Keesa Schreane:

Great. So Neil, talk to us first about where the sustainability market is now in terms of jobs and trends. Are we looking at specific regions where sustainability roles are really hot right now? Are you seeing it across regions at this point?

Neil Mitchell:

Yeah, so I think from my side, we've always been really, really focused because we are more of a technology driven recruitment firm. We've always been really, really focused on that next big thing, what's next? And obviously the last 10 years has been a huge digital revolution that we've actually been seeing. And what now is actually happening is many, many countries and many, many eyes are on what we would call now the sustainable revolution. I don't think that a sustainable revolution could have actually happened without the digital revolution going on. People migrating things to the cloud. What we see within artificial intelligence, machine learning and essentially lots and lots of efficiencies going on.

What's happening now is there's lots of eyes on the sustainable pollution and companies are now being forced to look, they can't put windmills on their website anymore and put a nice tick box at their de-carbonization goals been hit. What's actually happening now is at the board level, it's being driven at regulatory levels across Europe, middle East and Africa and the US, there are tons of regulations coming through the pipe and more to come. And a lot of companies are now really putting some investment into this.

So from a region perspective at the moment, particularly countries like Germany who have their regulation 2024, bringing down the number of users a person needs to have, a company needs to have in order to ... where they must have an ESG score. In the Middle East, as an example, there are huge job opportunities where they seem to have quite a lot of work to be done, especially on things on the S side. What's really interesting about the Middle East at the moment is, they are making a really good effort on creating impact. So I see a lot of companies in recruitment, I see the good, the bad and the ugly. And I see a lot of companies at the moment that are hiring people or working with people, and within six months they're back on the market because they understand it's just a tick boxing exercise for these guys. People aren't taking it seriously.

There's this huge divide right now where companies are grabbing this and seeing it as an actual opportunity. And there's others, but I'm thinking this is just a tick box exercise. So the Middle East is extremely buoyant at the moment for the job market within ESG, climate sustainability, positions like that. Particularly at the consultancy level, as well. Many of the large consultancies like ANM, PWC, KPMG, they're all building capability out there. And it's simply because they're already in with the CFO, they can already do a financial audit. Why would they not now whisper into the ear of the CFO, start trying to do their ESG audits now. So huge growth over there.

Germany, as I said, due to the regulations and then obviously with the US, that always seems to be buoyant. I think the US at the moment, I don't know whether you could shed light on that. But I think the US at the moment, there seems to be a bit of a divide and some companies are really going through it and other companies are ... I'm seeing in the US companies are saying like we're just going to let capitalism win almost. We can't not release investment to a company if they have a good idea but they're not green. Things like that seem to be happening quite a bit over in the US.

Keesa Schreane:

And in terms of this specific role, so you mentioned the breakdown with the Middle East, the EU, UK and the US. Are there specific roles that are in higher demand right now? Because we know ESG and sustainability, they touched so many areas from compliance to legal to business strategy. Are there specific roles that you see that those who are interested in the area should really keep an eye on?

Neil Mitchell:

Yeah, one that's actually been one of the highest growing job titles since the post academic era is the CSO, the Chief Sustainability Officer. Now what's actually interesting now, because this year is extremely dynamic on how a business wants to take and where the journey they want to take. There's a bit of a tussle at the board. So it's either being driven by the CIO, which would be more of a technology or data driven or a technology led approach to this problem, and to whatever the company's goals are. Or it's a CFO's problem. And the CFO is essentially trying to wrestle with that idea of like, well this is essentially an auditing exercise, reporting exercise. I need to basically take care of this because I can't get my credit or debt or funding or whatever it may be unless the ESG goals are met.

So what's actually happening now is that before, I would say, if you'd have asked me that question last year, I would have said, CSO director. Whereas this year, as I said, what's actually happening is there's been a bit of a squeeze and a bit of a tussle. But what's actually interesting is the CEO still is an emerging role in many businesses. But one of the big ones that we're seeing at the moment are either if you are an end client, if you're working for a L'Oreal or a Unilever, they are all looking for heads of ESGs right now. So somebody that can essentially be that representative at the senior level, that can essentially have that bird's eye view over the business, essentially start off with either a framework led setting of an ESG order and work out what the goals of the business are. And then essentially take the company on the journey themselves.

