The Associate Consultant, Social Impact & Sustainability will provide support to senior leaders on client work and internal, business-building projects. She/he/they will serve a critical role in contributing to and ensuring the team properly prepares for client deliverables and client proposals. They will also lead on research projects that significantly impact the team’s ability to provide strategic counsel to clients and internal stakeholders. This is an ideal position for someone who works well in a small team, is motivated by making an impact, understands the strategic value of thorough research, has a love for structure and sound writing, and is detail-oriented. A BA or BS in a related field or an advanced degree is required for this position.
APCO Worldwide is a global communication consultancy. We help the most innovative organizations adapt and thrive in this fast-moving, interconnected and complex world. We do this for all types of organizations, in all industries and in all situations. We partner with clients to guide them through a changing, complex global environment, enabling them to reach their business and societal goals. We bring our clients' work to life creatively and digitally through diverse thinking and a campaign mentality that embraces a variety of integrated tactics to achieve success. Our work impacts bottom lines; creates and protects jobs; defines issues important to society; improves workplaces and communities; gains visibility for and gives voice to those who may not typically be heard; and much more. Simply put, our work is impactful, meaningful, and problem-solving or opportunity-creating. APCO is a majority employee- and women-owned business.
Job Details
The Associate Consultant, Social Impact & Sustainability will be joining our small, energetic, start-up team, which is working alongside our clients to support their efforts to ignite transformational change. You can expect that no day will be the same, and there are limitless opportunities for creativity, alongside a lot of hard work. We are committed to our clients and expect nothing short of excellence.
Core responsibilities:
- Support the ongoing growth of APCO Impact, including new business efforts, research and proposal writing;
- Provide start to finish support on client projects, including research, drawing out key themes, assisting with client presentations and final deliverables;
- Support the development and distribution of a regular external media scan, analyzing key industry trends and news stories on social impact;
- Conduct and compile competitive analyses, issue briefs, and other specific research products on various industries, project areas and geographies you don’t necessarily have deep expertise in.
- Act as a sponge, absorbing knowledge from your colleagues to better understand how we approach roadblocks and find solutions that further our clients’ mission and impact.
- Support research interviews by developing interviewee lists, create interview question guides, join interviews for note-taking purposes, and summarize key takeaways;
- Contribute to weekly problem-solving sessions to align on client work planning, facilitate decision-making, iterate on solutions and find work-arounds as needed (both internal and with clients);
About you
- You have 2-4 years of experience in relevant industries including management consulting, communications, research, social impact, NGO/Nonprofit; corporate responsibility and/or philanthropy;
- You have a BA/BS in a related field or an advanced degree,
- You’re passionate about impact driven work and are excited by the opportunity to work with clients who are striving to integrate profit & purpose;
- You thrive in complexity, are a natural problem-solver, and dig deep for patterns and paths, even amidst a great deal of ambiguity;
- You aren’t afraid to ask questions when you need clarity and are willing to challenge both your own and our perspectives;
- You can navigate complex research projects, absorb and synthesize large amounts of information, confidently draw conclusions from your research, and put them into clear recommendations and points for the team;
- You are detail oriented, well-organized and enjoy bringing structure to projects through work-planning, list-making and “managing up”;
- You can work independently but are personable, a good listener and connect easily with others, making you a great team player;
- You are a strong writer;
- You are in a position to effectively work in a remote setting across time zones and have a high level of proficiency with MS Excel, Word and PowerPoint;
- You enjoy the variety and sometimes-chaos of contributing to a wide range of client projects.
As a majority women-owned business, diversity has been top of mind at APCO from the start. Our values of empathy and inclusion are core to how we operate internally and how we approach our work for clients—in 2020, APCO reaffirmed its commitment to fighting systemic racism through Accelerate What’s Right. APCO supports the following organizations as partners, members, sponsors or signatories and subscribes to their missions to improve diversity in our industry and the world beyond.
- C200 (The Committee of 200)
- ColorComm
- LaGRANT Foundation
- Paradigm for Parity
- The Hispanic Promise
- WEConnect International
- Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC)
- Women President’s Organization (WPO)