--- title: "Global Senior ESG Manager – Engagement & Partnerships" canonical: https://csrjobs.club/jobs/simon-kucher-global-senior-esg-manager-engagement-partnerships-hh4w locale: en description: "Simon-Kucher is hiring a Global Senior ESG Manager – Engagement & Partnerships on CSR Jobs. Discover this in-house sustainability role and apply today." updated: 2026-10-08 company: Simon-Kucher country: Poland contract: Full time seniority: Senior missions: Employee engagement, Stakeholders engagement, ESG reporting, Strategic planning job_type: ESG/Sustainability Reporting Manager, Sustainability Manager posted: 2026-10-08 valid_through: 2026-12-08 apply: https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4466212140 source: CSR Jobs --- # Global Senior ESG Manager – Engagement & Partnerships This is a global, relationship-driven ESG role: you will run Simon-Kucher's international ESG Captains network, own the firm's pro-bono portfolio, and design the employee engagement programmes (volunteering, donations and impact campaigns) that connect colleagues in 30+ countries to a shared social mission. Simon-Kucher sells commercial growth strategy, so the internal ESG function exists to show that the firm's impact goes beyond profit maximisation. That makes this role the connective tissue between a commercial consulting business and its social licence to operate: pro-bono partnerships, measurable social impact and credible reporting are how that case is made. This suits someone who has already coordinated multi-country ESG engagement programmes, is comfortable managing nonprofit partners and internal volunteers at once, and wants a global remit rather than a single-market one. ## Job FAQs ### What are the main missions and responsibilities of this role? The core of this role is **ownership of Simon-Kucher's global engagement and partnership agenda**. Day to day that means coordinating the international ESG Captains network, keeping local volunteering, donation and social impact initiatives aligned with the firm's overall ESG strategy, and acting as the internal point of contact for colleagues who want to launch something in their own country. Alongside this, you hold the global pro-bono portfolio: selecting and governing projects, managing relationships with partner organisations, and making sure each engagement delivers something measurable. A second strand is design and delivery. You would be building engagement initiatives from scratch (awareness campaigns, volunteering formats, and flagship moments such as the annual Impact Week) which requires moving between concept, planning, internal communications and execution. **Partnership development** sits at the centre: identifying nonprofits, social enterprises and foundations, negotiating the terms of collaboration, and maintaining those relationships over time so they produce repeat engagement rather than one-off activity. Finally, there is the measurement and reporting layer. You would define engagement and social impact KPIs, track them, and feed programme data, impact assessments and stakeholder insights into the annual ESG reporting process. Longer term, the objective is a coherent global ecosystem where local energy and central strategy reinforce each other, and where the firm can credibly demonstrate social impact rather than simply describe it. ### Key learning opportunities for this job This role offers unusually broad exposure to **global ESG programme management**. Managing a multi-country volunteer and Captains network teaches you how to run distributed initiatives across different cultures, labour norms and levels of maturity, a skill that translates directly into larger sustainability functions. You would also deepen your grasp of social impact frameworks, pro-bono governance and the practical mechanics of measuring engagement outcomes, which is one of the harder parts of ESG work. The partnership side brings negotiation, due diligence and relationship management experience with nonprofits, foundations and social enterprises. Because the remit touches annual ESG reporting, you would gain visibility into how social data is collected, structured and disclosed, useful grounding if you later move toward broader reporting or CSRD-adjacent work. Working inside a consultancy also means absorbing how a professional services firm thinks about value, client impact and commercial logic. That commercial literacy is often what separates candidates who can get ESG initiatives funded from those who cannot. Mentorship is likely to come from senior ESG leadership, and there may be scope to build expertise in impact measurement and employee engagement strategy at a scale few in-house roles offer. ### How does the ideal candidate look like (experience, skills)? The posting is explicit: at least **six years in ESG, sustainability, corporate responsibility or social impact**, with hands-on ownership of programmes, partnerships or reporting, and at least three of those years independently managing global or multi-country initiatives. A bachelor's degree is required, with a master's in sustainability, ESG, corporate responsibility, public policy or similar preferred. Experience working with nonprofits, foundations or social enterprises is treated as a hard requirement rather than a nice-to-have. Beyond the CV, the profile is someone who can **drive initiatives from concept to implementation without close supervision**. Stakeholder management across functions, geographies and seniority levels is central, so evidence of influencing people who do not report to you matters more than formal authority. Strong organisational skills, attention to detail and a genuine, demonstrable commitment to sustainability will be tested: this is a role where personal conviction is part of the job. Practical tools matter too: advanced PowerPoint and Excel are explicitly required, which signals a role heavy on decks, programme plans and data tracking. Excellent written and spoken English is essential, and any additional languages useful across Simon-Kucher's 30+ country footprint would be an advantage, though not stated as a requirement. ### Advice to stand out and make a successful application Because Simon-Kucher is a **commercial growth consultancy**, the strongest applications will frame social impact in terms of outcomes and evidence, not sentiment. When describing your pro-bono or volunteering programmes, quantify them: how many countries, how many participants, what measurable result, what budget or partner governed. The role asks for six years of experience and three years of global programme ownership, so make those two thresholds unmistakable in your CV rather than leaving a recruiter to infer them. Tailor your cover letter around the specific mechanics named in the posting, ESG Captains networks, pro-bono portfolios, impact measurement, annual reporting contributions. Generic statements about passion for sustainability will not differentiate you. Instead, describe one partnership or engagement initiative you built, how you kept it aligned across geographies, and how you proved it worked. Naming the measurement approach you used is likely to resonate in a firm that sells evidence-based decision-making. For interviews, expect questions that probe stakeholder influence and independent delivery, since the role reports into a global function and will interact with country teams that do not sit under it. Prepare examples of persuading