BURN is looking for a Head of External Affairs, reporting to the Global Director of External Affairs. This role executes and helps deliver BURN's government relations, policy, and partnerships agenda across its African markets, translating the Director's strategy into disciplined, on-the-ground delivery.
Core Outcomes
The successful candidate will be measured against two outcomes, delivered in support of the Global Director of External Affairs:
- Carbon market access: Helping secure and protect the host-country authorisations, regulatory approvals, and bilateral arrangements (LoAs, Article 6.2 bilaterals, Article 6.4 host approvals, CORSIA eligibility, voluntary market authorisations) that allow BURN to issue and sell carbon credits from every country of operation.
- Fiscal competitiveness: Supporting the negotiation and defence of the tax, duty, VAT, and incentive environment in each country so that BURN maximises revenue and product accessibility after statutory requirements.
To deliver these outcomes, the Head of External Affairs will help coordinate, develop, and support a high-performing in-country external affairs team across Africa. This is fundamentally an execution and coordination role: strengthening country presences, maintaining consistent standards, and keeping the function running as a coordinated unit day to day, while the Global Director sets overall strategy and owns the most senior relationships.
Core Objectives
- Support the strategy and lead day-to-day execution for securing and renewing host-country approvals required for BURN's carbon projects across voluntary and compliance markets (Article 6.2, Article 6.4, CORSIA, Gold Standard, Verra), escalating complex or contested negotiations to the Global Director.
- Support the negotiation, securing, and defence of tax exemptions, duty waivers, VAT treatment, and other fiscal incentives for clean cooking stoves, components, and carbon-related revenue streams, coordinating with Finance and Tax teams on exposure data.
- Coordinate and support a regional government relations, policy, and partnerships team, working closely with Country Government Relations & Policy Leads to keep delivery consistent across markets.
- Act as a credible, well-organised day-to-day counterpart to African governments on clean cooking, carbon markets, and Article 6 cooperation, at the technical and senior-official level.
Key Responsibilities
Government Relations & Carbon Market Authorisations
- Support BURN's relationships with government entities across all operational markets, focusing on key ministries and regulators.
- Support the strategy and lead execution for securing Letters of Authorisation (LoAs), Letters of Approval, and host-country approvals across voluntary and compliance carbon markets.
- Manage day-to-day engagement with Designated National Authorities (DNAs) and focal Article 6 contacts across assigned markets (e.g., Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Ghana, Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia, DRC, Uganda, Madagascar, Ethiopia, Senegal).
- Prepare negotiating positions on host-country authorisation terms for Global Director sign-off.
- Track bilateral Article 6.2 arrangements, Article 6.4 implementation, national methodology approvals, baseline-setting decisions, and NDC accounting choices.
Tax, Duty, and Fiscal Advocacy
- Support execution of strategies for tax exemptions, customs duty waivers, VAT zero-rating, excise relief, and other fiscal incentives.
- Engage with Ministries of Finance, Revenue Authorities, Energy/Environment Ministries, and investment promotion agencies at technical and senior levels.
- Maintain a country-by-country fiscal playbook mapping BURN's tax exposure and advocacy positions.
- Help defend existing exemptions and incentives during national budget cycles, finance bill processes, and tax policy reviews.
Stakeholder Engagement, Representation & Policy
- Serve as BURN's day-to-day government-facing representative with Directors-General, Permanent Secretaries, regulators, and technical counterparts.
- Maintain stakeholder maps with engagement plans and ownership assigned to country leads.
- Help build and run BURN's policy function to track and shape rules for clean cooking and African carbon markets.
- Draft specific policy asks, briefs, position papers, regulatory submissions, and consultation responses.
Team Coordination & In-Country Communications
- Help design and refine the operating model for the regional external affairs team.
- Support recruitment, onboarding, and development of in-country leads and analysts.
- Run operating rhythms: weekly country check-ins, monthly reviews, and quarterly strategy inputs.
- Prepare government-facing materials: briefing decks, position papers, ministerial talking points, speeches, and op-eds.
- Work cross-functionally with Carbon, Finance/Tax, Legal, and Corporate Communications teams.
