Vice President, Sustainability Regulatory Strategy & Execution

The core of the job is owning BNY's sustainability and climate regulatory agenda across EMEA while keeping it consistent with the global approach. In practice that means tracking emerging requirements such as CSRD, the EU Taxonomy, UK Sustainability Reporting Standards and prudential climate rules, judging which ones matter most to the firm, and turning them into a sequenced plan that functions can act on. Alignment with IFRS S1, IFRS S2 and TCFD sits at the centre of that work. Day to day, the role involves reading consultations and draft standards, writing impact assessments, and bringing recommendations to senior committees for decision. A large share of time goes to coordination: convening colleagues in Sustainability, Risk, Finance, Legal, Compliance and Investor Relations, agreeing who does what, and keeping implementation on track across regions that face different rules. The role also carries a quality agenda. It covers the shape and content of sustainability disclosures, the governance and controls behind them, and documentation that can withstand assurance. The posting adds a forward-looking element: finding where reporting can be improved through process redesign, automation and the considered use of AI. Longer term, the objective is a firm that can absorb regulatory change without rebuilding its reporting from scratch each cycle.

This role offers unusual exposure to the full regulatory stack at once: disclosure requirements such as CSRD and the UK standards, taxonomy classification, global baseline frameworks in IFRS S1 and S2, and prudential climate expectations. Working across those in a single seat builds a systems view of how international rules interact, which is hard to acquire in a narrower reporting or risk job. The matrix is itself a learning environment. Coordinating with Risk, Finance, Legal, Compliance, Investor Relations and regional leadership teaches how a global financial institution actually makes decisions, how governance forums function and where regulatory readiness stalls. Exposure to senior management and board-adjacent material accelerates commercial judgement. The posting also flags process improvement, automation and the responsible use of AI in reporting. A candidate who engages seriously with data lineage, controls and assurance will leave with a skill set that sits between sustainability and finance, which is where demand is strongest. Mentorship is likely to come informally from senior partners across functions rather than through a formal programme.

The employer is explicit that experience leading sustainability, regulatory, prudential, risk or disclosure initiatives inside financial services or a similarly regulated environment is expected. That means this is not an entry into the field: they want someone who has already carried a regulatory workstream, likely at manager or senior manager level, and can point to frameworks such as CSRD, EU Taxonomy, IFRS S1 and S2, TCFD, UK reporting standards or prudential climate rules as working knowledge rather than reading. The distinguishing skill is translation. The posting repeats variants of turning complex requirements into clear business priorities, implementation plans and practical solutions, which points to a consultant-shaped or programme-shaped background where the output was an operating model, not just an opinion. Numeracy and disclosure literacy matter too, because the role touches data integrity, controls and assurance-ready documentation. Soft skills are weighted heavily: influencing senior stakeholders, building alignment across a matrix, judgement, communication and the confidence to offer credible challenge. A bachelor's degree in sustainability, finance, accounting, economics, law, public policy or similar is the stated baseline. Familiarity with sustainability data tools, automation and AI-enabled capabilities is listed as preferred, so it separates candidates rather than gates them.

A generic sustainability cover letter will not stand out here. This role sits at the intersection of regulation, risk and disclosure, so lead with concrete evidence that you have translated a sustainability or prudential rule into an operating plan: a CSRD gap assessment you coordinated, a taxonomy alignment exercise, a governance paper you drafted for a board or risk committee. Name the frameworks plainly (CSRD, EU Taxonomy, IFRS S1 and S2, TCFD, UK SRS) and say what you actually did, not just which ones you have heard of. BNY hires in a highly matrixed way, so show how you built alignment across legal, finance, risk and the business without direct authority. Prepare for interviews on judgment as much as knowledge. Expect questions that test how you prioritise when several regulatory workstreams compete for the same specialists, and how you handle credible challenge from a function that disagrees with your read. Bring one example where your analysis changed a senior decision, and one where you were overruled and adapted. Because the posting mentions controls, assurance readiness and AI-enabled tools, have a view ready on data lineage and how sustainability numbers get assured. Research BNY as a custody and asset management platform rather than a lender or insurer, since the regulatory exposure of the balance sheet and the disclosure perimeter differ. Knowing the structure (assets under custody versus assets under management, the client base of pension plans and governments) will let you speak about why their sustainability reporting is watched by a wide set of stakeholders.

