Hours: Full time (30 hours over 4 days) 

Location: London-based or commutable to London (minimum weekly), with some other UK travel as required.

Plus benefits

Can you lead Friends of the Earth in our mission to achieve climate justice?

We are seeking to appoint an Executive Director to lead Friends of the Earth (England, Wales & Northern Ireland) at a crucial domestic and international moment for climate, environmental and social justice.

You will motivate, inspire and build the capacity of a growing and diverse network of people coming together to transform our environment into one which is flourishing, sustainable, and socially just.

You will do this as a passionate and effective advocate for an environment that’s getting better, a safer climate, abundant nature, healthy air, water and food. We work from the grassroots to the global in communities throughout England, Wales and Northern Ireland to playing our part in the international network of our sister organisations around the world.

We are looking for someone with established credibility and standing within the environmental and/or social justice sectors, someone able to inspire our activists, staff and allies, and to attract funding and resources to enable our vital work; someone with outstanding strategic vision and organisational leadership as well as a collaborative approach to build and deliver transformative work internally and externally.

With exceptional communication and relationship skills and an empathetic approach, you will inspire and lead our engagement across the political landscape and engage with a widening range of communities. Fostering equity, diversity and inclusion, including our commitment to becoming an anti-racist organization, you will be key to our work in pursuit of a just and sustainable world for all.

HOW TO APPLY AND KEY DATES

Please apply by sending a curriculum vitae, supporting statement and Equality & Diversity form to recruitment@foe.co.uk  

Your supporting statement should be no more than 2 pages of A4 and address the key requirements of the person specification with relevant examples of your experience and outline why you are interested in the post.  Please state if you wish to be considered under Disability Confident.

To ease administration, please combine into a single Word document. Please do not use PDF format.

We are undertaking direct recruitment via this process. Additionally, Oxford HR are assisting us via an executive search process. If you are engaged with that, please continue to route your application via them. All applications will be reviewed jointly.

Key dates: 

Closing date: Thursday 2nd January 2025 (at 23:59)

First stage

1st Interviews:  Wednesday 15th/ Thursday 16th January 2025 (online via Teams meeting) 

Second stage

Meetings with key stakeholders: Wednesday 22nd/ Thursday 23rd January 2025 (online via Teams meetings) This will include meetings with representatives of our Boards, management, staff, Nations and the recognised union (Unite).

2nd Interviews: Wednesday 29th/ Thursday 30th January 2025 (in person at our London office)                                          

We offer a competitive range of benefits, good work/life balance including a 4-day working week with no loss of pay, excellent learning and development opportunities and a vibrant organisational culture. 

Our staff body is currently under-representative of People of Colour, LGBTQIA+ people and people with long term conditions or impairments. We are committed to eroding these historic barriers, so as to create a movement in which people from all walks of life see themselves in, and so we particularly encourage you to apply if you belong to one of these groups or sit at multiple intersections of disadvantage. We are committed to the Disability Confident standard and will guarantee an interview to any candidates who declare a disability and who meet the essential criteria for the role.

Friends of the Earth staff who publicly represent Friends of the Earth (including all campaigners) are not allowed to also represent a political party. This is to ensure that there can be no confusion in the minds of the public about Friends of the Earth's party-political independence. Affected staff should also seek permission from the Senior Management Team if they wish to hold a non-public facing official role in a political party. If this is an issue, please do raise this with us as soon as possible.

Friends of the Earth is an international community dedicated to protecting the natural world and the wellbeing of everyone in it. We lead campaigns, provide resources and information, and drive real solutions to the environmental problems facing us all. 

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