Job Description
About the Organization CEA Consulting is an environmental consultancy based in San Francisco, CA. For over four decades, CEA Consulting has partnered with a wide range of philanthropies, nonprofits, businesses, and government agencies in effectively tackling urgent environmental challenges—from climate change to ocean conservation to sustainable food systems. By combining rigorous analysis with deep sector expertise, we help our clients develop focused strategies, build and execute effective programs, and assess and amplify their impact. With approximately 30 employees across the firm, CEA strives to create a collaborative and inclusive work environment where all consultants are supported in doing the work they are most passionate about, developing their skills, and bringing their whole selves to work. We believe that a wide array of perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences promotes innovation and makes our team more creative, flexible, and productive. For a more in-depth description of our approach to work, please see Vision, Mission, and Guiding Principles. For a more in-depth description of our services and examples of past work, please see website. CEA’s Work CEA supports environmental foundations, nonprofits, private‑sector businesses, government agencies, trade associations, and impact investors. We pride ourselves on being client‑oriented, insightful, and responsive. Our work encompasses a broad range of environmental topics, ranging from conservation to climate solutions on land and in the water, with many of our projects having an international scope. Most of our work serves the philanthropic and non‑profit sectors and relates to marine conservation and/or climate change. We also work regularly on climate resilience and adaptation, climate‑smart agriculture, land use and conservation, freshwater management, equity and justice in climate and conservation, transportation, wildlife protection, pollution, and urban sustainability. We often work at the intersection of these issues. Our primary offerings include: Strategy , including grantmaking strategies, organizational‑ or initiative‑level program strategies, field‑ or sector‑level landscaping and analysis, and opportunity assessments. Facilitation , including meeting and workshop design, insight generation, and synthesis; funder collaborative and NGO group facilitation. Operational Support , including initiative incubation, grant sourcing and diligence, designing and launching funder collaboratives, and board development and management. Analysis and Thought‑Leadership , includingsector‑level climate mitigation analysis, roadmaps or frameworks for collective action, grant database creation and analysis, and field‑level state‑of‑play assessments. Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning , including design and implementation of multi‑year MEL programs, logic models and theory of change development, learning session facilitation, research to support learning agendas, third‑party evaluations. Recruiting and Organizational Design , including executive search and transition planning, staff recruitment and hiring support, strategic talent acquisition partnership, board member recruitment, and executive compensation analysis. About the Role We are seeking a Director to expand and lead CEA’s climate‑related engagements. In particular, we are looking to expand our capabilities and networks across climate adaptation, nature‑based solutions, sustainable agriculture, and land‑use issues globally. This position interacts with leaders in the philanthropic field on work spanning a wide range of environmental issues and we expect this Director to have a comfortable working knowledge of the major climate sectors (e.g., power, transportation, building, industry). The Director position is the senior‑most consulting role at CEA, leading projects, contributing to the firm’s strategic direction, and directly managing team members. They are responsible for the day‑to‑day management of complex consulting engagements with a range of client organizations, including large environmental and climate‑focused foundations, family offices, philanthropic collaboratives, NGOs, impact investors, and bilateral and multilateral agencies. This role will be responsible for business development in climate solutions, leading and landing proposals with new clients while building and stewarding existing relationships to grow the firm’s portfolio. Our work environment is collaborative and intense. It requires intellectual rigor, excellent interpersonal and communication skills, strong research, analysis, and writing capacity, the ability to synthesize findings from a range of sources, superb project management skills, attention to detail, and a passion for climate solutions and environmental issues. The Director role at CEA allows flexibility in lea