Assurance Integrity Senior Manager

Textile Exchange•New York, NY

2d•Remote

About The Position

Assurance Integrity Senior Manager Reports to: Assurance and Traceability Senior Director Remote – Global (Preference for Europe/North America) About Us Textile Exchange is a global non-profit driving positive impact on climate change across the fashion and textile industry. It guides a growing community of brands, manufacturers, and farmers towards more purposeful production from the very start of the supply chain. By 2030, its goal is to guide the industry to achieve a 45% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions within fiber and raw material production. Its focus is holistic and interconnected, accelerating the adoption of practices that improve the state of our water, soil health, and biodiversity too. For real change to happen, everyone needs a clear path to positive impact. That’s why Textile Exchange believes that approachable, step-by-step instruction paired with collective action can change the system to make preferred materials and fibers an accessible default, mobilizing leaders through attainable strategies, proven solutions, and a driven community. At Textile Exchange, materials matter. To learn more, visit TextileExchange.org. Working at Textile Exchange We work remotely with a team located in 20+ countries. We are a diverse group committed to harnessing the strengths of the global textile industry to accelerate change toward climate and other key environmental goals. We work collaboratively on important environmental issues around the world by working and interacting with farming groups, processors, brands, retailers, and environmental experts in the textile and fashion industries around the world. We offer an opportunity to join a cutting-edge global environmental nonprofit and to help strengthen the impact of our organization. Position Summary The Senior Manager, Assurance Integrity leads the team responsible for performance management of assurance providers in the Textile Exchange standards system to ensure credibility of the standards system. This role ensures that assurance models are understood and implemented efficiently and effectively while identifying any gaps and risks to inform continuous improvement of the assurance providers and the assurance system. This role is responsible for ensuring a robust system is in place to track certification body performance across the elements of the system, including the auditing and certification process, reporting and ongoing surveillance of certified organizations. This role is also responsible for identifying training and support needs, managing risks to the system, and ensuring the effective implementation of field monitoring and complaints management. The intended outcome of this work is a high performing network of assurance providers in the Textile Exchange system that instills trust and credibility in the system. The Senior Manager leads the Assurance Integrity sub-team and reports to the Senior Director, Assurance & Traceability. The Senior Manager works closely with other teams across the department as well as engagement, communications and legal teams to ensure coordinated risk and incident management.

Requirements

A minimum of 7 years of combined experience in sustainability standards systems and certification, with at least 3 years at a management level.
Training and/or experience working as a qualified lead auditor, especially in varying regional contexts.
Experience in oversight, monitoring, and performance management of assurance providers.
Technical knowledge of certification and accreditation body operations, including management experience at a certification or accreditation body.
Training and/or experience working as a qualified lead auditor.
Technical knowledge in supply chain management, textile and/or apparel sectors.
Excellent interpersonal and collaboration skills and experience working across cultures as part of a global team.
A driven individual with a strong work ethic and high degree of autonomy.
Self-starting and proactive.
Able to hit the ground running while working in a fast-paced and demanding environment.
Motivated, energetic, determined, and with strong interpersonal skills.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
Native-level proficiency in English and at least one other language.
Strong work ethic and high degree of autonomy.
Ability to work independently as well as to collaborate effectively with key internal and external stakeholders.
Track record of professional, honest, discreet conduct, and able to act with the organization’s highest confidence at all times.
Excellent computer skills including advanced proficiency in Microsoft suite, databases and the ability to quickly learn new systems.
Ability to travel frequently, up to 20% of time.

Nice To Haves

Experience working with Textile Exchange standards or other similar standards systems, ideally ISEAL members.
Advanced experience and knowledge of assurance systems, ISEAL-compliant standards systems, and chain of custody models and principles.
Previous experience conducting technical writing (e.g. policies, standards) and training.
Proficiency in Chinese.

Responsibilities

Advance strategies to ensure excellence across the standards system through monitoring, oversight and transparency of assurance across the standards system.
Identify and track mitigation of risks in the assurance system, ensuring proper escalation and collaboration where appropriate.
Manage the assurance integrity sub-team, creating a high-performing and highly engaged team.
Responsible for the systems that oversee assurance provider performance, that ensure transparency, risk management, internal escalation and reporting, and continuous improvement.
Manage the risks, complaints, disputes, and other grievances related to assurance providers within the standards system.
Oversight and Monitoring: Lead the development, implementation and management of the strategy of assurance provider oversight and performance management.
Lead the development and management of our monitoring strategy as part of our overall plan for performance management. This should complement and enhance the organizational assurance model.
Establish systems to track changes in performance over time and implementation of corrective actions taken by assurance providers to address identified issues.
Implement processes to provide transparency on certification body performance, utilizing incentives and sanctions to drive improvement.
Data and Traceability: Collaborate with Standards Data and Traceability sub-teams to leverage data as a tool to identify risks and strengthen credibility of the standards system.
Ensure regular reporting on assurance system performance, identifying trends and risks and informing key decisions where appropriate.
Collaborate to ensure the development of our supply chain tracking strategy is backed by a robust and aligned assurance model, incorporated into our assurance system.
Incident and Risk Management: Lead the internal processes for timely response to complaints and incidents that are assigned to the assurance integrity team, ensuring assignment of appropriate team members and coordination of communications with relevant teams.
Ensure that when risks that arise from assurance integrity activities arise that these are internally communicated and logged in accordance with the requirements provided by the relevant teams within the department and across the organization.
Assurance Provider Engagement: Contribute to engagement, communication and development of training content for certification bodies and accreditation bodies related to areas identified through oversight and monitoring.
Provide support as needed from other teams across the department for the development of standards, policies and procedures where input on integrity topics are properly reflected.
Support compliance with the ISEAL Code of Good Practice and regulatory requirements (e.g. EA 1/22) from an assurance lens.
Coordinate with the claims and trademark teams on market monitoring activities, such as claims policy and trademark adherence, by both certified and non-certified entities.