So we're seeing that as a huge role title, that's super popular. And then I mentioned earlier on within the consultancies. The consultancy can't hire enough people right now. So that would go from a senior consultancy, so senior consult and sustainability, all the way up to partner level, working specifically either on ESG topics and areas like that. So that essentially goes all the way up the run.

Keesa Schreane:

So let's talk about specifically the people, so we have groups who are either looking at entering into a CSO role or something of the sort. And they may not have an idea of where to start. Many people are experienced and have been working this field for a while. But some folks are just getting certified in different areas or just getting these sorts of degrees or these sorts of certifications. So for both folks who were already steeped in the CSO space, ESG space. As well as those who were educated, maybe done some certificates but haven't yet had that job experience. What should be the approach for both sets of people?

Neil Mitchell:

I said this when I hire marketing people for myself, which would say this for this particular area or this particular role inside organizations. Because it's quite unique to either marketing or certain areas that it's not available to. What's really important is that you are doing things outside of work, that absolutely show that you are a standard barrier and you are driving initiatives in the business.

So if you are already within the ESG space and you are trying to go up the level or if you are trying to look over the site and say, maybe I'm an operational person, HR person, whatever it may be, and I want to make that move into this space work within a sustainability team in an organization. The absolute number one best advice I can give anyone, yes, certifications are absolutely fantastic. The Cambridge one seems to be having quite a lot of good feedback amongst the market. But understanding regulations and the frameworks, the GRI framework and things like that. But the absolute number one piece of advice I would say is, work with NGOs, work on a volunteer program, demonstrate your work in sustainability.

Because a company will understand then that you are a standard bearer, you're driving initiatives to the business outside of your sort of normal nine to five. Sure you'll agree, this isn't a nine to five job. It's a highly isolated position in a business where you are getting touched by all of the different functions. And if you are not working on L&D in a business, if you're not working within the data team, if you're not working on with the finance team, then you're not going to get things done. These people need to really lead from the front.

Outside of that, I'd say you need to have a technical understanding. So when we go back to frameworks and things like that, these are obviously quite important. But I would say that's one of the major things. And then the last one, which is a really important thing, especially when you're going to interviews, and especially when you're trying to separate yourself to get that job in comparison to somebody else, which is what I'm on here for. Is to try and give a little bit of a tip.

One of the major things that we see is offering full disclosure. What I mean by that is that in other businesses, in other role titles, you might look at maybe having to withhold things from your company's experiences or things that you've done well or not very well, that sort of stuff inside an organization. Within a CSO title, you need to lay it all out there. And the reason being, obviously, I feel and many other people and many companies feel, we're in a bit of a pre-competitive state right now. This is a global issue, everybody should be working together on it. And if you have an example of something that really works for your business that you need to share in the interview, you've got to do it. And it shouldn't be anything about some secret that you are holding back or anything like that or competitive advantage.

I'll give you the example of Pepsi and Coca-Cola, that came out a few years ago, I can't remember when it was. But they essentially came out to sort of mortal enemies, which should we say, and approached this in exactly the same way. The two CEOs stood side by side of Pepsi and Coca-Cola and essentially said exactly that. That is what interviewers are looking for from people in this space.

Keesa Schreane:

Okay, very nice. So those three things are great, really working and showing that you have worked, whether it's volunteering, working with NGOs, perfect. That technical understanding, as well as I love this, full disclosure, don't hold anything back because it may have some relevance here.

So I want to get into some of the really interesting areas that might be things that many folks don't know. In terms of pay ranges. So if someone is looking for an opportunity, but they, again, either are experienced and come from that role, or they may not have the specific CSO experience but they take your advice and they just put all of their experiences that they've had in the past on the line. What should they look for? And here in the US in some states, pay is transparent. But if someone doesn't know what they're looking for, if they're coming from a completely different field but are very interested, what should they be thinking about in terms of pay? How should they research that?

