Sustainability & Strategy Associate

About the Firm

Ambienta is a European environmental sustainability investor across private equity, public market and private credit. Operating out of Milan, London, Paris and Munich, Ambienta manages over €4.0bn in assets across Private Equity, Public Market and Private credit exclusively focusing on companies driven by environmental megatrends whose products or services improve Resource Efficiency and / or Pollution Control in their respective sectors.

In private equity, Ambienta has completed more than 80 Investments to date and is managing the largest PE strategy in EU exclusively dedicated to environmental sustainability. In public equity markets, Ambienta has pioneered the application of its value oriented sustainable investing approach and today manages a full suite of sustainable products ranging from low-risk multi-asset funds to equity long-only. In 2024 Ambienta has expanded its private market suit of products to private credit strategy with the same environmental sustainability focus as the other asset classes.

An industry pioneer, Ambienta was one of the first UN PRI signatories in 2012 and attained B-Corp in 2019. In 2020, Ambienta became IIGCC member and in 2023, as one of very few asset managers, continued being a positive role model for the industry by committing to the Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi).

Your role and responsibilities

You will join the cross-functional Sustainability & Strategy (S&S) team. This internal consulting group plays a crucial role in supporting the firm’s investments across all asset classes and countries to deliver above-average market returns.

In your role, you will be required to implement and develop analysis of industry trends, related market dynamics and environmental issues, maintain Ambienta’s proprietary industry expert network and support the development of investment insights. You’ll work under the guidance of S&S senior team members with full accountability on your own tasks and direct exposure to other teams of the firm and external stakeholders. Over time as you’ll enhance your expertise on sustainability matters, business model understanding and investing considerations you’ll start focusing on selected industry verticals with the objective to become a reference point for the entire firm in the mid-term.

This activity feeds into the collaboration with investment teams. You will collaborate closely with all investment teams across asset classes from ideas generation, through origination and due diligence. You will be in charge as well to validate consistency of investment ideas with Ambienta’s environmental sustainability mandate by implementing our proprietary methodologies which are intimately linked to the business due diligence process.

You’ll be, seldomly at the beginning and more over time, leading junior team members and be responsible of coaching, training and educating them to foster team growth.

Main Task will be :

• Conduct analysis to build, update, and maintain Ambienta’s knowledge on environmental trends impact on selected industry verticals. Support the development of investment insights on the impact of environmental trends on these value chains, that in turn enable to identify winning business models and their competitive advantages.
• Support investment teams’ business activities from ideas generation to business due diligences by leveraging the pre-existing knowledge with the objective to drive the generation of workable investment ideas within themes, engaging effectively with target companies’ owners and management teams, enhancing due diligence capabilities and provide support throughout the investment lifecycle as needed.
• Implement proprietary impact methodologies across asset classes (Private and Public) which run alongside business due diligences. This involves collecting data from target and portfolio companies which characterize their activity and compare to industry standards to determine how the business contribute to foster environmental sustainability in its sector and thus enjoy a competitive advantage that supports its equity story.
• Prepare reports and presentations for various stakeholders’ engagement activities within the firm. This includes creating presentations for new investment ideas, internal knowledge meetings, investor relations and reporting activities, the development of new financial products, and other general purposes.
• Advocate Ambienta’s investment strategy during our investor relations activities which typically include private meetings with clients and public speaking events.

Your Skills

• Outstanding academic background from Engineering Universities or other STEM disciplines
• 3-6 years of experience within major professional services organization / consulting firm or within strategy / BD / M&A department of relevant industry players
• Industry-specific familiarity in industries relevant to environmental sustainability trends
• Interest in environmental topics and sustainability
• Ability to work in a team and proactive attitude
• Curious and intellectually motivated
• Strong analytical skills and attention to details
• Reliable to manage multiple streams of activities and to meet deadlines
• MBA will be considered a plus
• Languages: fluent in English and Italian; other European languages will be considered a plus.