South Pole is an energetic, global company offering comprehensive sustainability solutions and services. With offices spanning all continents across the globe, we strive to create a sustainable society and economy that positively impacts our climate, ecosystems and developing communities. With our solutions, we inspire and enable our customers to create value from sustainability-related activities.

Job summary:

The Managing Consultant - Physical Risk plays a pivotal role in delivering high-quality physical climate risk advisory to corporate clients across North America. This role involves leading climate risk assessments, integrating physical risk insights into corporate risk management, and ensuring alignment with key disclosure frameworks (TCFD, CSRD, ISSB, SEC, and California regulations). The Managing Consultant serves as a technical lead on projects, manages client relationships, and supports business development initiatives within South Pole’s Climate Risks & Opportunities practice.

This position requires a blend of technical expertise, project execution, and client engagement, ensuring that businesses understand and address the financial and operational risks associated with climate hazards, extreme weather events, and long-term climate variability.

Main tasks & responsibilities:

Project Delivery

• Lead the execution of physical climate risk assessments, ensuring high-quality analysis and alignment with disclosure frameworks (e.g., TCFD, ISSB, CSRD, SEC, and California regulations).

• Manage internal teams of consultants, overseeing delegation, technical review, and finalization of client deliverables to ensure accuracy and consistency.

• Conduct climate scenario analysis to assess hazard, exposure, and vulnerability impacts, integrating findings into enterprise risk management (ERM) strategies.

• Develop risk quantification methodologies for financial and operational impacts of extreme weather events, sea level rise, flooding, wildfires, and heat stress.

• Lead literature reviews and scientific research to develop damage functions and impact models that translate climate hazards into financial and business impacts.

• Oversee the full lifecycle of climate risk assessments, from risk screening and qualitative scenario analysis to quantitative financial impact modeling, climate resilience planning, and integration into corporate risk management frameworks.

• Ensure high technical standards, guiding the use of climate risk models, geospatial analysis, and data quality controls to produce actionable insights for clients.

Client & Stakeholder Management

• Serve as the primary client contact, ensuring clear communication and strong stakeholder engagement.

• Provide strategic recommendations on climate adaptation, resilience planning, and business continuity strategies.

• Collaborate with sustainability, risk, and finance teams within client organizations to support climate risk integration into corporate decision-making.

• Present technical insights to C-suite executives and senior risk leaders in an accessible, actionable format.

Business Development

• Identify opportunities for expanding services within existing client accounts, supporting the development of new climate risk offerings.

• Work alongside Key Account Managers and senior leadership to contribute to proposals, RFPs, and client pitches.

• Support thought leadership efforts, including whitepapers, conference participation, and webinar content on physical climate risk topics.

Requirements:

Essential -

• 5+ years of experience in climate advisory, climate risk, and sustainability consulting, including leading multi-year projects and teams of consultants.

• Extensive experience in physical climate risk assessment, including natural hazard modeling, exposure assessment, and vulnerability analysis for extreme weather events (e.g., floods, wildfires, hurricanes, heat stress, and sea level rise).

• Strong background in climate adaptation planning, resilience strategy development, and financial impact assessments, helping organizations integrate physical climate risks into enterprise risk management (ERM) and long-term planning.

• Experience in transition risk and opportunity analysis is beneficial, including transition scenario modeling (e.g., IEA, NGFS, IPCC SSPs), sectoral decarbonization pathways, and assessing financial exposure to transition risks.

• Experience in nature, biodiversity, and water risk assessments is beneficial, including evaluating ecosystem dependencies, biodiversity loss, drought and flood vulnerability, water availability risks, and nature-related financial risks using frameworks such as TNFD (Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures).

• Track record of client-facing project delivery, managing multi-stakeholder engagements across industries.

Technical Skills:

• Expertise in physical climate risk methodologies, including hazard, exposure, and vulnerability assessments used to quantify risks to assets, operations, and supply chains.

• Climate risk scenario analysis, applying IPCC climate projections (CMIP6), industry-standard physical risk models, and hazard datasets to assess business and financial risk impacts.

• Ability to identify key climate hazard indicators and lead or oversee the collection, processing, and analysis of historical climate data and future projections for risk assessment.

• Proficiency in climate risk modeling tools and geospatial analysis software, including ArcGIS, QGIS, and Python for climate risk analytics. Experience with tools such as TCS, XDI, Jupiter Intelligence, ClimateX, Four Twenty Seven, Climada is a plus.

• Strong understanding of probabilistic and deterministic modeling techniques to assess financial exposure to climate hazards such as extreme heat, flooding, drought, hurricanes, wildfires, and sea level rise.

• Expertise in developing and applying damage functions and impact models to quantify business and financial risks related to climate hazards.

• Experience translating climate model outputs and extreme weather projections into decision-useful insights for businesses and investors.

• Advanced expertise in climate risk frameworks and disclosure regulations, including TCFD, ISSB, CSRD, SEC climate rules, California regulations (SB 261, SB 253), and CDP, with the ability to translate complex requirements into clear, actionable roadmaps that help corporate clients achieve compliance efficiently.

• Proficiency in data visualization (Tableau, Power BI) and climate impact analytics to effectively communicate physical and transition risk findings.

Education & Certifications:

• Master’s degree preferred in Environmental Science, Climate Science, Earth Sciences, Risk Management, Engineering, Economics, or a related field (Bachelor’s required).

• Relevant certifications (e.g., FRM, GARP, CFA-Climate Risk, Project Management etc) are a plus.

What we offer:

At South Pole, we care about our employees as much as we care about the planet. South Pole is not just an employer, we are a Team. South Pole does not just offer people a job, we offer you a career. By joining our team, you will find strong purpose and deep meaning in everything you do. You will have the chance to make a real difference for our clients and for the planet, working alongside a passionate team of like-minded colleagues, while building your knowledge/skills and developing your career in a fun, dynamic, international and fast-growing organisation. 

We’re a planet of 7.5 billion unique and different people. We all have a contribution to make; South Pole is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, colour, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, national origin, marital status or disability. Our recruitment is decided on the basis of qualifications, merit and business need.