Neil Mitchell:

Well first thing they can do is to talk to a recruiter about benchmarking in certain countries. I do think the answer to this question is extremely country specific. And even if we took a head of ESG role title, I have five positions at the moment within organizations, one of those positions is 120,000 pounds based in the UK. I would say the exact same role that I'm doing over in Dubai is $300,000, which is obviously a little bit more from a conversion ratio. Especially in the US as well, I find it really hard to give specific benchmarking advice unless that person is essentially saying I'm in New York and I want a New York salary. I could probably help with things like that.

But to give you an example, there is a real range at the moment of what people should expect. I would say, absolutely, if you are looking at a senior ESG position at the moment, a senior position of the climate sustainability in an organization. You'd be looking at six figures as a based salary for absolute short. What's interesting is that not only are CEOs getting ... they're getting their performance and their pay tied to ESG goals. One of the things that we found amongst a number of organizations when we did a talent mapping exercise was that this is becoming more prevalent across the board. And of course, then the CSO is going to have to take that, as well. It'd be pretty tough to say, the CEO is going to get no access to their bonus, but CSO can have it.

So one thing you really need to look at when it comes to packages, how am I accessing my bonus? How am I actually accessing whether I've done well and bad? The thing about this role, as I said, it's such a fluid position at the moment, it's very dynamic. You really want to, in the interview in particular, drill down what exactly is that these people want to achieve, these interviews want to achieve. And then you can start getting a sway on, I'd say, the level of salary that it probably would take to take this role.

The interim market's really interesting because that's the permanent market. The interim market is a little bit more because it is the time and materials questions, people have more price on that. If you are doing simple ESG audits and you're going in and trying to build a plan for an organization, we see most people coming in anything from the $1,200 a day up to the $2,500 a day on that one. So that's, I would say, the sort of mark of an average benchmark across that. And that, I would say, those dollars I just mentioned there, you just convert that into whatever currency most areas would want, you're pretty much going to get the same thing. I've heard that it's slightly more expensive in certain countries, but really that's that sort of level where we want people [inaudible 00:14:01].

Keesa Schreane:

And also, I mean you talked about attaching pay to various areas, sustainability being one of them. I know that in many cases, we love to talk about work here on this podcast and what does inclusion look like. I'm wondering, in terms of the roles that you are seeing, where people are being placed, do you see a lot of diversity? And I know diversity means different things in different countries, you have a very global outlook. But are you seeing that, indeed, CSOs are definitely an example of a diverse profession? Or is that not quite the case yet?

Neil Mitchell:

To be honest, as I said, I've done 20 years of technology recruitment. And technology recruitment has a huge issue with diversity. And unfortunately, that's something that is extremely hard to move the needle. It's something that we try and work on all the time in the technology space. And we have things like pledges where when we send our CVs, we send 50% diverse to non-diverse CVs on our short list. We help with selection interviews and we make sure there are diverse profiles on the panel. So the actual choices of decisions that are made to hire certain people, are made by a diverse panel. That really does help, actually, move the needle on the tech side. But I must say, it's so much more refreshing within this space.

There's much more diversity on my side when I deal within these job titles. It really is completely wide open. So it's absolute ... I don't know whether you know this saying. But in English it's chalk and cheese, like the technology industry and this particular industry, they're just so different on that side. They've got a lot of work to be done on the tech side. Within this space, really rich and diverse teams.

Keesa Schreane:

And I'm interested, I know you have this phenomenal background in technology, you're now moving into sustainability. I've heard a couple of debates around AI and where AI will sit. From a business perspective, will it sit in business strategy? Will it sit in the tech area? I'm wondering as it relates to AI and sustainability, have you seen or heard talk around where AI will fit? And where companies want it to fit in terms of the realm of sustainability? So I'm thinking about reporting, for example, that might be one fit. What are your thoughts or what are you hearing about that, if anything?

Neil Mitchell:

I would say the main sort of talk that we're having at the moment around ChatGPT, AI and technologies like that, I'm a bit of a humanist, my side, in general. But also because I've been round so many cycles of digital technology, revolutions. Things like this where people talk around saying the job market's going in the bin because there's not going to be any vacancies or anything like that, and all of these things are going to happen.

