Water Utilities & Groundwater Market Leader

Environmental Science Associates; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 250,000 - 300,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, and vision insurance

ESOP (employee stock ownership)

401(k) with company match

Paid vacation, sick leave, holidays

Job summary

Environmental Science Associates (ESA) seeks a senior Water Utilities & Groundwater Market Leader to steer firmwide growth and client strategy across multiple regions. You will coordinate with Practice Leaders, Regional Directors, and corporate marketing to align client needs with ESA capabilities.

The role reports to the Chief Growth Officer and requires 15+ years in the water sector, executive presence, and a track record of expanding client pipelines, revenue, and profitability in a matrixed

Qualifications

• 15+ years in the water sector
• Senior leadership experience in utilities or consulting
• Ability to influence via executive relationships
• Experience translating client value into growth
• Knowledge of water supply, rights, wastewater, groundwater, and infrastructure

Responsibilities

• Develop and execute annual growth plan for Water Utilities & Groundwater Market
• Build relationships with utility executives and agency leaders
• Lead cross-practice collaboration to deliver integrated solutions
• Guide strategy, hiring, partnerships, and investments for growth
• Manage pipeline, backlog, and profitability for intended markets
• Mentor and align regional leaders to ESA-wide priorities

Skills

Executive leadership

Strategic growth

Client relationship building

Water sector knowledge

Education

Bachelor's degree in environmental science or related

Advanced degree valued

Job description

Environmental Science Associates (ESA) is a 100% employee-owned environmental consulting firm. We plan, design, permit, mitigate, and restore for projects across our communities, infrastructure systems, open spaces, and wildlands. We are 50 years strong in 21 offices across California, the Pacific Northwest, and the Southeast United States.

ESA is seeking a strategic Water Utilities & Groundwater Market Leader to serve in one of the firm's most senior market leadership roles. This leader will set and execute a firmwide growth strategy, strengthen ESA's position with priority clients, and align client needs with the full range of ESA capabilities across practices and regions. The Market Leader is accountable for market direction and measurable growth, including priority-client development, pipeline and backlog expansion, contract acquisition and activation, strategic investment, and strong financial performance. The role requires a leader who can work through ESA's collaborative matrix and bring together Client Service Managers, Practice Leaders, Regional Directors, Business Group Directors, project leaders, and corporate marketing professionals around shared priorities.

The position reports to ESA's Chief Growth Officer and will coordinate closely with the other Market Leaders, the Practice Leaders, and the Regional Directors so that clients experience the full capabilities of ESA. The position may be based in any ESA region - Northern California, Southern California, Pacific Northwest, or Southeast - and will operate on a hybrid schedule with periodic travel to ESA offices, client locations, and industry events.

Who You Are

• Have 15+ years of progressively responsible experience in the water sector within a water or wastewater utility, public water agency, environmental or engineering consulting firm, infrastructure organization, or related advisory environment.
• Have senior leadership experience with a strong understanding of how water agencies establish priorities, make investment decisions, manage regulatory and operational risk, and move initiatives from planning into implementation.
• Demonstrated ability to build trusted executive relationships and influence complex decisions involving multiple departments, disciplines, stakeholders, and regulatory agencies.
• Experience developing or advancing significant water programs, client relationships, partnerships, or consulting opportunities, with the business judgment to connect client value to measurable growth.
• Broad knowledge of water supply and reliability, water rights, wastewater and reuse, groundwater management and recharge, resilience, environmental planning, permitting, regulatory compliance, and infrastructure implementation.
• Strong financial and commercial acumen, including the ability to set growth priorities and manage revenue, pipeline, backlog, investment, and profitability expectations.
• Proven ability to lead through influence in a matrixed organization, build alignment among senior peers, and mobilize multidisciplinary teams.
• Bachelor's degree in environmental science, engineering, water resources, planning, public administration, business, or a related discipline; an advanced degree is valued but not required.
• Outstanding written, verbal, facilitation, and presentation skills, with the ability to communicate credibly with executives, technical professionals, regulators, boards, and community stakeholders.

Preferred Experience

• A well-established network among water, wastewater, groundwater, and multipurpose water agencies in one or more ESA regions, with the ability to expand relationships nationally.
• Experience integrating strategy, environmental and regulatory requirements, technology, capital planning, and operations.
• Experience moving between public-agency and consulting environments or leading collaborative teams that include agencies, consultants, engineers, researchers, and technology partners.

