Designated Sustainability Advisor

Ideas | People | Trust
We're BDO. An accountancy and business advisory firm, providing the advice and solutions entrepreneurial organisations need to navigate today's changing world.
We work with the companies that are Britain's economic engine - ambitious, entrepreneurially-spirited and high-growth businesses that fuel the economy - and directly advise the owners and management teams that lead them.
We'll broaden your horizons
The Business Services and Outsourcing team works with businesses on the full range of finance solutions. We are also a conduit to other BDO services, both domestically and internationally, to help our clients overcome the challenges they face.
BDO's Business Advisory team specialises in providing outsourced finance solutions to the mid market, principally in the technology, life sciences, real estate and financial services sectors.
We have material growth plans for our business which, alongside investment in key transformation projects, will deliver our ambitious strategic plans over the medium term and will extend on finance solutions to incorporate non finance solutions, ie Sustainability reporting.
Our business offers a positive combination of the benefits of working within both a practice and industry environment, including:

• Career variety with the opportunity to work on different client and interchange between our key sectors. Alternatively, we offer stability if you would like to specialise in a specific sector
• Ability to influence your personal and career development, considering technical expertise, sector specialism, soft skills and leadership development
• Time to invest in understanding your clients, their strategic ambition, the challenges they face and to add value and insight to them
• Empowerment to manage your time in line with BDOs agile working framework
• A sensible balance of client facing work alongside contribution to internal strategic projects

We'll help you succeed
Sustainability reporting requirements are filtering into the mid market and the onus of addressing these needs is being placed on the Finance Function to become experts in this new, non financial reporting area. Identifying and recruiting the right sustainability expert can be extremely challenging due to the ever changing requirements, limited experienced resource pool and high salary needs to land good candidates. To help clients in our chosen sectors navigate this necessity in a timely and cost efficient manner, we require three Senior Managers - Managers to proactively lead client relationships for between three to four clients each to support them in reaching their Sustainability needs.
A Designated Sustainability Advisor (DSA), predominantly in one sector, will create rapport and trust specifically to help each business successfully navigate building sustainability into their business strategy, operations, projects and reporting. This relationship will continue over multiple years.
We require individuals who are self motivated leaders who enjoy getting into the detail and personally delivering and are business focussed, used to presenting to boards and working closely with finance directors. We do not require deep Sustainability experts though an interest in this area will help make the role more exciting. The DSA will build a positive, trusted relationship and will have credibility and gravitas with C suite members by learning (including self learning) about the Sustainability journey and steps that a business will need to take. The DSA will be supported by BDO via intense training, regular workshops, mentors, collaborative internal discussions, presentations and templates and surgeries as well as internal presentations about services that BDO can provide in the sustainability space.
The DSA must be self motivated and driven to learn and understand independently about sustainability and the client's sector and business and work with the client to understand how best to support them. They must be willing to share this learning with the other DSA cohort and BDO leadership to help develop a better proposition.
You'll be someone with:

• Accountancy qualification or a similar qualification, perhaps in engineering
• Excellent relationship management skills
• Experience in managing client-facing projects

• Experience in presenting
• Proficient in Excel, Word, PowerPoint, use of SharePoint

Desirable:

• An interest in Sustainability

• Industry specialism/experience in one of our chosen sectors

You'll be able to be yourself; we'll recognise and value you for who you are and celebrate and reward your contributions to the business. We're committed to agile working, and we offer every colleague the opportunity to work in ways that suit you, your teams, and the task at hand.
At BDO, we'll help you achieve your personal goals and career ambitions, and we have programmes, resources, and frameworks that provide clarity and structure around career development.
We're in it together
Mutual support and respect is one of BDO's core values and we're proud of our distinctive, people-centred culture. From informal success conversations to formal mentoring and coaching, we'll support you at every stage in your career, whatever your personal and professional needs.
Our agile working framework helps us stay connected, bringing teams together where and when it counts so they can share ideas and help one another. At BDO, you'll always have access to the people and resources you need to do your best work.
We know that collaboration is the key to creating value for the companies we work with and satisfying experiences for our colleagues, so we've invested in state-of-the-art collaboration spaces in our offices. BDO's people represent a wealth of knowledge and expertise, and we'll encourage you to build your network, work alongside others, and share your skills and experiences. With a range of multidisciplinary events and dedicated resources, you'll never stop learning at BDO.
We're looking forward to the future
At BDO, we help entrepreneurial businesses to succeed, fuelling the UK economy.
Our success is powered by our people, which is why we're always finding new ways to invest in you. Across the UK thousands of unique minds continue to come together to help companies we work with to achieve their ambitions
We've got a clear purpose, and we're confident in our future, because we're adapting and evolving to build on our strengths, ensuring we continue to find the right combination of global reach, integrity and expertise. We shape the future together with openness and cl