I always look at this with a much more humanist point of view of all of these things. All of these AI technologies are simply going to make us more efficient so we can then work on human endeavors, pioneering, essentially reaching whatever purpose that we're supposed to be here for. So the sustainability revolution for me is the next part in that puzzle. And what I would say is that from applying AI machine learning in different areas like that, it frees up time, it gives us more knowledge, it helps us on the science side, understand the bigger questions.

So I wouldn't necessarily be able to answer the whole lot where it would sit inside an organization just yet, and who's going to own that sort of area. At the moment it's firmly in the tech teams, the AI side is the tech teams. But people in the tech teams, the data scientists, these super clever people, what they're trying to do every day is trying to work out business needs, business solutions. And they're trying to apply AI to these business challenges or whatever they may be. So there will be nothing stopping these particular scientists or whatever it may be. Or the use of AI from furthering the goals of a business. If their goal is to reach net-zero by a certain time, we will a hundred percent be using AI for things like that.

Keesa Schreane:

I think that'll put smiles on a lot of faces, your answer to that and just your vision of AI and its connection to [inaudible 00:18:15] quality.

Neil Mitchell:

Yeah, there can be quite a dystopian view, can't there? But like absolutely not, I just don't believe it one second. I think that we will absolutely outclass any disaster that's on the horizon and I think that things like AI just going to do nothing but help us.

Keesa Schreane:

Now let's talk about the best way a potential candidate can engage with you, with a recruiter. So if they're looking at ... they see a role or that they see this interview and they say, "Hey, I want to reach out to this recruiter. I want to reach out to a recruiter who maybe is in my area." What is the best way to engage for the outcome of getting that role?

Neil Mitchell:

One of the big things that I see is that I really do believe at this level, is a two-way relationship. So if you look at a job search for a Java developer, a technology person, a Java developer. They start their search off Monday, they probably have four offers by the end of the month. We're looking at a Chief Sustainability Officer or somebody at this level, especially looking at the C-suite. This can take a ... it's an endeavor of six to nine months. So what I would say is that absolutely, do your research and find out which consultancies have an offering in an area that you're interested in. So that would be the first thing I would do. So absolutely, I would always encourage people to apply directly to companies they absolutely love or have connections into or whatever it may be. But I would never stand in front of that.

But to get those more passive roles, those more ... and that breadth of the market and things like that, is absolutely essential for you to try to find a consultancy that does what you want to do. That's the first part. So once you've located that person, as I said, it's a two-way relationship. You need to give that person some time and incentivize that person to place you. Because that person has ... we've got 120,000 people on our CRM, just our ones. If we added them all up in terms of the whole group, I have no idea how much, it would be a lot. I can't place 120,000 people as much as I'd like to. The people that we place are the people that build relationships with us and that's that.

So I would say start reaching out, it's almost like a business transaction, a relationship transaction, which people do all the time in their day jobs. Look at a consultancy and say, well how do I incentivize these people placement? Be available, reach out to them and tell them the markets that you want, tell them the industries you like, you don't like. One of the things I've seen that people that get the jobs the most in my area are people that ... if there's a pun, excuse it. People actually literally run towards the fire. And what I mean by that is that somebody that's worked for an oil and gas business, they've actually done an ESG role in an oil and gas business. I've got a guy who is absolutely swimming through interviews right now, and one of his experiences is working for an engines company. The engines, they make jet engines. So their entire business is a cost, so that when they make that jet engine and sell it, it's pure cost.

The way they make their money is through their maintenance. So the way they make profitability is through their maintenance of that jet engine. That jet engine doesn't fly and doesn't burn fossil fuels, they won't make any money. So how are they going to offset that? How are they going to work that? And for me that's like someone that when they go into an interview like that, they're absolutely setting themselves apart from everywhere else. So I would say, yeah, absolutely, go back to their consulting, get that person interested in you. That person really interested me. And that's one of the things that you've almost got inspire a consultant to want to recruit you. And then that person will essentially work on that journey for you, for that next six to nine months. It's really important to frame it as, I need to be the person this person wants to think about in the morning, rather than all of those other 120,000 candidates and then start it from there.

