Role: Waste Strategy and Implementation Lead

Location: UK Flexible - individual will need to travel and spend time in Middle East 

Role ID: 2023-1699

Our vision is to create a safe and sustainable world

Ricardo plc is a global strategic, environmental, and engineering consulting company, listed on the London Stock Exchange. With over 100 years of engineering excellence and employing close to 3,000 employees in more than 20 countries, we provide exceptional levels of expertise in delivering leading-edge and innovative cross-sector sustainable products and solutions. Every day, we enable our customers to solve the most complex and dynamic challenges to help achieve a safe and sustainable world.

Energy & Environment, one of Ricardo plc’s five operating business units, is a leader in sustainability consultancy, solving complex environmental challenges through industry-leading analysis, advice and data. With more than 40 years of heritage in addressing air quality, environmental and sustainability issues, our customers value us for our deep understanding and breadth of services covering the entire value chain from evidence, policy & strategy to implementation.

We are currently looking for a Waste Strategy and Implementation Lead to join our Waste team.

Our team provide strategic advice through policy support, waste strategy development, service design and delivery, helping to create the business case for service change, defining data requirements and collection methodologies, modelling and benchmarking the performance of waste collection and treatment systems and facilitating national, regional and local waste workshops and training courses. Our focus is on helping clients to solve problems and developing their capabilities to continue beyond the end of our commission. We continue to help our clients achieve substantial savings and balance environmental, social and economic pressures whether it be on-site or in the board room.

Key Responsibilities

A particular focus will be development and implementation of long-term resource and waste management strategies helping clients to navigate the changing global and national resource management picture. The role of resource management in delivering Net Zero Carbon Roadmaps will be of increasing importance in the delivery of our strategic advice.

The successful candidate will be:

• Leading the delivery of resource and waste management strategies including for our Middle East clients
• Support our business development leads in the winning of new business, through networks and relationships, including writing proposals and participating in conferences and events
• Leading client management activities and interpreting client expectations into successful project delivery
• Undertaking the role of project manager or director as required on Middle East projects and quality assurance of project work undertaken by others
• Aligning strategies with best practice frameworks, e.g. net zero, circularity etc
• Technical support on strategy development and implementation projects and other services offered by the business area to key decision makers in the waste industry, particularly governments, municipalities and waste management companies
• Responsible for the quality of own work and reviewing the work of others
• Ensuring tasks to be delivered on time and within budget

Key competencies and experience

Essential:

• A proven track record in waste strategy development at a local, regional and/or national level
• A detailed understanding of the tools and process associated with the strategy development process
• An understanding of international resource and waste management policy
• An appreciation of the key international mega trends and the need to build strategic resilience for our clients.
• Big picture thinker with an enthusiasm to think outside of the box
• Detailed appreciation of the Middle East waste market, key stakeholders and service delivery models
• Excellent communication skills and ability to present at and facilitate client workshops, seminars etc
• Ability to interpret complex issues and data, and identify solutions quickly
• Ability to present technical information to a non-technical audience and communicate clearly with our clients at all levels
• Must be able to conduct and analyse appropriately referenced research and arrive at well-reasoned conclusions from its analysis
• A high level of numeracy and a talent for numerical analysis
• Ability to write clear, concise and accurate reports which are tailored to the audience
• Project management and delivery including management of more junior staff and sub-contractors

 Desirable:

• Tertiary qualification in a relevant subject area
• Experience with circular economy and carbon policy
• Experience supporting waste management projects within the Middle East
• Member of an accredited body
• Fluent in Arabic (Preferred)
• Existing client relationships and networks within the industry and preferably in the Middle East
• Appreciation of different waste technologies and infrastructure development process

 Skills and behaviours

• Receptive to new and varied challenges, and able to rise to them and to learn.
• Able to work independently and as part of a project team, irrespective of position or role on the task.
• Self-motivated.
• Excellent attention to detail and accuracy and quality in all work.
• Good time management.
• Able to meet (multiple) deadlines and manage and deliver competing priorities.

Working here

Ricardo is an exciting and rewarding place to work and you have the opportunity to make a difference. You will work with teams of talented, dedicated, and supportive individuals. Alongside having a fantastic opportunity to develop your career with us through our broad range of projects, mentoring opportunities and a personalised approach to your learning and development. We are always keen to hear from people who have driven, ambition and a flair for innovative thinking.

Wellbeing and work life balance

We offer flexible approaches to work, whether that's working from home, being in the office, or as a hybrid worker. We're happy to discuss flexible working arrangements. Wellbeing is at the core to our culture, allowing employees to flourish and to achieve their full potential. Our People are important to us, and we take pride in our wellbeing programmes and policies that support individuals including flexible working, carers policy, mental health first aiders and readily available support through our extensive Employee Assistance programme.

Diversity, Equality and Inclusion statement

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer, we believe in each person's potential, and we'll help you reach yours. We have an ambitious diversity, equality, and inclusion approach as explained here. We value diversity; recognising that a more diverse workforce creates a richer and more varied working environment. Diversity also drives innovation, by allowing us to offer our clients the best consultancy service that we can. As part of our commitment to engage positively and pro-actively with all our employees and to ensure an inclusive culture, we are a recognised as a 'disability confident' employer.

Once you have submitted your application a member of our Recruitment Team will be in touch. Please be aware that the timing can vary dependent on the volume of applications that we receive for each role and in some cases, we may start to review applications prior to the closing date.