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Associate Director - Sustainable Transport

Location: London, Madrid, Harwell (Oxfordshire), Hybrid

Role ID: 2023 - 1737

Our vision is to create a safe and sustainable world

Ricardo plc is a global strategic, environmental, and engineering consulting company, listed on the London Stock Exchange. With over 100 years of engineering excellence and employing close to 3,000 employees in more than 20 countries, we provide exceptional levels of expertise in delivering leading-edge and innovative cross-sector sustainable products and solutions. Every day, we enable our customers to solve the most complex and dynamic challenges to help achieve a safe and sustainable world.

Energy & Environment, one of Ricardo plc’s five operating business units, is a leader in sustainability consultancy, solving complex environmental challenges through industry-leading analysis, advice and data. With more than 40 years of heritage in addressing air quality, environmental and sustainability issues, our customers value us for our deep understanding and breadth of services covering the entire value chain from evidence, policy & strategy to implementation.

Ricardo’s Sustainable Transport business area is part of our Policy, Strategy & Economics Practice and works collaboratively with other areas of Ricardo on strategies, policies and technology assessments to make transport systems more sustainable, safe and resilient. We work for a variety of customers ranging from the public sector to international organisations to major corporations and provide impartial advice on decarbonisation, energy transition and new mobility topics.

Your role

We are looking for an Associate Director to join the Sustainable Transport team at Ricardo. The successful candidate will lead and oversee consultancy projects for corporate clients, local authorities, national governments, the European Commission and international clients such as the World Bank. The key topics on these projects will include transport decarbonisation, the transition to low and zero emission vehicles, policy and financial mechanisms to accelerate the transition, and new business models to promote innovation and safety across all transport modes. The work will involve a combination of identifying new opportunities and leading bids (e.g. business development, competitive bidding), and collaborating on the delivery of projects (e.g. project director, lead advisor).

Key responsibilities

The successful candidate will work with senior colleagues in the Sustainable Transport team, including the Business Area Manager who has overall responsibility for leading the team.  The successful candidate will also work with other experts and specialists from across the Ricardo Group in areas such as energy systems, climate change and air quality. You will have team leadership responsibilities and also play a leading role in providing technical leadership and supporting the development of more junior staff within the team. The Associate Director will present our work at conference and other external events internationally.

We welcome applications from candidates with broad experience in sustainable transport, irrespective of the specific transport mode they may be more familiar with. We expect candidates to share our passion for clean and safe mobility for all, wanting to make a difference through impactful projects, and bringing strong commercial skills.

Other required competences are:

• Highly developed commercial awareness and appreciation for financial management principles;
• Experience working across the project life cycle on policy/strategy/technical assignments, from early-stage prospecting through bidding and the successful delivery;
• Technical specialism recognised by stakeholders in at least two areas of Ricardo’s work in sustainable transport;
• Teamwork and collaboration as key values to work with others;
• Your work will involve task management, technical delivery and support to business development activities including competitive bidding,

Skills and behaviours 

You should be able to demonstrate the following:

• Relevant university-level education in a field related to sustainable transport.
• Extensive experience in transport, energy and climate-related topics
• Ability to work independently and demonstrate initiative, as well as capable of team working with colleagues located in different offices.
• Strong oral and written communication skills to prepare concise reports and to influence and lead others.
• Strong analytical skills
• Fluency in English.
• Strong MS Excel and Word skills.

 Desirable

• Experience in strategic/environmental consultancies
• Experience contributing to business development and/or competitive bid writing in a consultancy environment.
• Previous experience working with European Institutions, national and local governments and/or Finance Institutions
• Fluency in another language other than English.
• Knowledge of Python or other software.

Working here

 Ricardo is an exciting and rewarding place to work and you have the opportunity to make a difference. You will work with teams of talented, dedicated, and supportive individuals. Alongside having a fantastic opportunity to develop your career with us through our broad range of projects, mentoring opportunities and a personalised approach to your learning and development. We are always keen to hear from people who have driven, ambition and a flair for innovative thinking.

Wellbeing and work life balance

We offer flexible approaches to work, whether that's working from home, being in the office, or as a hybrid worker. We're happy to discuss flexible working arrangements. Wellbeing is at the core to our culture, allowing employees to flourish and to achieve their full potential. Our People are important to us, and we take pride in our wellbeing programmes and policies that support individuals including flexible working, carers policy, mental health first aiders and readily available support through our extensive Employee Assistance programme.

Diversity, Equality and Inclusion statement

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer, we believe in each person's potential, and we'll help you reach yours. We have an ambitious diversity, equality, and inclusion approach as explained here. We value diversity; recognising that a more diverse workforce creates a richer and more varied working environment. Diversity also drives innovation, by allowing us to offer our clients the best consultancy service that we can. As part of our commitment to engage positively and pro-actively with all our employees and ensure a culture of inclusivity, we are a recognised as a 'disability confident' employer.

Benefits

Our core benefits in the UK include 25 days' annual leave, plus 8 flexible bank holidays, a competitive company pension scheme, life assurance and professional subscriptions reimbursement. We also offer a wide range of flexible benefits to suit your lifestyle.

Once you have submitted your application a member of our Recruitment Team will be in touch. Please be aware that the timing can vary dependent on the volume of applications that we receive for each role and in some cases, we may start to review applications prior to the closing date.