Resiliency Manager
Statement of Duties
The Resiliency Manager is responsible for ensuring cohesion between RI Commerce and other state agencies focused on environmental resilience, renewable energy, and emergency management and response; engaging with businesses and key economic development stakeholders to address climate-related challenges in Rhode Island; and managing and administering multiple projects aimed at enhancing business resilience. This role will explicitly coordinate Climate Change Business Outreach efforts, serve as liaison with a number of state agencies, and provide a “front door” of information for businesses adapting to climate change. This position will engage in stakeholder engagement, project and program execution, and strategic communication to drive economic growth and resilience in the state and surrounding region.
Position Functions
The essential functions and duties listed below are intended only as illustrations of the various types of work that may be performed. The omission of specific statements of duties does not exclude them from the position if work is similar, related or a logical assignment to the position.
Essential Functions
- Inter-agency collaborations (15%):
- Coordinate with government agencies focused on statewide planning, environmental resilience, renewable energy, and emergency management and response. Ensure business and economic development interests and needs are incorporated in statewide resilience efforts. Represent the Corporation on interagency task forces, councils, working groups, steering committees, and other relevant bodies.
- Lead outreach for assigned initiatives, engaging diverse stakeholders from multiple sectors.
- Serve as representative for the Corporation on the state’s Emergency Support Functions team.
- Collect appropriate data and report as necessary to state government and relevant stakeholders.
- Stay apprised of programs and initiatives statewide that can assist Rhode Island businesses in resilience efforts; connect businesses appropriately.
- Stakeholder engagement, outreach, and education (50%):
- Maintain the Corporation’s Resiliency landing page with relevant and up-to-date information
- Develop and deploy a quarterly newsletter
- Provide updates to stakeholders, business leaders, and the public on initiative progress as relevant, including relevant updates and information from the EC4 and the Act on Climate rules and regulations.
- Develop and maintain partnerships with appropriate stakeholder groups to support innovation and resilience.
- Collaborate with communications teams and Strategic Initiatives team leadership to prepare and plan for public content, ensuring consistent messaging across websites, social media, press releases and public events.
- Coordinate workshops, trainings, and other action-oriented educational opportunities for businesses in Rhode Island to strengthen their resiliency, knowledge base, and ability for self-advocacy
- This will include a targeted workstream around insurance
- Program and Project Management (25%):
- Support municipalities and business districts with securing funding for the implementation disaster mitigation infrastructure projects for business districts, in collaboration with the RI Infrastructure Bank and others.
- Preparing for and potentially administering grant programs related to resilience to ensure compliance to program budgets and project deliverables, as funds are available.
- Ensure all projects have alignment with organizational goals, set clear performance metrics for each, and monitor progress for each initiative against those performance metrics.
- Policy and Regulatory (10%):
- Engage business leaders in policy-related discussions and climate resilience planning, ensuring their input is heard.
- Conduct assessments of business vulnerabilities and opportunities related to both climate change and emerging ocean technology markets and ensure that businesses are informed of relevant policies, risks, and potential incentives and respond to individual business needs and requests related to policy and regulation.
- Analyze regulatory measures that impact Rhode Island businesses and provide resources to the community to help them adapt and thrive in a changing environmental and economic landscape; as applicable, make recommendations to the Executive Office of Commerce or other agencies to amend policy or regulation.
- Engage business leaders in policy-related discussions and climate resilience planning, ensuring their input is heard.
Key Competencies
- Collaboration & Communication: Excellent communication and relationship-building skills with diverse stakeholders, including government agencies, business leaders, and industry groups.
- Facilitation & Content Delivery: Strong program delivery skills, including the ability to coordinate content experts, synthesize learnings, and develop and operationalize the flow of each session.
- Resourcefulness & Initiative: Strong problem-solving abilities, capable of identifying and navigating challenges to achieve results.
- Project Management: Skilled at managing multiple projects simultaneously, with attention to detail and the ability to meet deadlines in a fast-paced environment.
- Organized & Detail-oriented: Ability to lead the day-to-day administrative work of multi-faceted projects; create clear goals; manage detailed timelines; ensure reporting across multiple entities; and implement strategies that align with long-term objectives for climate resilience, business innovation, and economic growth.
Professional Qualifications & Preferred Skills:
- Bachelor’s degree in economics, business, environmental science, or related field (preferred).
- 5+ years of experience in business outreach, policy, project management, or educational programming.
- Familiarity with climate change, disaster recovery, economic resilience policies, and/or technology commercialization strategies.
- Strong organizational skills and attention to detail, with experience managing large-scale, cross-sector projects.
- Experience with stakeholder engagement, particularly in business or public policy sectors.
- Proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite, Adobe Acrobat and social media platforms.
Salary Range: $70,000 - $80,000; this is a grant funded position that has funding for 12 months with the potential to extend for additional year(s)
Rhode Island Commerce Corporation is an at-will employer; no employment contracts exist.
The Rhode Island Commerce Corporation (the ‘Corporation’) is an Equal Opportunity Employer. The Corporation does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, non-disqualifying physical or mental disability, national origin, veteran status or any other basis covered by applicable law. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, merit, and business need. The Corporation will not tolerate discrimination or harassment based on any of these characteristics.