Keesa Schreane:

Running towards the fire, I love that. And let me just back up into the role a bit more, too. I'm hearing a lot about CSOs and their relationships with the boards and how boards are really engaging deeper on this. Have you talked to any of the candidates or any of the potential firms that candidates are looking for? And have they made it clear that yes, this is the type of relationship we want with CSOs? And what does that relationship between board and CSO look like?

Neil Mitchell:

Yeah, to be honest, it is the fundamental question you need to ask when you're in ... essentially, introduce yourself and then essentially ask that question, where would I sit inside the organization? It's one of the most fundamental card shows that you can uncover really quickly. What access has this rock got to the board? How serious are the board taking it? Who would I report to? And if you understand really quickly, the quicker you understand that the board have no interest in this whatsoever, they know they need to hire something they have no interest whatsoever, the quicker you could move on to companies that are putting this role front and center. It's probably the best question you can really start asking either your recruiter, the internal recruiter that reaches out to you, or on your first interview. Where does this position sit? Who does it report to? And what sort of impact does the previous person have or what are their goals or whatever it may be. Start talking about the board very quickly.

There is a toss up there and as I said, there are certain business that's set up in many different ways. If you haven't got visibility of the board at the moment, I would say it'd be really, really hard to show to demonstrate serious business value to sustainability. Because the CEO really wants to talk about business value. Is there opportunities here? Can we recycle things and make more money? Things like that is a lot of the conversations they're going to be having. If you can't have those conversations and you're just essentially saying, we need to do this and that, you're going to get nowhere fast.

Keesa Schreane:

Love that. That's key advice. So Neil, let's talk about your journey as a recruiter. I really, for those who are interested in recruiting, I want them to hear about your story. So how did you move into this field? And also, what would you recommend for those who are interested characteristics, what you really need to want to focus on? In order to really be a great recruiter in the sustainability space.

Neil Mitchell:

Okay. So I won't go back to Dave Dock, but I'll give you a bit of a snapshot in terms of my background. But yeah, I grew up in the Midlands, which is a small town close to Birmingham. The interesting thing about that area is that it was surrounded by huge industrial park. And those industrial parks, I was working for an agency that essentially was putting me into factories pretty much every week completely differently. So one week I'll be working at a chicken factory, the next week I'll be building tanks. It was that varied.

What was interesting about that before I went into recruitment, is I got a really rich and varied experience of, I would say like how people make things and how circular the economy is. And how the bare cogs of companies actually work. So when I moved to the big city in Birmingham and before I moved down to London, I joined a recruitment firm that was building out technology recruitment startups, and I fell in love with it immediately. And what's interesting about recruitment is, it's almost uncrackable. When I say almost, it's almost uncrackable.

I've worked with people that have passed the bar, I've worked with ex lawyers, I've worked with super, super intelligent Cambridge grads and they have absolutely flopped at recruitment. And it's got nothing to do about whether you're good or whether you're bad or whatever it may be. It's simply, it's super impossible not to crack. But once you do, it's super rewarding. I always say in my business, and this isn't a stack by the way, but I always say my business, do 99% of the process and get 50% of the results. It's a real hard hitting thing of, if you don't hit 100% of the process every single time, something just hits you.

And it's one of those industries that it's so human. Literally our products are human. If you're working for a software company, you're working for a security company, do you want my security? Yes or no? Here are the features, here are the benefits. You've got a competitor you can go to and that's it. Well, that's basically it. If the client says yes, then it arrives on site. With me, I can get a person to accept an offer and then all of a sudden they go, I'm headed to Dubai next week so I can't take the job. So that's something that you can embrace and be excited by. But it's also something that gives you gray hairs, as well.

So what I would say the main thing that there are thousands of maybe catch words and stuff like that, but what I would say is probably the key piece of advice if someone wanted to get into maybe recruitment, get into building a recruitment firm, getting to build it in general before we get into ESG, would be being happy to fail fast. So that's one of the big things for me. Fail fast, fail as quickly as possible, and then you can move on to the next failure, and the next failure. That's all good, embrace it. But fail really fast. Don't keep doing something that's not working for very long.

