Senior Communications Lead, Business Renewables Centre

Position Overview

The Pembina Institute is seeking a strategic thinker with strong outreach and engagement skills to join our communications team. This position requires strong interpersonal skills, positive energy, a high degree of organization, and the ability to thrive in a fast-moving environment. The successful candidate will work with the Industrial Decarbonization policy group, mainly focusing on supporting the Business Renewables Centre-Canada (BRC-Canada). BRC-Canada is an initiative of the Pembina Institute which specializes in expanding the proportion of renewable energy in Canada’s electricity grid. It is focused on education and raising awareness among companies and public institutions interested in executing power purchase agreements with wind and solar energy developers. When BRC-Canada was founded in 2019, we set an ambitious goal of adding 2 gigawatts worth of renewable energy to Canada’s grid by 2025. Just a few months into 2022, we hit that target three years ahead of schedule. This is an exciting moment to join an organization that is making a real-world impact to Canada’s emissions trajectory.

The ideal candidate understands Alberta’s energy and business landscape. They are aware of the diverse sectors in our economy and can leverage that knowledge to communicate the value proposition of BRC-Canada to potential new buyers of renewable energy. The senior communications lead is also the point of contact for journalists and other external partners, as well as the instigator of mainstream, social and digital media efforts on priority issues. Reporting to a communications manager, and working closely with policy directors and analysts, the senior communications lead has experience with digital outreach/e-communications (such as the branding of website content and newsletters), and experience in digital publishing.

The ideal candidate has the aptitude and interest to learn complex information about the renewables sector and power purchase agreements, and eventually synthesize it into understandable formats and tailor it for specific audiences, especially business readers. They will be passionate about Canadian energy and climate issues and possess a deep interest in the Pembina Institute’s programs focusing on decarbonizing energy production.

This person should be available to work from one of the Pembina Institute’s offices in Alberta (Calgary or Edmonton). Pembina’s workplace is a hybrid system that does not require employees to be in an office full time.

The Pembina Institute and BRC-Canada

The Pembina Institute is a national, donor-supported think tank that advocates for strong, effective policies to support Canada’s clean energy transition. Through research, consulting, and convening, we employ multi-faceted and highly collaborative approaches to reduce the environmental impacts of energy production and use. BRC-Canada, as an initiative of the Pembina Institute, is a business-facing project that puts our policy work into real-world practice, by providing businesses with practical educational tools and resources to learn about purchasing renewable energy. In doing so, we help businesses to meet their ESG commitments, secure competitive power prices, and in turn help to make Canada’s whole electricity grid cleaner.

Our people are passionate about sustainability and dedicated to enabling positive social change. Our organizational culture encourages creativity and collaboration, and we offer a flexible, fast-paced work environment that rewards honest character, personal initiative, and innovation. The successful candidate will join our dynamic team of nationally recognized professionals working with Canada’s decision-makers and key influencers to deliver clean energy solutions.

Roles and Responsibilities

In this role, the senior communications lead will work with the program director to devise and implement an evolving communications plan that is underscored by BRC-Canada’s strategic objectives. This may include a mixture of outreach and engagement activities with businesses, advisory services, and renewable energy developers interested in power purchase agreements, as well as media monitoring and relations, producing content for social media, editing research reports, developing website content and resources, supporting both digital and in-person event planning and execution, and deploying strategies and tactics to leverage research in ways that influence policy decisions.

This position also requires collaboration with our strategic partnerships team on fundraising efforts, proposal development and cases for support. The senior communications lead will at times be expected to present on communications-related topics and metrics to BRC-Canada’s advisory board, which consists of leading organizations in the renewables industry.

Some travel and occasional work during evenings and weekends is required.

Skills and Qualifications

Candidates must clearly reflect the following skills and experience in their application:

Relevant educational background and a minimum of seven years’ work experience in communications, media relations, marketing, or a related field
A strong interest and background in climate and energy issues
Demonstrated experience developing, implementing, and evaluating communications strategy and/or plans
Familiarity with provincial and federal policy and politics, particularly with respect to Canadian energy and environmental issues

Familiarity with Canada’s national media landscape
A superb command of the English language (reading, writing and speaking)
Proven skills and experience in media relations, digital engagement, content creation and copy editing, social media, online publishing, and multimedia
Working knowledge of Microsoft Office programs
Familiarity with basic HTML editing, blogging and online publishing

Strong interpersonal skills, including the ability to exercise tact, discretion and sound judgment at all times

Other valuable qualifications

Experience using social media to build community and/or advocacy campaigns
Familiarity with media outlets serving Alberta’s urban and rural communities
Experience developing, editing, and producing multimedia products (audio/video podcasts, audio slideshows, YouTube videos, etc.).

French language proficiency an asset (speaking and writing)
Familiarity with Salesforce, Pardot or similar CRM software
Experience planning, promoting, and running webinars using Zoom

The ideal candidate will be:

An independent and confident self-starter

A creative and strategic thinker
A positive and collaborative team member
Adept at tailoring communications approaches to suit the intended audience and platforms
Able to juggle competing priorities and deadlines in a fast-paced environment
Able to demonstrate a genuine understanding and/or curiosity regarding the growth of renewable energy markets in Canada

Open to learning new concepts and complex information
Business-minded and able to translate climate action priorities into corporate priorities/language

Compensation and Benefits

Compensation is competitive and based on the skills, experience and qualifications of the successful candidate.

Benefits include:

extended health and dental coverage
four weeks of holidays per year
flexible work hours
employer contributions to RRSP plan
training and development opportunities

Further terms of employment will be discussed with candidates during the interview process.

The Pembina Institute is an equal opportunity employer, and we welcome applications from Indigenous People and other racially visible people, persons with disabilities and women in occupations or positions where they are under-represented. If you are a member of one of these equity seeking groups, you are encouraged to self-identify on your application form, covering letter or resume. We thank all applicants for their interest but only those selected for an interview will be contacted.
How to Apply

Email your cover letter and resume to careers@pembina.org. Please ensure the following:

Subject line includes Senior Communications Lead-BRC and your last name
Cover letter (max. two pages) explains why you are interested in working with the Pembina Institute and how your skills and qualifications meet the criteria outlined for this position
Resume outlines your relevant skills, education, and experience
Cover letter and resume are saved as one PDF document using the naming convention lastnamefirstletter-application-position-year.pdf example: LastNameInitialofFirstName-application- RiRCCommsLead- 2022.pdf

Application deadline: 11:59 p.m. MT on Monday, August 29, 2022.