Sustainable Operations Director

The Sustainable Operations Director at JLL will lead sustainability initiatives for clients in the U.S. and globally, overseeing teams and ensuring client satisfaction. Responsibilities include strategy development, people management, and relationship management. The role focuses on delivering sustainability solutions and optimizing team performance while fostering a culture of innovation and accountability. This position is remote but requires occasional in-office presence and site visits.
At JLL, we are driving sustainability through everything that we do, across all service lines and job positions. Specifically, we are growing our Sustainability practice to drive end-to-end sustainability solutions in real estate, from site selection to decommissioning.

Role Purpose
In this role, Sustainable Operations Director will report directly to the Head of Sustainable Operations – AMER and support a set of clients in a specific industry vertical/verticals centralized in the U.S., and potentially operating in other global regions. This role will review sustainability requirements, programs, goals, and KPIs for JLL clients to ensure delivery meets and exceeds client expectations. This role will also oversee teams of energy and sustainability professionals, who are delivering services in the specific industry vertical/verticals, to ensure their performance and career growth meet expectations.

This position is remote, requiring in-office presence and site visits periodically.

What this job involves

Key responsibilities include:

Strategy Development/Execution:
• Input into the design and implementation of the global platform delivery model that will meet client needs, delivery, and quality targets
• Work in partnership with strategic account executives to develop account delivery plans to support client retention, cross-selling, client satisfaction, and account growth
• Partner with client-facing and sales teams to ensure that appropriate renewal strategies are in place for the managed accounts
• Drive consistency of delivery of Sustainable Operations across the managed accounts
• Identify optimization opportunities to drive efficiencies into the delivery team’s work flow and to increase profit margins where possible
• Collaborate with Sustainable Operations Excellence to support development of and implementation of Sustainable Operations guidelines, playbooks, and tools
• Monitor performance of delivery teams and corresponding client satisfaction

People Management:
• Lead and develop existing (and future) teams of sustainability practitioners
• Develop a culture focused on clients, people and teamwork, accountability, continuous improvement and innovation
• Own end-to-end employee management including hiring, onboarding, leading, developing, and mentoring team members.
• Diversify and develop workforce to meet evolution of client demand with a strong focus on technology

Relationship Management / Client Service
• Develop and maintain strong working relationships with key clients and with key internal stakeholders (including Business Line Leads, Client Relationship Managers, Sales teams, Account Directors)
• Ensure high level of execution and client satisfaction for all services performed and that the team exceeds targets
• Lead effective mobilization (transition) of new and expanded client accounts
• Own the scope of work for each client and program; identify any scope creep and opportunities for expansion of JLL services in the energy and sustainability field
• Participate in developing Sustainable Operations services for JLL clients through organic growth and client requests for proposals
• Provide strategic direction and guidance on ways to enhance and expand service delivery to the client, including leveraging supply chain partners, internal collaborations, and the broader Sustainable Operations team

Budget Management
• Own accountability for cost management applicable to the accounts under management and control
• Review the financials of the managed accounts monthly and identify any gaps in revenue tracking
• Own resource management and understand the financial implications related to the unbalanced resourcing
• Ensure team members are allocated appropriately to the correct client account
• Engage in conversations with JLL account directors and client to adjust any scope creep and develop opportunities for program and resource growth and expansion
• Strive for optimal financial structures where possible (e.g., fixed fee vs. reimbursed headcount) to enable efficiency gains and improved margins

The successful candidate will have a combination of management skills, the ability to lead multiple & diverse teams across a large region, operations leadership experience, and an ability to collaborate effectively across functions to deliver strategy and business plan. The candidate needs a demonstrable strong financial acumen and structure approach to problem solving.

Experience
• Demonstrated ability, with 8 plus years of experience managing a team and delivering through others
• Background (5 plus years) in sustainability in the commercial real-estate environment, including energy efficiency, water and waste reduction, social value, carbon accounting and reporting, energy procurement, and holistic corporate sustainability initiatives.
• Experience in developing operational processes and successfully launching new initiatives within a team or organization
• Direct experience in managing P&L and financials of team or sophisticated projects

Key Competencies
• Excellent analytical and program management skills
• Excellent communications skills and ability to engage in difficult conversations
• Strong cultural alignment: unwavering ethical standards; drives excellence and innately collaborative
• Strategic in nature, with a strong bias towards transformation and execution
• Business first - Focuses on customers and clients, business/financial acumen, JLL first
• Operates with a sense of urgency and is decisive
• An authentic leader, stimulates action with a balanced leadership style of control and influence
• Project Management Skills: Knows how to effectively structure, staff and manage projects and teams to insure there is clarity of expectation, timely execution, corrective action when needed and successful outcomes.