Senior Research & Operations Manager

Permanent employee, Full-time · London FAIRR

About The Role

The FAIRR Initiative, an initiative of Jeremy Coller Foundation is an innovative peer network for investors harnessing the power of capital markets to transform global protein production away from an over-reliance on intensive animal agriculture. FAIRR works with over 400 investors, representing $80 trillion in combined assets under management to use their power and influence to help global livestock, fish and dairy companies build a more sustainable food system.

This role leads the delivery of FAIRR’s flagship Protein Producer and Seafood Indices, combining team leadership, research operations, and product ownership. You will manage a multidisciplinary team while building scalable processes and ensuring high-quality, decision-grade outputs for global investors.

We are seeking an experienced Research and Operations Manager to join the Research & Data Team (R&D). R&D is a multidisciplinary team of researchers, engineers, modellers and data scientists developing benchmarks, risk models and thought leadership to help market participants understand the risks and opportunities in our global protein systems. We operate with a forward-looking approach, grounded in materiality – not morality and always incorporating analytical rigor, transparency and insight into our work.
You will lead the production of our flagship Protein Producer (PPI) and Seafood (SI) Indices. These benchmarks assess the maturity of public and private companies in understanding the material risks that they face linked to environmental and social topics such as deforestation, water scarcity, food safety, modern slavery and more. You’ll be responsible for the research planning for an expanding universe of companies, overseeing its annual execution, building out quality management systems and proactively managing the performance and development of our analyst team. You will play a central role in shaping team processes, culture and standards and report into the Director of Products & Analytics.

Key Responsibilities

Research Lifecycle Management: FAIRR researches an expanding universe of public and private companies undertaking both qualitative and quantitative research. You will set the timetable for delivering the PPI and SI benchmarks, establishing individual workload allocation, engaging with external research vendors, establishing the required quality control steps, and ensuring the delivery on time and within our budget. You will set the milestones, provide continuous motivation and assist the team in managing blockers and challenges. As well as organisational and motivation skills, you’ll bring a strategic mindset that knows how to scale up research at a sustainable pace that can be repeated and scaled over multiple cycles. As well as leading this process, you will take responsibility for the delivery of research on your own portfolio of companies ensuring you are connected to the operational work of the team you lead.
Team Leadership: You’ll be expected to lead by example bringing empathy and structure to the daily life of the team. By nature, you will be someone that loves interacting with and developing talent within an organisation. Across senior and junior members of the team, you will set SMART objectives, provide regular feedback, coaching and foster a high-performance, inclusive culture. You’ll drive performance improvement plans where required and provide direct, documented and objective feedback to individuals. You will also be responsible for building out onboarding trainings for the R&D team that bring new talent into the organisation and ground them in a clear understanding of our products, processes and responsibilities.
Quality Assurance and Process Improvement: Ensuring the transparency, consistency, independence and quality of our research is vital. You will collaborate with internal experts to ensure our research outputs are clear, forward-looking, and informative for market participants. You will work with the analyst and management team to develop and improve the processes, policies and systems that underpin our research. Within our benchmark products you will conduct regular macro analyses to understand volatility, no-info rates, range and distribution. You will challenge subject matter experts across the organisation to ensure that what we collect and what we convert into insight is decision grade and decision relevant data.
Thought Leadership and Market Engagement: you will work with our internal experts and our marketing and communications team to ensure our research is timely, relevant and forward looking. You’ll support the development of reports, blogs, social media posts and infographics that provide insight to market participants on the risks and opportunities in the protein sector. You will also represent FAIRR in public, engaging with our investor members, the wider market and leading conversations about our mission and our findings.

Essential Criteria

Sustainability and Finance Experience: 9+ years in Sustainability or ESG research. You will have worked in a sustainability ratings agency, sustainability standard setter or the ESG team of a financial institution. You have developed, worked on or used sustainability benchmark products, voting products or engagement products before. You are familiar with the key regulations (EU Taxonomy, EU SFDR, EU DR, ESMA Regulations for Rating Agencies) as well as the key disclosure standards in the market (GRI, ISSB, TCFD, TNFD). You’ll understand both financial and double materiality, the market debates that surround both concepts and how they can be integrated into research products.
Team Leadership: You have led high performing and intellectual teams before. You are highly skilled in motivating, mentoring, and evaluating research teams; adept at conflict resolution and building a positive and highly structured culture. You can manage up and down and have a track record of raising the output of teams.
Project Management: Proven ability to deliver complex research projects on time and within budget. Proven ability to execute on strategies and implement change. Comfortable managing competing priorities. Experience with agile project management processes or Lean Six Sigma is a plus.
Analytical & Communication Skills: Strong attention to detail, ability to convert complex ESG data into clear and succinct insights, and excellent oral/written communication for diverse audiences. You’ll be adept at both granular detailed presentations to expert audiences on methodologies, as well as executive level briefings to senior stakeholders.
Mindset: Entrepreneurial, adaptable to fast-paced environments with evolving systems.
Collaboration: Ability to work effectively across multiple teams.
Proficient in Microsoft Suite: Word, Excel, PPT

Desirable Criteria

Experience scaling up research coverage within organisations.
Expertise in designing and implementing research software solutions.
Familiarity with developing new sustainability research methodologies.

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About us

The FAIRR (Farm Animal Investment Risk & Return) Initiative was established in 2015 by the Jeremy Coller Foundation. The FAIRR Initiative is the fastest-growing ESG investor network with more than 400 investor members representing over $90 trillion in combined assets to leverage capital markets and drive positive change across the global food sector. FAIRR focuses on raising awareness of the key environmental, social, and governance (ESG) risks and opportunities impacting the protein value chain. Visit the FAIRR website for more information: www.fairr.org. Jeremy Coller Foundation (JCF) is a private foundation based in London and operating globally.

The Jeremy Coller Foundation (JCF), established in 2002, is the philanthropic vehicle of Jeremy Coller, Chair and Chief Investment Officer of Coller Capital, a leading private equity secondaries business. The Jeremy Coller Foundation is a strategic grant-making organisation with two primary focus areas. First, the Foundation is working to further venture and management education, partnering with Tel Aviv University on the Coller Institute of Venture and the Coller School of Management. Second, the Foundation seeks to address animal welfare, environmental and human health issues caused by intensive animal agriculture. You can learn more on the JCF website: www.jeremycollerfoundation.org.

WHY JOIN US?

Working for FAIRR provides the opportunity to be part of something big! As a purpose-led organisation, we offer a role that allows you to make an impact on people and the planet through our work on sustainable food systems. Our team is building for the future. We are a fast-paced organisation, offering a place to learn, do great things with great people, and have the autonomy to make decisions that spark and manifest real change.

FAIRR is comprised of several expert teams: Thematic Research & Engagements, Data & Research, Policy, Investor Outreach, Communications & Marketing, People & Culture. Our teams have grown rapidly but are still small enough to be innovative due to agility and collaboration. Teamwork and strong working relationships are key to our culture and enable a high level of trust within the team. All of this makes FAIRR a fantastic place to work to achieve real impact in the Global Food system – our goals are ambitious and exciting!

FAIRR’s culture is one of autonomy and responsibility, enabling skill development and career growth. Our team are supported and given stretch opportunities through our collaborative engagements with investors and the work we do with corporates producing innovative tools, data and research. You will have the opportunity to work on a range of high-profile topics to grow your expertise.

We are located in a modern office near Marble Arch.

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We look forward to hearing from you!

Thank you for your interest in the Jeremy Coller Foundation. Please fill out the following short form. Should you have difficulties with the upload of your data, please send an email to careers@fairr.org