Getting into the climate sustainability world, I also think the same advice applies to exactly what I said to for candidates in this space. If you're going to build a recruitment firm or build a team in a recruitment firm, that has anything to do with sustainability on the top of the door, you really do have to live it. So I'm doing number of events, I'm obviously working with you at the moment. But I'm doing a number of events in July, that are round table events and community led events that are absolutely costing me money. And they are absolutely not business development type positions or anything like that. I'm simply doing it to help that community communicate.

One of the huge things in this space, as I said at the top of the call, I think, is super isolated. There might be a 10,000 person company and one person in ESG. How isolated is that? So one of the things that I would say is you really have to live this thing. You have to make sure that you're embracing this community. I go to a London ESG event every month without fail, and that sort of stuff. And I do everything I can to make sure that I'm publicizing this space as much as I can. That's something that I would say is a big key piece of advice there. Fail fast in terms of recruitment in general, and really do not just walk the walk, talk the talk, as well, on the ESG standards side.

Keesa Schreane:

Wow. So Neil, this has been fantastic, particularly the fail fast and really engaging and immersing yourself in the community frequently. I wonder ... and with you having this background in technology, I'm really excited about your answer here. Tell us one thing that we don't know about the future of the CSO role, our sustainability office. And I suspect there'll be a tinge of technology in what you tell us. But tell us something we don't know about the future, where it's headed, say, the next 18 months, next two years or so.

Neil Mitchell:

The one thing that everyone knows, so I'll start off what everything knows and maybe frame it from there. Which is obviously, AI is going to change the world forever. That is something that if anyone believes, again, that means they don't know that. They absolutely ... you should know that by now. And if you don't, you're just hiding from the truth. AI, the position where I've seen it growing over the last 10 years, used to be called Big Data, it used to be called something else before, they used to called Business Intelligence, this sort of stuff.

Right now, people have actually cracked it now. So one of the things that's going to be happening over the next 18 months is a huge shift to not only knowing we've understood what it is, but you're going to see released products that are going to come out. They're going to change your life forever. So it's going to be amazing these things.

So when we're talking about the exhilaration of autonomous cars and stuff like that, that's essentially a software issue that's just going to come in the next few years. What's going to really change things now is going to turn it on it's head is that answers to many questions. It could be things like cures for diseases that were a mathematical issue, that just the smartest brains in the room couldn't quite get. It could be a question on climate that people ... the UN Congress have been scratching their heads for years in the boardroom or in the back rooms and not actually telling anybody. These things are going to be actually solvable now, that's the key bit.

Keesa Schreane:

I mean, that's fantastic and I do think that a lot of people ... that will resonate and a lot of people have that opinion. So Neil, appreciate this fantastic conversation. In terms of what potential CSOs, who are looking at roles, who want the roles, and who want to go after them and successfully become a CSO, what can they do? Show your skills, work with NGOs, even volunteer, just demonstrate your work and drive initiatives. The second thing is really understanding the technical aspects, so frameworks and standards. And then the third piece of really great advice, full disclosure, lay out all of your experiences, don't underestimate yourself and really know that many things that you do, that you don't think, may be valuable to the marketplace, it really is valuable.

And in terms of your work and really looking at what you can do as a CSO, looking at showing the business, how you can bring value. Understanding how the business can make money and how you can help them do that. And also to really get the board's attention, a key stakeholder, showing them how you can bring business value. Get a sense of where your position sits, who it reports to. And also, if you are interested in recruiting, making sure ... and this, I think, is great advice for everyone, that you fail fast. So wonderful advice. Neil Mitchell, thank you so much and thank you for the work you're doing with Osmii.

Neil Mitchell:

Excellent. Thanks so much. It's been brilliant. Thanks so much.

Keesa Schreane:

Thanks for joining us on today's episode of Climate Money Work. Please follow the show wherever you're listening right now. If you have any questions, feedback, or pitches, please get in touch with the team at cmw@shrugcontent.com. Again, that's cmw@shrugcontent.com. Now you can learn more about the show at KeesaSchreane.com/podcast. You can find me on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. I'm Keesa Schreane and thank you for listening. Be well.