Senior Associate, Centre for Experience Economy and Cities
About The Position
The Senior Associate sits within the Yes/Cities team and supports the Centre for Experience Economy and Cities’ city-facing work. The role helps identify, assess and develop strategic opportunities with cities, connect city priorities with relevant Forum programmes, industries, partners and initiatives, and coordinate city engagement across the organization. Its scope spans priorities including infrastructure, the built environment, innovation, sports, travel and tourism, health, workforce and economic development, and resilience. The position establishes and maintains a prioritized portfolio of approximately 20–30 cities, develops city and government relationships, assesses city readiness and opportunities, and coordinates the alignment and handover of qualified opportunities across Forum teams and regional leads. It also contributes city intelligence to the evolution of the Yes/Cities offering, engagement model and business plan, and supports connections between city priorities and global Forum programming. This is a fixed-term role through 30 June 2027, based in the Forum’s New York or Geneva office, with three days of onsite work required per week. The annual salary stated for New York is $100,000–115,000.
Requirements
- At least 4 years of relevant experience in city strategy, government engagement, public-private partnerships, ecosystem development, consulting or a related field.
- Experience working with cities, governments, public institutions, economic development organizations or place-based partnerships.
- Strong understanding of how economic development, infrastructure, innovation, workforce, resilience and public-sector decision-making shape city priorities.
- Ability to assess cities and ecosystems and translate complex information into clear profiles, recommendations, opportunity briefs and business cases.
- Strong stakeholder-management and project-management skills, including experience coordinating across teams, organizations and sectors and managing multiple workstreams.
- Sound judgement and diplomacy, and ability to connect local priorities with broader strategies, partnerships and investment opportunities in an international, matrixed organization.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English.
Responsibilities
- Establish and maintain a prioritized list of approximately 20–30 cities for potential Yes/Cities engagement using agreed criteria and evidence, including city priorities, development plans, institutional structures, challenges and opportunities.
- Maintain visibility across the Centre of city opportunities, owners, next steps and handovers.
- Build relationships with mayors, senior city leaders and relevant government departments.
- Develop an understanding of local government priorities, institutional structures and decision-making processes.
- Map existing Forum relationships and activities across priority cities.
- Connect city priorities to relevant Forum industries, Centres and initiatives, serving as a conduit where appropriate.
- Support partner proposals and business cases where city-level alignment is central to the value proposition.
- Feed city intelligence into the evolution of the Yes/Cities product offering, engagement model and business plan.
- Assess city readiness, government commitment, local leadership, partner presence, local anchor capacity and potential funding.
- Support the development of city qualification criteria and engagement standards.
- Prepare evidence-based recommendations for the Senior Manager, Yes/Cities and relevant regional leads on whether and how opportunities should progress.
- Coordinate with the Senior Associate, Yes/Cities responsible for the Global Network to transition cities suited to entry-point engagement, documenting context, contacts, next steps and ownership.
- Coordinate with regional ecosystem leads to transition qualified opportunities into regional or city-level engagement and ensure relevant materials and intelligence are complete.
- Maintain clarity on ownership, next steps and accountabilities for each priority city.
- Support connections between city priorities and global Forum programming.
- Identify opportunities for cross-city learning and replication.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
Education Level
No Education Listed
