The Climate Risk Group is introducing the role of Managing Director, XDI (Cross Dependency), splitting a range of tasks currently placed within the CEO role. In simple analogy, The Climate Risk Group is splitting the ship's captain role into navigator and helmsperson, one working to map the direction of the group, the other ensuring the ship and crew sail efficiently in that direction.
The Managing Director is the architect of the company’s SaaS transformation and growth engine. They are responsible for defining and executing a scalable, product-driven strategy that delivers both commercial success and social impact.
The Managing Director partners with the CEO/Founder, and other specialist leaders in product, technology, commercial, operations and finance to align business model and objectives with the company’s mission and Theory of Change. Through leadership, disciplined financial stewardship, and a commitment to empowered teams and collaboration, they position the organisation for rapid and sustained growth, a differentiated market contribution, and decisive impact towards avoiding climate harm.
Key Accountabilities
Business Strategy
- Together with the CEO/Founder and Strategy Forum, co-develop the company strategy to ensure it is scalable, product-driven, commercially strong, captures new opportunities and anchored in the organisation’s impact mission and theory of change.
- Architect and lead the SaaS transition to achieve scalable growth through strategy design, business model design, and disciplined financial leadership.
- Align business operations with social and environmental impact objectives, ensuring profitability, financial resilience, and mission delivery.
- Drive sustainable revenue growth via productisation, operational efficiency, and strategic market expansion.
- Drive step-change growth by supporting and bringing to market new innovations in technology, products, and business models.
- Own and execute revenue strategy by providing high-level financial leadership to maintain robust financial plans, decision-making frameworks, and funding strategies.
- Champion and approve company-wide goals, metrics, and significant strategic changes to the product, commercial model, or business design.
- Continuously review and evolve the business model to maximise growth, impact, and effectiveness.
Business Model and Execution
- Continuously review and evolve the business model to maximise growth, impact, and effectiveness.
- Lead the financial and strategic transition to a scalable SaaS business model, ensuring it is commercially viable and mission-aligned.
- Own and evolve the organisation’s business model, ensuring it supports sustainable growth and market competitiveness.
- Provide guidance to specialist leads at the definition stage, and approve pricing strategies and changes that affect the business model, market positioning, and investor confidence.
- Embed a culture of data-driven decision-making by stewarding robust metrics, reporting systems, and analytics across the organisation.
Go To Market and Positioning
- Create and direct the company’s Go to Market strategy and objectives, ensuring alignment with the business growth goals.
- Support customer retention by ensuring the organisation has product-market-fit, regularly improved offerings, unique innovation and exceptional customer experiences.
- Contribute to the company’s market positioning, ensuring it’s clearly differentiated in both its commercial and environmental impact dimensions.
- Proactively identify product and/or market pivots that may be necessary and, where needed, develop business cases for change for adoption by CEO and board.
Revenue Growth and Profitability
- Provide strategic financial leadership, partnering with the Director of Finance and external advisors to ensure the business has strong financial plans and decision-making frameworks in place.
- Own and drive financial performance, with a focus on margin improvement and scalable revenue growth.
- Together with the Director of Finance, leverage financial and commercial insights to inform decisions on product development, pricing, growth levers, and investment.
- Set and oversee financial goals, ensuring alignment with the organisation’s growth strategy, impact objectives, and long-term sustainability.
Leadership
- Communicate and champion a compelling business vision and strategy that aligns with the company’s objectives and inspires stakeholders.
- Build and develop high-performing leadership teams, fostering a culture of accountability, collaboration, and innovation while empowering individuals to take ownership of their work.
- Capture the trust and confidence of the highly committed workforce, while listening to feedback and insights from across the business and joining and nurturing the cultural values we have developed.
- Advocate for data-informed decision-making, combining qualitative and quantitative insights to guide aligned, impact-driven business evolution.
- Support the CEO/Founder with advocating for the organisation’s impact strategy and promoting innovation
Partnership with Technology, Product and Operations (ensuring alignment with the growth strategy)
- Own the operating model, fostering growth, clear accountability, and empowered decision-making at all levels.
- Collaborate with Commercial, Product and Technology Leads to prioritise scalable offerings over bespoke consulting, building a sustainable growth engine.
- Following consultation with the Strategy Forum, approve the organisation’s key strategic roadmaps and plans.
- Join the Mutual Accountability Collective to solve cross-team problems and remove blocks.
- Work with the Operational Excellence Lead to strengthen governance, optimise the operating rhythm, and enhance commercial systems.
- Partner with the People & Culture Lead to cultivate a strong company culture, organisational capacity, and structure that fosters growth, engagement, and wellbeing.
- Champion organisational change and cross-functional collaboration, enabling knowledge sharing and alignment with the company’s growth strategy.
Capabilities
Previous experience
- Successfully scaled small tech-based businesses, managing transitions from sales-led to product-led or hybrid models.
- Defined and/or executed Go-to-Market strategies focused on acquisition, retention, and revenue growth.
- Owned or co-owned a P&L, with accountability for revenue, margin, and commercial outcomes.
- Led cultural transformation in high-pressure, fast-paced environments.
- Improved profitability through operational leverage, cost discipline, and productisation.
- Collaborated closely with finance professionals (e.g. Heads of Finance, external accountants) to support informed, strategic decisions.
- Participated in funding strategy (equity, debt, hybrid) and capital planning during growth phases.
- Consistently aligned commercial objectives with a strong social mission
Skills and Attributes
- Strategic execution: Can develop clear, scalable growth strategies and translate them into measurable goals.
- Financial acumen: Possess advanced ability to interpret P&Ls, cash flow, and performance metrics to identify trends and risks.
- Possess strong commercial judgement, linking strategy, pricing, and operations to financial outcomes.
- Cross-functional alignment: Ensure team efforts are tied to operational and strategic goals.
- Organisational design: Build and optimise scalable structures and capabilities.
- Prioritisation: sharp focus on high-leverage initiatives and effective resource allocation.
- Leadership: coaches teams, removes roadblocks, and fosters high performance.
- Talent strategy: identifies and develops diverse, high-impact teams.
- Clear, inspirational communicator who aligns teams around purpose and direction.
- Accessible and trusted leader, open, transparent, and engaged.
- Empathetic yet decisive, balances people and performance.
- Recognition-oriented, cultivates a culture of appreciation and motivation.
- Resilient and adaptable, thrives in ambiguity and navigates complex, fast-moving environments.
Relationships
- CEO
- Line manager of Strategy Forum Head (Product, Technology, Commercial, Operations)
- Director of Finance
- People & Culture
- Comms & Marketing
- Product, Technology and Science for product development
- Commercial for market insights, research & customer needs
- Communication & Marketing team for collateral development
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