Job Title: Strategic Portfolio Designer- Maternity Cover
Reports to/team: The Hub
Contract: Fixed term for 12 months (Maternity cover)
Level: Advanced- Please refer to our Capability Framework
Location: Remote-based in Austria, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, UK, Slovenia, Poland and Spain
Salary: Each capability level has a country-specific salary range. Our goal is to provide fair and consistent compensation for all employees, with most salaries falling between 80% and 120% of the midpoint of the range outlined at the end of this job posting.
Please note: Applicants please share a link or attach 2–4 visual sensemaking artifacts you personally created (systems maps, frameworks, journey maps, portfolio overviews, etc.). For each, one sentence: what decision or alignment did it enable?
Applications without examples will not be assessed.
ABOUT US
Climate KIC (Knowledge and Innovation Community) is a European based, Climate Innovation organisation working in 70+ countries globally. We understand that global temperature rise is exceeding 1.5C and this demands unprecedented change. It requires new social dynamics, ways of doing business, capital flows, policymaking, economic models, and new ways of living. That is why our mission is to leverage the power of systems innovation to transform whole places, industries and value chains by 2030, working across sectors to develop and scale ambitious programmes. Climate KIC’s strategy 2024-2030, Transformation, with Urgency, is available here.
Climate KIC operates as a not-for-profit foundation working through public-private partnership, wielding both public and private funding. Established in 2010 and headquartered in Amsterdam, we orchestrate a community of more than 150 organisations including large corporations and SMEs, municipal and regional governments, universities and research institutes, as well as non-governmental organisations and civil society actors.
Climate KIC leads the implementation of the European Union’s Mission on Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities and the launch pilot of the Mission on Adaptation to Climate Change, both with the objective of catalysing rapid and deep transformation on a large scale, creating the precedent and economic transition conditions for demonstration, learning, capacity building, fast followership and investment. Achieving the EU Cities Mission will mean avoided scope 1 and 2 emissions alone of an estimated 0.7GT CO2e between now and 2040.
Climate KIC has a Remote-First approach, where colleagues work remotely from home based in one of the countries where we have a branch or employing entity (and can work out of local offices or co-working seats, where they exist). We meet at our local offices to exchange and connect and use online collaboration tools to work with each other and with our community. On occasion, we meet in person as teams, and once per year as an organisation.
As a mission-driven organisation dedicated to climate transformation, we consider the climate impact of our own actions, for example travel, catering, or IT equipment.
ABOUT THE ROLE
Climate KIC is seeking a Strategic Designer to strengthen systems thinking, strategic alignment, and the design of collaborative work across our portfolio/s. This role will help Clusters make sense of complexity, connect their work to broader strategic goals, and translate insights into actionable, visual and practical ways of working that drive systemic change in addressing climate challenges.
The Portfolio Strategic Designer will work at the intersection of strategy, innovation, facilitation, and visual communication. You will help ensure portfolio/s are coherent, data-informed, and designed to generate meaningful impact within the climate innovation landscape.
Key Responsibilities
Systems-driven sensemaking and pattern finding
Design frameworks and visual tools to synthesise complex data streams from projects and portfolios.
Identify systemic patterns, interdependencies, leverage points, and emerging opportunities.
Translate complexity into clear visual maps, narratives, and decision-making tools.
Design and facilitate sensemaking sessions and workshops that help stakeholders interpret signals, spot patterns, and align on priorities.
2. Portfolio alignment and system design
Develop a systems narrative for portfolios, linking individual projects to Climate-KIC’s broader mission and systemic impact goals.
Map relationships, flows, dependencies, and gaps across portfolios to improve coherence, synergy, and resource use.
Design portfolio-level structures, interfaces, and working rhythms that support strategic alignment and collective impact.
Provide actionable recommendations to prioritise initiatives that strengthen systemic outcomes and long-term strategic value.
3. Visual design and communication
Turn complex ideas, relationships, and insights into compelling visual artefacts such as systems maps, frameworks, canvases, journey maps, and portfolio overviews.
