ClimateTech Project Director – Maritime sector
Location: UK, with travel to Scotland required, ad-hoc.
Salary: Up to £80K + equity & benefits (will consider contractor without equity/benefits)
Role: Take ownership of large-scale test & validation project, and other projects coming online.
When it comes to climate solutions some sectors are highly adaptable and driven by consumer behaviours towards change.
For others, the situation is more complex, with assets tied into operations for 30-year life spans and difficult trade-offs for retro-fits or bit-part actions. The maritime sector falls into that category.
Around 50% of everything transported by boat is fuel. Oil, coal or gas.
It’s easy to see a problem there regarding decarbonisation. But it must happen and finally ” thanks to the tireless work of a small, resilient and determined group ” it is. Appetite is growing faster than solutions providers can keep up with.
That appetite isn’t all for hydrogen, methane or ammonia engines and EV boats ” which are decades away *hint, 30-year assets* ” but for hybrid solutions, taking existing ships and retrofitting them with wind solutions that can cut fuel use and emissions by ~20-30% now. Why wait? Huge savings in fuels costs and emissions.
*Cue the Project Director, come on down!
We need someone with a varied skillset centred around project management. With experience working on multi-million £/$ projects, coordinating with the CFO keeping an eye on budgets, ensuring all key stakeholders are updated ” including C-suite folks, business and R&D partners, government and policy people, potential customers and more.
You don’t need to be from the maritime sector ” though shipping, heavy industry or engineering experience may be beneficial if you’ve works on R&D intensive projects before ” but you’ll need strong initiative, to be adaptable and pick up complex technical language, also being comfy working in a start-up where tasks not aligned with your responsibilities inevitably fall at your feet.
You’ll work with highly skilled industry experts such as navel architects and ship designers, data scientists etc. ” hence maritime exp. not being essential ” who can confirm or guide on whether materials or methodology fits, explain the ins-and-outs of risks or break down scientific reports, but you will become an expert in this field over time.
This is a Systems Design company, covering hardware to get ships from A to B using less fuel, and the software to optimise it all. They’ve have secured ~£5million in funding to prove the value in the products they will eventually take to market.
They have a business model that looks to lease the wind-propulsion hardware, offering software and logistics services to optimise the fuel savings made when retrofitting or building new ships with integrated wind technologies.
This is an incredibly interesting role at a time when the industry is clamouring for decarbonisation solutions. With few competitors ” none as far along the process ” and more than 40,000 vessels capable of utilising these technologies (Dept. for Transport research) there’s never been a better time to jump aboard”
