Lead, Industry and Partnerships, Food and Water

World Economic Forum (WEF)

Geneva, Switzerland 🇨🇭

(start date asap, end 31.08.2027 with possible extension, Geneva based)

The World Economic Forum, committed to improving the state of the world, is the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation.  The Forum engages the foremost political, business, and other leaders of society to build coalitions, projects and initiatives – digitally and physically – to address industry, regional and systemic issues.

The Centre for Climate & Nature (CNC) seeks to bring innovation and frontier approaches to help the international system be more agile and equipped to respond to today’s challenges. The Centre does this by helping the international community leverage public-private cooperation, the Fourth Industrial Revolution, systems thinking and a platform approach for improved management of the global commons and building sustainable markets for the 2030 development goals.

The CNC is seeking a Lead, Industry and Partnerships, Food and Water to build and deliver on a strong markets strategy for the food and water agenda at the Forum, reporting to the Head of Food and Water. This role will be responsible for leading and shaping the business engagement and managing the multistakeholder partnerships strategy and engagement for the Forum’s Food and Water team, including engaging Forum Partners into this agenda, and facilitating the Forum’s strategy to strengthen best in class multistakeholder platforms such as the Food Action Alliance, Grow Asia and the Water Resources Group among others, as key vehicles to deliver impact on the ground.

Why we are recruiting 

Food and Water is a newly integrated portfolio located at the Center for Nature and Climate. The Forum has worked on both agendas for a decade and a half, building up a strong track record of galvanizing multi-sectoral leadership to support collective regional and country-led action, and advancing global insight and policy, to accelerate food systems transformation and, water security and equity, to meet the needs of people and the planet. More here: Food initiatives and Water initiatives.

Water must be seen as an enabler and impact-multiplier – creating domino effects across SDG agendas, revitalizing jobs and ensuring global health – rather than competing against these equally important economic and social priorities.  Innovative ideas, new models of collaboration, fresh approaches to stimulate and channel investment and technology solutions is required at scale and speed.  The UN Water Conference set to take place March 2023 is a major international milestone for the water agenda.  The first since 1977, the conference has the potential to be a watershed moment to address the systemic shortcomings and inequities of our global water systems. 

In this context, the Forum’s Global Water Initiative will ramp up its activities to shine the spotlight on the risks and  opportunities that water plays in a successful transition to a green economy, bring together industry and regional leaders and water champions in action-oriented multi-stakeholder partnerships, and accelerate an innovation and entrepreneurship agenda for healthy and resilient freshwater systems. The recent integration with food systems also offers a major opportunity to further develop opportunities in the nexus of agri-food and water solutions from a finance, technology, and partnerships approach. The food and water agenda has three strategic tracks:

1) Finance and Incentives for Regenerative and Adaptive,

2) Innovation and Technology Ecosystems,

3) Public Private Partnerships to support country pathways.

Reporting lines and interactions

The role will be based in Geneva within the Centre for Nature and Climate (CNC), reporting to the Head of Food and Water, who is based in the Forum’s New York office. Internally, this person will work with colleagues in the broader CNC, as well as a wide range of other teams and colleagues in the Forum. Externally, this person will engage Forum partner companies, potential Forum partners, and a broad range of stakeholders including governments, multilateral development organizations, civil society, and academia in the areas of food and water.

The selected candidate will be responsible for

Industry Management

  • Develop strategy and strengthen opportunities for business partners to advance the food and water agenda.
  • Identify, build, and manage strategic relationships with key partners from business, government, academia, investors, innovators to support the strategy delivery, build out, and continued interest and engagement in the Forum’s food and water agenda, building on existing initiatives in the short-term, and new programmes in the future. 
  • Manage Community of CEOs for Food, Water and Health, which serves as a cross-industry and multi-platform alliance bringing the core strengths of otherwise siloed communities committed to work together to deliver a transformation of agri-food systems, which can lead the race to net-zero, safeguard nature and biodiversity, improve healthier diets and water equity and water and food security, and build more inclusive and resilient economies
  • Engage with all relevant internal Forum teams to ensure visibility and understanding of the work, identification of synergies and opportunities to collaborate and accelerate/scale efforts.  This includes, but not limited to, teams in:  CNC, UpLink, industry, regional, public engagement, partner engagement, sustainable finance

Strategic Engagement of Existing and New Partnerships/Programs/Initiatives

  • Lead the Forum’s strategic engagement in key multistakeholder platforms to raise ambition and commitments, and impact in the food and water agenda
  • Champion and lead the Forum’s efforts across existing and emerging efforts, including – but not limited to:
  • 2030 Water Resources Group (closing the gap between demand and supply of water resources)
  • Food Action Alliance (portfolio of investible public private partnerships taking a food systems approach to support country pathways)
  • Grow Asia (regional platform in ASEAN to boost farmer resilience through multistakeholder partnership)
  • Lead the organization and delivery of community interactions, events and/or sessions to help deliver on the strategy

Preferred requirements and experience

  • Professional with 8+ years of experience and a graduate degree (or equivalent experience) in a relevant field (business, economics, sustainability)
  • Strong understanding in sustainability and the issues core to the global water security agenda, including agri-food systems, climate, circular economy, among others.
  • Demonstrated leadership and delivering results with large scale coalitions, and strong track record in working across stakeholder groups – in particular private sector, government, and international organizations.  Experience with a professional services organization or role is an asset
  • Top-tier network across all stakeholder groups in the water sector
  • Inspiring leader with a good facilitation skills, a strong business acumen and an entrepreneurial mindset
  • Excellent strategic thinking, program management skills, and ability to connect the dots to deliver impact
  • Strong diplomacy and relationship management skills to execute complex and impact-driven national platforms across cultures
  • Demonstrated ability to work with leaders at the executive and subject matter expert levels
  • Excellent network-building and collaboration skills and ability to build trust-based relationships, foster cooperation across stakeholders, and thrive in a flexible environment and situations of ambiguity
  • Responsible, independent and self-driven; demonstrates excellent organizational, strong work ethic, project and time management skills, and possess high attention to detail
  • Creative thinker with ability to frame compelling ways to convey information and insights
  • Strong communicator and engaging storyteller with excellent written and verbal communication skills.  Ability to be concise and clear.  Fluency in English
  • Proficiency in using CRM tools

Why work at the Forum:

The Forum believes that progress happens by bringing together people from all walks of life who have the drive and the influence to improve the state of the world by building awareness and cooperation, shaping mindsets and agendas, and driving collective action. Join us and become a driver for positive change!


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