Specialist, Aviation Decarbonisation

This is a fixed-term role until 31 March 2026.

The World Economic Forum, committed to improving the state of the world, is the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation. The Forum engages the foremost political, business and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas.

The Forum hosts 10 centres for advancing public-private cooperation on a range of global, regional and industry issues. The Forum’s Centre for Climate and Nature (CNC) acts as a system leader for the environment and natural resource security, food security, development finance and sustainable development activities at the Forum. The centre seeks to bring innovation and frontier approaches to help the international system be more agile and equipped to respond to today’s challenges. The Centre has organized its initiatives in three thematic pillars: Net Zero, Nature Positive, and Better Living.

Within the Net Zero Pillar and the Climate Strategy team, the Aviation Decarbonisation team coordinates the Forum’s net zero aviation programme. This includes Airports of Tomorrow, a community of over 80 stakeholders from across the aviation and fuels value chains, as well as the First Movers Coalition Aviation, a coalition of corporates looking to procure sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) by 2030. The Aviation Decarbonisation team is soon launching a new initiative looking at scaling SAF demand in Asia Pacific, bringing together local stakeholders in a new coalition of ambitious companies willing to procure SAF by 2030.

Why are we recruiting?

The Aviation Decarbonisation team is looking to recruit a skilled professional to join as a ‘Specialist’, for a 12-month assignment. The selected candidate will support the delivery and implementation of the 2025 programme of work and engagement for the new initiative. Pragmatically, the Specialist will oversee the preparation and delivery of regular working groups and steering committees, content generation and thought leadership aimed at accelerating the demand signal for SAF in Asia Pacific.

As this is a new project, the successful delivery of this new initiative will require the Specialist to build and manage a new community of industry stakeholders, ensuring their smooth integration into the wider aviation decarbonisation ecosystem and initiatives the Forum already has on this matter. Based in Geneva, this role thus requires strong coordination across multiple Forum teams as well as regions, managing relationships with airlines and freight carriers, corporates, airports, fuel suppliers and producers, financiers, renewable energy project developers, governmental bodies, and wider industry leaders in Asia Pacific and beyond.

To do so and drive convergence of this community around SAF scaling ambition, and to support the translation of this ambition into practice, the Specialist will need to collaborate with both internal and external teams while conducting independent research and horizon scanning, so to capitalise on SAF market drivers and opportunities in Asia Pacific while identifying risks for the initiative and, more widely, for the local SAF market.

Reporting lines and interactions

The Specialist, Aviation Decarbonisation will report to the Aviation Decarbonisation Lead within the Net-Zero and Climate team and will be based in Geneva. The Specialist will collaborate closely with a project lead based in Singapore, as well as colleagues across the Aviation Decarbonisation, Climate Strategy and Net Zero teams.

The initiative will predominantly target Asia Pacific stakeholders, but this position will be based in Geneva to maintain a strategic link to the Aviation Decarbonisation team and the World Economic Forum’s headquarters, hence the candidate will thus be expected to work during Geneva office hours. The Specialist may be required to travel (contingent on budget) to Asia Pacific once or twice throughout the contract period to support on-site activities.

Primary Responsibilities

Main responsibilities – in collaboration with the Aviation Decarbonisation team, based in Geneva, and a project team lead based in Singapore, the Specialist will focus on the below deliverables and activities:

Content curation and thought leadership:

• Communicate key findings from SAF discussions in Asia Pacific in briefing papers and event summaries.

• Identify best practice, guidance and lessons learned that can feature in the initiative’s annual report, and coordinate the drafting of this report alongside other thought leadership articles, briefing documents and papers, reporting templates for SAF usage and other formats, documenting and sharing outcomes and insights from the community.

• Conduct regular market sounding, background research and horizon scanning to provide forward-looking insights and strategic guidance to the initiative.

Support virtual meetings and in-person events:

• Organize, curate and support virtual meetings of the new initiative, including quarterly deep dives, steering committees and technical advisory council meetings.

• Organize one or more in-person events, including group meetings, panel debates and public sessions.

• Prepare meeting materials, take minutes during sessions and circulate post-meeting outputs.

Stakeholder management and engagement:

• Build and maintain relationships with a new community of Asia Pacific stakeholders across the SAF value chain as well as Scope 3 buyers.

• Support the project lead in engaging with prospective stakeholders who may be interested in the new initiative contributing to the development of the value proposition as well as the successful recruitment and onboarding of new coalition members.

• Engage with corporates and wider stakeholders including value chain partners, financial institutions, governments and civil society organisations, working with the Aviation Decarbonisation team and relevant Forum business engagement colleagues, industry teams and heads of centres.

The successful candidate will be assessed on:

• Project management: extent to which the planned milestones and overall objectives of the new SAF initiative in Asia Pacific are achieved.

• Impact and visibility: ability to elevate the new initiative and attract participation from a wide range of local and global stakeholders that would commit to purchasing SAF, strengthening the demand signal for this technology in Asia Pacific.

• Contributions to guidance drafting, regular reporting and thought leadership.

• Business development and refinement of the initiative and the Forum’s aviation decarbonization value proposition, and linked activities.

• Forum-wide support: supporting the delivery of activities advancing the Forum’s aviation decarbonisation agenda, including project and institutional events.

• Ability to articulate and foster commitment to a joint vision, strategy and work plan with partners and stakeholders as well as implement engagement strategies, incorporating Forum-specific know-how and project management best practices across the team in the different offices and locations.

• Quality, responsiveness, resourcefulness, and overall support of engaged initiatives.

• Level of collaboration, internal and external.

Preferred requirements and experience:

• Broad intellectual background with a master’s degree or equivalent in engineering, aviation, energy, political or environmental sciences; and a proven understanding of global energy transition issues and corporate sustainability.

• Knowledge and experience on sustainability acquired through 1-3 years of professional international experience preferably in aviation decarbonization, sustainable transportation, ESG, carbon markets, industry decarbonization, renewable energy, or emissions mitigation.

• Experience fostering collaboration across various stakeholder groups acquired from growing partnerships and alliances, solid understanding of value drivers in partnerships.

• Outstanding communication skills in English, both verbal and written; any other language is a plus.

• Strong presence and ability to research, analyse, synthesize, and communicate topics to corporate executives and multi-stakeholder audiences.

• Excellent time management and coordination abilities and a track record of achieving results through persuasion, negotiation, and indirect influence.

• A clear service orientation and strong social influence and leadership; collaboration abilities to work within the team, across Forum teams and with external parties.

• Capacity to innovate, apply systems and critical thinking, and meet tight deadlines while delivering to the highest quality standards.

• High level of adaptability and flexibility; autonomy and initiative, self-motivation, persistence and results orientation, collaboration, and “can-do” attitude.

Why work at the Forum:

The Forum believes that progress happens by bringing together people from all walks of life who have the drive and the influence to improve the state of the world by building awareness and cooperation, shaping mindsets and agendas, and driving collective action. Join us and become a driver for positive change!

#J-18808-Ljbffr