busy, non-ESG colleagues to participate. It is also worth reading Simon-Kucher's published material on purpose and culture so your answers connect to how the firm positions itself beyond profit, and consider referencing Impact Week or similar initiatives to show you have done your homework. ### What aspects of the company's sustainability is this role likely to focus on? The emphasis here is clearly on the **"S" in ESG**. Simon-Kucher's internal function frames its work around social and environmental goals that go beyond profit maximisation, and this role owns the social impact and engagement side: pro-bono work, volunteering, donations, nonprofit partnerships and community programmes. Environmental topics may appear through employee-driven initiatives, but the centre of gravity is corporate citizenship and social contribution. The governance angle is subtler but real. By defining engagement and social impact KPIs and feeding data into the annual ESG reporting process, this position helps turn goodwill into something auditable and comparable. In a consultancy whose clients scrutinise claims for a living, credible measurement of social impact is likely to be a reputational priority, the firm cannot afford vague or unverifiable statements about its own contribution. Stakeholder engagement is the third pillar. The role connects internal teams across 30+ countries with external nonprofits, foundations and social enterprises, which means the sustainability focus is relational rather than technical. Success probably looks like a global network where local activity is aligned to strategy, partnerships are governed properly, and the firm can demonstrate, with data, that its engagement efforts create meaningful social value. ### What are the main challenges someone in this role might face? The most obvious challenge is **influence without authority**. The ESG Captains and country teams do not report to this role, yet the mandate is to align their local initiatives with a global strategy. That requires persuasion, diplomacy and a tolerance for uneven pace across markets, some countries will move quickly, others will need repeated engagement. Keeping momentum without formal levers is a skill in itself. A second difficulty is measurement. Social impact and employee engagement are genuinely hard to quantify credibly, and this role is explicitly accountable for defining and tracking KPIs. There is a real risk of settling for activity metrics (hours volunteered, events held) when the firm ultimately needs evidence of outcomes. Balancing ambition with what can honestly be measured is likely to be an ongoing tension. Third, the role sits inside a commercial consultancy where billable client work is the primary currency. Securing colleague time, attention and budget for pro-bono and engagement activity means competing with revenue-generating priorities. Add the complexity of governing partnerships across many countries and time zones, and the job demands strong prioritisation and the resilience to keep programmes alive when internal attention drifts. ### How could a typical day look like for someone in this position? A typical day likely mixes coordination, relationship-building and programme work. Mornings might involve calls with ESG Captains or country contacts across time zones, checking progress on local volunteering or donation initiatives and resolving blockers. There would be regular touchpoints with external partners (nonprofits, foundations or social enterprises) covering project governance, timelines and impact data, plus internal meetings with communications, HR or finance colleagues to align messaging or budgets. Mid-role, much of the work is **programme design and documentation**: drafting plans for campaigns such as Impact Week, building PowerPoint materials for steering conversations, maintaining Excel trackers of KPIs and participation, and preparing input for the annual ESG reporting cycle. Because the remit is global, the calendar probably stretches early or late to accommodate colleagues in different regions. Variability is high. During flagship moments like Impact Week or reporting season, the pace intensifies with event logistics and data consolidation. In quieter periods, the focus shifts to partnership development, improving measurement frameworks or scoping new strategic ESG projects. Independent project management means you largely set your own rhythm, which suits self-starters but requires discipline. ### What are the opportunities for professional growth and development in this role? The clearest growth path runs deeper into **global ESG leadership**. Having owned engagement, partnerships and pro-bono at firm-wide level, a natural next step would be a broader head-of-ESG or sustainability director role, either within Simon-Kucher as the function matures or elsewhere. The global scope is a genuine differentiator on a CV, since multi-country programme ownership is exactly what larger corporates look for. There is also room to specialise. The measurement and reporting element of the role could develop into expertise in social impact assessment and ESG disclosure, areas gaining regulatory weight. Alternatively, the partnership and pro-bono strand could evolve toward corporate citizenship, foundation management or ESG-focused external relations. Because the ESG department is described as dynamic and growing, there may be scope to shape new workstreams rather than inherit a fixed brief. Exposure is another form of growth. Working across 30+ countries, senior internal stakeholders and external impact organisations builds a network and a reputation quickly. In a firm that prizes initiative and entrepreneurial thinking, visible delivery on a global programme is likely to be noticed well beyond the ESG function, which can accelerate progression into more senior or cross-functional roles. ### The main stakeholders you might be interacting with Internally, the closest relationships are with the global ESG department and its leadership, who set strategy and to whom this role reports. The **international ESG Captains network** is the most important operational stakeholder group: these are colleagues in different countries who run local initiatives, and the role depends on them for delivery. Expect frequent interaction with HR, internal communications, finance and office management functions, particularly around budgets, campaigns and employee participation. Externally, the key stakeholders are nonprofit organisations, social enterprises, foundations and other impact-focused partners involved in the pro-bono portfolio. These relationships require governance, negotiation and ongoing stewardship: you are both the firm's representative and the guardian of the partnership's integrity. Partners will look to you for clarity on commitments, timelines and how impact will be assessed. Senior leadership across the firm also features prominently, since global ESG programmes need sponsorship and visibility. You would likely present progress, impact data and business cases to executives, and coordinate with country leadership whose priorities may differ. During reporting season, you would work with whoever owns ESG disclosure, supplying programme data and stakeholder insights, which means your stakeholder map spans both operational and strategic levels simultaneously. --- Source: https://csrjobs.club/jobs/simon-kucher-global-senior-esg-manager-engagement-partnerships-hh4w