The emphasis is on the governance and disclosure side of ESG rather than operational decarbonisation. This person works on how BNY measures, reports and assures its sustainability and climate positions, which places them closest to the E of environmental reporting but firmly in the G of governance, controls and regulatory compliance. Social and workforce topics may surface through CSRD's broader reporting scope and through taxonomy-related activity. Because BNY is a custody and asset management platform, the substance differs from a manufacturer or utility. Much of the regulatory attention falls on financed and facilitated emissions, client-facing disclosures and the firm's own corporate reporting, alongside prudential expectations about how climate risk is governed and capitalised. Frameworks such as IFRS S1 and S2 and TCFD shape the narrative, while the EU Taxonomy and UK standards shape classification and format. The posting's mention of data integrity and automation signals that the practical focus will often be on the evidence base behind the disclosures: where numbers come from, how they are controlled, and whether they could survive external scrutiny. That is the layer where regulatory strategy meets the firm's day to day operations.

The clearest difficulty is the pace and volume of change. Sustainability regulation is being written and revised in parallel across several jurisdictions, so this person will often be planning against draft or shifting requirements while the business asks for certainty. Deciding when a position is stable enough to build on is a judgement call that carries real reputational and compliance weight. A second challenge is influence without ownership. The role is described as coordinating implementation across Risk, Finance, Legal, Compliance and regional teams, but those functions hold the controls and the budgets. Progress depends on persuading busy specialists to prioritise regulatory readiness alongside their own deadlines, in a matrix where authority is diffuse. There is also a data problem underneath the strategy. Producing disclosures that are assurance-ready means reliable data, documented methodology and consistent definitions across a firm with tens of thousands of employees and long operational history. The posting's mention of controls, documentation and automation hints that current processes may be partly manual, so the role holders will spend time on plumbing as well as policy.

A typical day mixes analysis with coordination. Mornings may go to reading regulatory updates, drafting a position paper or reviewing a disclosure draft for consistency with IFRS S1 and S2 or TCFD language. Much of the week is booked with meetings: a working session with Finance on data definitions, a Legal review of an interpretation, a Risk discussion on controls, and a briefing to a regional leadership team on what a new requirement means for them. There is a steady cadence of governance work. Preparing papers, summarising options and presenting recommendations to senior forums is routine, as is following up on decisions and tracking actions across functions that do not report to this role. Ad hoc requests arrive when a consultation closes, a client asks a sustainability question, or a deadline slips. The rhythm shifts with the regulatory calendar. Reporting season and consultation periods are intense, with long stretches of drafting and review, while quieter windows allow deeper work on process improvement, automation of data flows and framework alignment. Variability across EMEA jurisdictions means the workload is rarely uniform week to week.

The title carries Vice President and the remit spans EMEA with a global mandate, so the natural next step is a more senior regulatory or sustainability leadership position, either broadening to a global head of sustainability reporting or deepening into prudential climate risk. Because the role partners with Risk, Finance, Legal and Compliance, lateral moves into those functions are realistic for someone who wants to shift from advisory to owning controls or disclosure sign-off. Growth here also comes from visibility. Work on CSRD or UK reporting standards puts this person in front of governance forums and regional leadership, which builds a profile that is transferable across the financial services sector. The posting mentions automation and AI-enabled solutions, so a candidate who learns to redesign a reporting process rather than just run it will accumulate skills that are scarce in sustainability teams. The main constraint is that regulatory strategy roles can be cyclical, with intensity tied to reporting deadlines and consultations. The candidate who uses quieter periods to build framework expertise or formal credentials will compound their position.

The posting names the core set directly: Sustainability, Risk, Finance, Legal, Compliance, Investor Relations and regional leadership. Each has a different stake. Legal and Compliance will test whether the firm's reading of a rule is defensible; Risk and Finance own the numbers and the control environment; Investor Relations cares how disclosures land with shareholders and ratings agencies; regional leadership wants implementation that fits local markets without fragmenting the global approach. The Sustainability Hub itself is the home base and the source of the firm's overall climate and sustainability positioning, so the role must stay aligned with colleagues working on strategy, data and engagement. Reporting lines into governance forums suggest periodic interaction with senior management committees, where the output is a recommendation rather than a discussion. Outside the firm, expect contact with peers at other financial institutions, industry bodies and possibly regulators or standard setters through consultations. BNY's client base includes pension plans, governments and large corporates, so client-facing teams may also pull this role in when sustainability questions arise in mandates or requests for information.