External Affairs & Stakeholder Engagement Coordinator - Cymru

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Position

External Affairs & Stakeholder Engagement Coordinator - Cymru

Reports to

Director of RenewableUK Cymru

Salary

£25,000 - £30,000 plus competitive benefits

Location

Wales - Home-based or London – Office based but must be prepared to travel to Wales frequently

Background

RenewableUK Cymru (RUKC) is the regional office in Wales for RenewableUK (RUK), the UK’s leading renewable energy trade association with a mission to ensure increasing amounts of renewable electricity are deployed across the UK. We work in Wales for new and emerging energy sectors, including renewables, energy storage and smart grids. Across RenewableUK we support nearly 500 members – ranging from small independent companies to large international corporations and manufacturers – to access UK markets and to export all over the world.

Our members are business leaders, technology innovators, and expert thinkers from right across industry. They are building our future energy system, powered by clean electricity. We bring them together to deliver that future faster; a future which is better for industry, bill payers, and the environment.

We are a team of 60 who share a passion to contribute to a cleaner, greener, better future with a smaller team of 3 focussed on Wales, helping our industry’s efforts to achieve net zero carbon use.

Role overview

RUKC activities are delivered by a discrete Welsh based team which interfaces with the larger RUK organisation. The team’s focus centres on engagement with key stakeholders and policy and political contacts with an interest in or interface to renewable energy in Wales. We are seeking a motivated External Affairs & Stakeholder Engagement Coordinator to support, promote and enhance RUK and RUKCs political, policy and public affairs-based activities in Wales.

This role requires an interest in renewable energy, excellent stakeholder engagement skills, and the ability to work collaboratively with colleagues across the organisation and our membership network.

In this role, you will support and help to manage RUKC stakeholder relationships, taking on enabling actions that ensure open communication channels and create engagement opportunities to effectively share the sector’s priorities and key messages.

You will enable the delivery of RUKC’s advocacy work to deliver membership value and build strong stakeholder relationships through arranging meetings, reaching out to contacts, and liaising with ministerial and parliamentary/ Senedd offices to ensure open channels of communication with MPs, MSs and Ministers across Welsh and UK governments for other RUKC staff.

You will be comfortable arranging events, managing venue logistics, and coordinating engagement activities such as RenewableUK Connect networking events, political roundtables, site visits, meetings, and formal evening receptions with members and stakeholders. Additionally, you will support the Head of Strategic Communications and the Policy Manager in identifying new engagement opportunities beyond the usual contacts and channels to strengthen sector advocacy.

Working to support the RUK events team, you will also fulfil an interface role to deliver our annual event “Future Energy Wales” conference and a new annual “Cymru Awards” event, assisting with sponsor and speaker identification, liaison and general event coordination.

This position would suit candidates that have strong communications or stakeholder engagement experience. Organisational skills are critical, as well as the ability to build networks with a wide range of people.

Please note this role will require frequent attendance and research in Cardiff and across Wales.

Duties & Responsibilities

External Affairs Activities

• Assist the RUKC team in maintaining effective working relationships with key stakeholders, including members, The Crown Estate, Welsh Government, the Senedd, regulators, and relevant professional and interest groups.


• Support the Strategic Communications Manager and Policy Manager with RUKCs stakeholder mapping, engagement and communications. This will include the development and maintenance of stakeholder maps and contact databases in the CRM across political, renewable energy sector, and media stakeholders, maintaining an up-to-date database of media and parliamentary contacts and their interests.


• Oversee RUKC’s external affairs content and campaigns calendar, ensuring that member and stakeholder needs are met and that all engagement is delivered positively and impactfully.


• Monitor parliament, Senedd and local governments for questions, meetings, committees etc where updates affecting the sector are anticipated and provide briefings to colleagues and members to enable and ensure strategic and timely engagement with relevant stakeholders.

Stakeholder Engagement & Communications

• Responsible for tasks to support member management and public-facing communications, liaising with RenewableUK communications teams to disseminate RUKC updates, working with the RUKC team to set up working group meetings, sharing meeting materials and ensuring actions are completed both within the team and across the membership.


• Create original social media content which supports and promotes both our members and RUKCs own activities.


• Assist with writing press releases, features and other content (such as blogs and opinion pieces) for local, trade and national media. Building upon RUKCs Strategic Communications plan, work across the RUK team to identify and research positive content and news stories about the sector and identify engagement opportunities to support the sector’s project development pipeline.


• Monitor the media, advising colleagues on issues arising and recording and tracking themes.

Event Management

• Strong project management skills, with the ability to oversee multiple ongoing initiatives.


• Plan and manage external networking and forum events (e.g., roundtables) to support RUKC’s communications and stakeholder engagement. This includes coordinating RUKC working groups, media opportunities, MP/MS visits, and enabling RUKC to secure a strong presence at relevant sector conferences.


• Support the delivery of RUKC’s annual conference “Future Energy Wales” including liaising with the offices of keynote speakers and high-profile guests to enable a seamless experience.


• Create, curate and deliver an annual RUKC awards lunch and networking event, working with RUK event and business development teams.


• Attend sector and political conferences, networking events, webinars and research seminars to ensure you are well informed and up to date.

Skills and experience

Essential

• Experience of working in communications or external or stakeholder affairs or a trade association or membership body, including external monitoring, developing stakeholder relationships, and delivering stakeholder engagement activities.


• Ability to produce high quality and strong influencing communications - written and verbal.


• Ability to build and maintain professional relationships both internally and externally.


• Experience of event management and networking.


• Self-motivated with a pro-active approach and ability to switch between tasks and priorities at short notice.


• Must be prepared to travel to and in Wales regularly.

Desirable

• Knowledge and understanding of renewable energy policy or development.


• Experience working with and supporting colleagues in senior management roles within public affairs, and government.


• Knowledge and understanding of stakeholder management including members.


• Welsh speaker.