects
- Collaborate with the consultant team to identify the best methodologies across projects. including serving as a Subject Matter Expert (SME).
- Ensure teams are appropriately and rigorously using standard and best practice methodologies that adhere to QA/QC standards.
- Ensure teams are effectively interpreting, and delivering, actionable findings and recommendations in relatable language appropriate for general and less technical audiences.
Subject Matter Expertise (SME)
- Demonstrate area(s) of subject matter expertise, communicated and known to the team.
- Serve as a valuable and actively consulted subject matter expert on identified areas of expertise.
- Remain aware of, and advance, industry standard and best practices for your area of expertise.
- Provide support and training across the company on that topic.
- Actively pursue strategic opportunities for ILLUME in areas area of SME in coordination with MBD team.
Business Development, Upselling, and Proposal Development
- Proactively grow existing key accounts, exploring ways to help clients utilize the full breadth of ILLUME’s capabilities and teams.
- Identifying and cultivate relationships with new or potential clients to expand ILLUME’s client base.
- Coordinate closely with project managers working on assigned key accounts to identify client needs and issues to stay abreast of opportunities outside of existing project work.
- Communicate leads and opportunities to the leadership, executive, and MBD teams in a timely manner. Track and follow-up on leads to their natural conclusion.
- Lead large sales opportunities (proposals) as well as small tent sales opportunities (proposals).
- Lead the end-to-end development of all aspects of proposals with the MBD support team, including representing ILLUME at best and final interviews.
- Represent ILLUME at key industry events and in key organizations.
- Proactively support MBD efforts across the company.
- Identify ways to promote the work of ILLUME team members, specifically those working on key accounts which you oversee.
- Ensure that project and portfolio MBD materials are created, updated, and archived by the MC.
OTHER DUTIES
Please note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities and activities may change at any time with or without notice.
COLLABORATION
Collaboration is the minimum standard at ILLUME. Team members build trust through regular, open, and honest communication and by working together across the company to ensure the success of every project. By working together, we create the momentum to accomplish our company objectives and together attain exceptional results.
REQUIRED EDUCATION
Master’s degree in a related field or commensurate years of demonstrated experience.
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
Industry Experience
- At least ten to twelve years of experience in applied research consulting (note: data analytics and/or social science research experience is imperative), preferably in energy research
- Direct experience providing consulting services to clients in the energy space or adjacent categories
- Proven experience mentoring and managing staff
Management Skills
- Demonstrated ability to prioritize effectively in the face of multiple and shifting priorities, with the ability to switch between complex analytical thinking and attending to mundane tasks without compromising quality or losing one’s focus
- Ability to develop research methods and study designs and lead staff in executing against those designs
- Demonstrated ability to deliver exceptional research services on time and on budget
- A clear history of working on multiple tasks/ projects within established timelines
- Exceptional client and stakeholder management
- Demonstrated independent decision-making experience with solid judgment
- A history of successful, creative problem-solving
Reporting & Communication Skills
- Superior verbal and written communication skills, demonstrating clarity and conciseness
- Tireless attention to detail in all prior experience (professional)
- Experience applying critical thinking and attention to detail resulting in accurate and high-quality end-products
- Experience effectively identifying and conveying relevant messages, findings, and recommendations through various reporting mechanisms
- Superior verbal and written communication skills, demonstrating clarity and conciseness
- Presentation skills
- Intermediate experience with Microsoft Excel, Word and PowerPoint
DESIRED QUALIFICATIONS
- Prior consulting-type experience working autonomously and driving one’s own success
- A history of self-education on issues outside the immediate scope of prior work
- Comfort in public speaking and public training
- Experience with business development, sales, developing competitive bids, and/or participating in best and final presentations
- A proclivity for research ingenuity and innovative method design
- A desire to help improve standards and systems to foster a highly cooperative and collaborative working environment across multiple U.S. based offices
- Experience with stakeholder facilitation
WORKING CONDITIONS
The Managing Directing will work in an office setting the majority of the time under normal conditions. Due to COVID-19, ILLUME employees will work remotely at their homes (or other, socially distant locations), until it is deemed safe to resume work in office. This position requires sitting (or standing) for long periods of time at a computer; and communicating by telephone and email. Dress code at ILLUME is business casual (“pulled together”). This position requires travel roughly twice per month.
TO APPLY
Please submit a cover letter, resume, and writing samples/report samples from past work to hiring@illumeadvising.com.
In the subject line of your email, indicate the following:
Last name_First name_ Managing Director
In your cover letter, provide us with:
- A sense of who you are by being honest, creative, and “yourself”.
- Any experience with DEI in the workplace, and your own professional growth.
- Please include your desired location (Madison, WI, Portland, OR, or Tucson, AZ), or indicate if you wish to work elsewhere and how you will ensure collaboration and availability to your colleagues in a remote environment.
Expect that we will carefully review all of your materials, including your cover letter. Incomplete applications will not be considered.
ILLUME will accept applications until the position is filled.
