Sustainability Services Manager at KPMG South Africa

Job Description

• The Sustainability Services team provides ESG assurance and a wide range of ESG-related advisory services. Our multidisciplinary team works with a range of established methodologies to identify strengths, weaknesses, and risks in organisations’ interactions with society, and uses this knowledge to strengthen impact.
• Due to the heightened awareness around ESG and its increasing importance for all organisations, there has been an increase in ESG considerations and inclusions in proposals and client liaisons throughout the business. It is imperative that the Sustainability Services team works with teams across all business units to ensure that each of the relevant ESG pillars are being considered when offering services or delivering on work, which will ultimately result in increased value to the client.
• Sustainability Services requires an experienced Manager to work with the current leadership team to deliver on the upcoming workload of assurance and advisory projects. The Manager will need to project manage the assurance and reporting engagements and direct, guide and supervise the allocated team. There is an expectation to also work with the leads across the KPMG Business units to build KPMG solutions in Assurance and Reporting as well as prepare and deliver on proposals.

Key responsibilities:
Responsibilities include:

• Site visits
• Review of work performed
• Report writing
• First review of work performed and documentation thoroughly and completely and in line with KPMG’s quality standard
• Team planning and management
• Client liaison, creating and maintaining close working relationships with existing and potential internal and external clients
• Management and delivery of sustainability assurance engagements
• Oversight of financial elements of projects (budget determination and management, billing, overrun negotiations with clients)
• Responsibilities for wider unit management within the Sustainability Services team (training, finance, planning, and performance management)
• Supporting and mentoring junior staff
• Opportunity-led approach

Job specification template
This document is confidential and for internal use only

• Performance managing junior team members and ensuring that there are valuable and enriching development conversations that support their career progression
• In terms of these two pillars (Assurance and Reporting):
• Actively seeking opportunities for new work, proposal development and translating these into revenue-generating projects
• Proactively engaging with other teams within the wider KPMG to take advantage of cross selling opportunities whilst ensuring holistic client solutions
• Ongoing relationship building, ideas sharing and support of global pursuits with other KPMG international offices
• Ongoing personal and professional development to remain technically relevant and able to deploy applicable methodologies with confidence
• Quality review of client deliverables

Skills and attributes required for the role:

• Good understanding of Assurance standards applied (ISAE 3000 and ISAE 3410 at minimum). Familiarity with KPMG sustainability assurance methodology would be beneficial.
• Project management skills
• Fully Microsoft office competent, specifically Word, Excel and PowerPoint
• Report writing and communication skills
• Business development skills
• Client liaison with strong relationship management skills
• Presentation skills
• Analytical thinker and problem-solving ability
• Ability to multi-task and meet strict deadlines
• Presentable, professional and confident
• Ability to manage stress and work under pressure
• Ability to work in a team environment and manage a team proactively with a can-do attitude
• Ability to work unsupervised, be accountable and make decisions
• Strong attention to detail/methodical/analytical
• Willing to travel

Minimum requirements to apply for the role (including qualifications and experience):

• Undergraduate degree in either commerce, accounting, economics, development economics, finance, social science, business administration or equivalent
• Postgraduate diploma / degree is advantageous
• 6-7 years’ experience within Assurance and Reporting of non-financial/ ESG information
• 6 years project management experience in a similar environment
• Knowledge and experience in performing and managing external assurance and reporting engagements
• Detailed knowledge regarding assurance standards and ESG reporting criteria
• Experience in advisory engagements would be advantageous
• Experience in people management and business development is necessary.
• An understanding of the broader services offered by KPMG in order to identify internal and external business opportunities across advisory, and the ability to work across teams / business units is essential