Initiatives
B-Team

Vision ... Mission ... and Now Hiring: Challenge Strategist (NYC-based position) 06/26/2013

Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

B-Team Vision

Our vision of the future is a world in which the purpose of business is to be a driving force for social, environmental and economic benefit.

B-Team Mission

Our mission is to deliver a ‘Plan B’ that puts people and planet alongside profit. Plan A — where companies have been driven by the profit motive alone — is no longer acceptable.

The B Team is a not-for-profit initiative that has been formed by a group of global business leaders to create a future where the purpose of business is to be a driving force for social, environmental and economic benefit.

The initial B Leaders include: Shari Arison, Sir Richard Branson, Kathy Calvin, Arianna Huffington, Mo Ibrahim, Guilherme Leal, Strive Masiyiwa, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, François-Henri Pinault, Paul Polman, Ratan Tata, Zhang Yue, Professor Muhammad Yunus and Jochen Zeitz. Joining The B Team as Honorary B Leaders are Mary Robinson and Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland representing People and Planet

Working with a global community of advisors and partners, The B Team seeks to develop and implement a Plan B for business that puts people and planet alongside profit. The B Leaders will focus on execution and action, catalysing and amplifying others’ efforts by undertaking specific global Challenges where their collective voice can make a difference.

The B Team Founders and Co-Chairs are Sir Richard Branson and Jochen Zeitz. They are joined by supporters who make up the Founders Circle including Derek Handley (founding CEO), Havas Media, Strive Masiyiwa, Joann McPike, Blake Mycoskie, Kering/PUMAVision, The Rockefeller Foundation, The Tiffany & Co. Foundation and Virgin Unite (initial incubator of The B Team). For more information, please follow us @thebteamhq

THE B TEAM CHALLENGES:

To accomplish our vision, The B Team and B Leaders will undertake specific ‘Challenges’ as a collective, which will be designed specifically to address areas outlined in the Plan B Agenda.

Our assumption is that where the work has been done and the solutions already exist, we can help to find and scale them and, where new answers are needed, we can help to advance them.

Alongside an extended team of experts and advisors we have designed a process to help ensure that every potential Challenge we undertake presents the highest opportunity to achieve widespread, transformative impact.

Before we start every Challenge we canvass the globe, listen to leading experts, and put together specialized teams with the brightest and most experienced advisors, partners, consultants and staff who collaborate to design each Challenge:

• Clearly define the problem
• Map the ecosystem and landscape
• Design the Challenge strategy or solution
• Build and launch the Challenge effort

The Challenge Strategist will join our New York City-based team to lead this process, and the multi-stakeholder and highly collaborative and iterative function of determining our Challenge strategy. They will define what our Challenges exist to achieve, working with broad communities and stakeholders to design them, and then incubate them for a smooth launch into the world.

WHAT YOU WILL DO:

Drive design and strategy of B Team Challenges – Work with business and thought leaders to identify transformative opportunities, strategies, and solutions according to agreed criteria.

Define the Challenge Problem and Desired End State – Define, form and align a community around the most transformative, high impact Challenge strategy, plan, methodologies and success metrics.

Define the Challenge strategy for highest chance of success and scalability, including identifying and vetting the best partnerships, methodologies, resources and practices.

Lead the incubation of the formation of the Challenge team and underlying operating principals, including governance and financing, for seamless and effective launch of the Challenge program.

WHAT THIS MEANS:

You are able to distil complex theories, landscape and ideas into clear, precise language.

You naturally blend flexibility and agility within a robust and comprehensive framework and core process to ensure alignment and Challenges that meet all The B Team Challenge gates, requirements and ambitions.

You quickly identify the heart of structural and systemic issues, roadblocks and opportunities.

You understand how to canvas widely many conflicting views, ideas and perspectives across the sustainability landscape and synthesise them quickly to create a comprehensive ‘map’ of each Challenge area.

You create and design multiple possible strategies for addressing difficult problems.

WHO YOU ARE:

Holistic – can see the overall objective and how all the moving parts need to work to get there.

You align, motivate, organise and drive a wide variety of people and partners to deliver results.

You consistently keep your eye on the vision and strategic goals as ‘guiding stars.’

You focus on the development of people, and the enabling conditions for collaboration among people and teams for the long term and bigger picture.

You are able to balance and direct prioritisation to achieve long and short-term goals – can connect here-and-now actions and ideas to longer-term final objectives.

You are detail oriented and able to prioritise where energy is spent for the sake of quickly achieving strategic objectives.

You are excellent at managing relationships and have strong communication and diplomacy skills.

You calmly navigate multi-party interactions and demands on limited resources, to produce robust mutually beneficial outcomes.

You have exceptional written and verbal skills.

YOUR EXPERIENCE:

Have led and taken principal responsibility for the strategic planning and implementation of non-traditional, multi-national programs, coalitions or consortiums.

8-10 years experience with a global consultancy or strategy firm or have extensive experience with the planning and creation of disruptive innovation.

Experience working with high-level global leaders, their teams and the logistics involved with driving multiple players toward an agreed ultimate outcome.

Experience with design of strategy for coalitions solutions or consortiums desired to scale an idea towards the tipping point is a strong plus.

Experience operating very broadly across the entire sustainability spectrum, in order to move across the various agenda areas adeptly.

SALARY: Commensurate with experience.

APPLY: Please send a resume and cover letter explaining why you are the right person for this job to ecaruthers@heidrick.com with subject line Challenge Strategist Application.