Create shared visual languages and communication tools that help teams understand how their work fits into the wider system.
Collaborate with communications and leadership teams to make strategic messages more accessible, engaging, and actionable.
Use design to support decision-making, learning, alignment, and organisational sensemaking.
4. Work design and facilitation
Design and facilitate workshops, working sessions, and collaborative processes that support cross-functional alignment and action.
Shape meeting formats, decision-making processes, and collaborative workflows so teams can work more effectively in complexity.
Support teams in framing problems, generating options, testing ideas, and moving from insight to action.
Act as a facilitator across functions to connect operational teams, research, leadership, and delivery partners.
5. Innovation through systems insight
Lead research to identify emerging systemic challenges and opportunities, and connect these to new pathways for climate action.
Translate insights into prototypes, pilots, and experiments that help Climate-KIC respond to evolving system needs.
Work with the Learning Designers and MEL Orchestrator to build an insights pipeline that informs iterative strategy refinement and programme innovation.
6. Cross-functional collaboration in complex systems
Bridge operational teams, research, and leadership to ensure systemic alignment across organisational interfaces.
Support collaboration across campaigns, fundraising, policy, delivery, portfolio, learning, and community functions.
Help teams build a shared understanding of priorities, trade-offs, and opportunities through structured facilitation and visual sensemaking tools.
Key working relationships
The main working relationships are:
Project delivery teams and Cluster Leads across Riff 1, Riff 2, and Riff 3.
Hub teams including Communications and Marketing, Strategic Partnerships, Policy, Portfolio and Learning/MEL, Community, and Deal Desk.
Leadership and other colleagues involved in portfolio strategy, delivery, and organisational design.
Requirements
ABOUT YOU
To succeed in this role, you will be comfortable working across strategy, design, facilitation, and systems change. You thrive on uncovering patterns in complexity, translating insight into visual and practical outputs, and helping teams design better ways of working that strengthen collective impact.
Experience
Systems expertise: Demonstrated capability in systems thinking, pattern finding, and complexity analysis in multi-stakeholder environments.
Strategic design experience: Demonstrated ability to design strategies, structures, and processes that align initiatives with wider systems goals.
Visual communication: Ability to turn complex information into clear, compelling visual artefacts and frameworks.
Facilitation: Experience designing and facilitating workshops, collaboration sessions, and sensemaking processes.
Work design: Ability to shape collaborative workflows, meeting formats, decision-making processes, and team interfaces.
Insight-led practice: Demonstrated ability to synthesise diverse data and perspectives into actionable recommendations.
Storytelling: Ability to craft narratives that communicate systemic impact and strategic direction.
Climate innovation: Knowledge of climate innovation or systemic transformation in sustainability is highly desirable.
Skills
Fluent in English.
Experience or willingness to work with collaborative tools such as Office 365, Microsoft Teams, Miro, Zoom, and Mentimeter.
Systems thinking and pattern finding.
Visual design and visualisation of complexity.
Innovation leadership.
Facilitation and collaborative workshop design.
Work design and process design.
Storytelling and communication for systemic narratives.
Change management.
Salary Range
Location
Candidates must have the right to work in the location they’re applying for (I.e. not require visa sponsorship) prior to applying for the position. Ideally, the successful candidate will be based close to a Climate KIC office, but we support fully remote or hybrid forms of working and offer a high degree of flexibility.
To ensure that we can respond to every single applicant, we will close the role once we receive a reasonable pool of candidates to assess.
At Climate KIC, we are wholeheartedly committed to building a diverse and representative team and an inclusive workplace that values different life experiences and perspectives, and we encourage personal development, learning and growth.
When recruiting, we look to achieve diversity in the candidate pool. We actively encourage applications from underrepresented groups and are happy to consider reasonable adjustments that will foster success in potential colleagues from diverse backgrounds and life situations. And because our team has differing needs and personal circumstances, we offer a high degree of flexibility to accommodate working patterns. We’re happy to discuss your situation during the interview and see how best we can support you. Don’t let Imposter Syndrome stop you from applying!
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