Responsible Investment Standards Programme Lead

What you'll do (key responsibilities)

This role sits at the centre of ShareAction's five year strategy for the period 2026-2031. As Programme Lead for Responsible Investment Standards (RIS), you'll steward one of our most strategically important programmes – defining, defending and advancing the standards that underpin responsible investment, and driving leadership among pension funds; ensuring the programme contributes directly to the organisation’s three strategic shifts: durable rules, asset‑owner accountability, and public legitimacy.

Asset owners such as pension funds sit at the top of the investment chain, controlling the retirement savings of millions of people. How they invest that capital – and how they hold their fund managers to account on risks like climate change – shapes whether the system serves people and planet. Your work will help push pension funds towards genuine leadership, and towards stronger laws and confident regulation across the UK and EU.

It's a varied role spanning policy advocacy, direct engagement with asset owners, coalition-building and research. Early priorities include activating asset owners as system stewards, and delivering our flagship benchmark of global asset managers. You'll also work closely with colleagues developing new work to strengthen the voice of pension savers, ensuring the millions of working people whose retirement incomes are at stake stay at the heart of everything we do.

You'll join a cohort of senior Programme Leads – spanning Energy Transition, Health and Pension Saver Power – helping to embed ShareAction's new programmatic way of working. You'll report to the Director of Investment Standards & Policy, working closely with the wider Leadership Team, including the CEO, COO and Director of Campaigns & Communications.

On the strategy side, you'll set the direction for campaigns that influence investors, companies and policymakers, with clear change goals and a strong theory of change behind them. You'll hold strategic oversight of the whole RIS portfolio, build a shared framework for planning and measuring impact, and report regularly to the Leadership Team on how things are progressing. You'll also lead the programme's evolution in line with our 2026-2031 strategy, and make sure RIS acts as the organisational hub for responsible investment standards – working closely with our thematic programmes and the Pension Saver team to keep everything joined up.

Funding is a big part of the role too. You'll take the lead on securing funds for the programme, working closely with the Director of Investment Standards & Policy and our Fundraising team, and you'll build and manage funder relationships directly, supporting Directors and the CEO on the bigger, cross-programme funder conversations. You'll also represent ShareAction externally – at events, in the media, and in the rooms where the debate gets shaped.

Day to day, you'll oversee delivery of the whole programme portfolio, holding responsibility for its objectives and outputs. At the heart of this is our Investor Engagement and Research team, which you'll lead directly – overseeing everything from benchmarking the asset management industry, to publishing research and guidance for asset owners, to building the relationships that drive up standards, to providing secretariat support for our CRIN and RINU networks. You'll keep an eye on risk across the portfolio, and work closely with peers across ShareAction's Extended Leadership Team to keep it all well-coordinated.

You'll take overall responsibility for the programme's financial performance, working with programme staff to manage budgets that flex in line with fundraising income. On the people side, you'll directly manage 5 members of staff and oversee the work of 12 more, building a team culture that's healthy, inclusive and genuinely supportive. You'll also matrix manage colleagues across the wider portfolio, and share learning and best practice to build consistency across programmes – including helping shape how ShareAction approaches research governance more broadly.

We'll also look to you to stay on top of best practice across communications, campaigns, policy, research and investor engagement, and to keep pace with political, commercial and sector developments – including horizon-scanning on emerging themes like AI, bondholder stewardship and pension governance, so RIS is always ahead of the debate, and coordinating engagement with investors across the organisation.

You'll work closely with other Programme Leads, the Leadership Team, and stakeholders including asset owners, asset managers and funders – using your skills to influence real change in how the financial system serves people and the planet.

If this role sounds like something that would build on your current skill set and engage you, we'd love to hear from you!