What You Will Do

The Water Utilities & Groundwater Market Leader will lead ESA's strategy and growth with water and wastewater utilities, sanitation districts, groundwater agencies, groundwater sustainability agencies, and multipurpose water-management organizations. The portfolio includes water supply and reliability, water rights, wastewater and water reuse, groundwater management and recharge, basin and watershed planning, water supply resiliency, environmental and regulatory strategy, and related project implementation needs. This market is built on sustained relationships and a deep understanding of how agencies establish priorities, manage risk, allocate capital, and deliver essential services. The Market Leader will help ESA engage earlier - while agency leaders are considering long-term needs, alternatives, regulatory pathways, technology, and implementation strategies - and remain engaged longer through planning, permitting, delivery, monitoring, compliance, and adaptation.

The role will use an environmentally grounded strategic perspective to connect agency business needs with capabilities ESA has, while identifying focused capability, technology, hiring, acquisition, or partnership investments needed to strengthen the market over time.

Market Focus

• Water supply, reliability, drought preparedness, climate resilience, and integrated water management.
• Water and wastewater utilities, sanitation districts, potable and non-potable reuse, and advanced water purification programs.
• Groundwater basin planning and management, recharge, conjunctive use, groundwater sustainability, and groundwater cleanup interfaces.
• Environmental and regulatory strategy supporting operations, maintenance, capital planning, infrastructure delivery, and long-term compliance for water and wastewater infrastructure.
• Technology-enabled planning, data integration, compliance systems, decision support, and adaptive management where aligned with ESA's capabilities and partners.

Key Responsibilities

Market Strategy, Growth & Financial Performance

• Develop and execute the annual Water Utilities & Groundwater Market Growth Plan, establishing clear client, revenue, acquisition, backlog, pipeline, profitability, and investment priorities.
• Use market intelligence, agency capital plans, regulatory developments, funding trends, and client insight to anticipate where demand is moving and translate that insight into focused growth strategies.
• Build a diversified portfolio across ESA's regions, balancing growth within established relationships with expansion into priority agencies and geographies.
• Monitor market performance, pipeline quality, backlog, win rates, profitability, contract capacity, and client concentration; intervene early where performance or conversion is off track.
• Advise executive leadership on strategic hiring, partnerships, acquisitions, technology investments, and new capabilities that support durable market growth.

Executive Client Leadership & Upstream Growth

• Develop trusted relationships with general managers, utility executives, board members, planning and operations leaders, and other senior agency decision-makers.
• Engage clients before projects and environmental scopes are fully defined, helping ESA understand enterprise priorities, emerging risks, alternatives, and pathways to implementation.
• Work with Client Success Managers to develop and execute account plans that deepen client relationships, expand ESA across the client lifecycle, and create measurable account growth.
• Translate agency business needs into well-defined, appropriately procured opportunities for ESA's planning, environmental, regulatory, natural-resource, cultural-resource, climate, restoration, and technology-enabled services.
• Serve as an executive sponsor, strategic advisor, or Project Director for selected complex, high-profile, or cross-practice assignments.
• Create disciplined transitions from early strategy and planning into implementation, monitoring, compliance, and adaptive-management services where ESA can deliver clear client value.

Integrated Solutions & Delivery

• Bring together the right ESA practices, regions, and technical leaders around priority client needs, creating integrated solutions rather than disconnected service offerings.
• Partner with project and technical leaders to ensure that growth commitments are grounded in delivery capacity, technical excellence, quality, and client outcomes.
• Identify gaps in ESA's offering and determine when to build capability, hire, acquire, or partner rather than overextend the firm's role.
• Support strategic pursuits, proposals, interviews, and negotiations, with particular focus on programs and contracts that can support sustained, multi-practice client relationships.
• Coordinate with the Water Resources & Infrastructure Market Leader on shared clients, multipurpose agencies, and opportunities that span both market segments.

Market Visibility, Partnerships & Innovation

• Serve as a visible external leader for ESA in the water industry through client forums, executive roundtables, professional associations, conferences, publications, and other thought-leadership activities.
• Shape a clear ESA point of view on the environmental and regulatory dimensions of utility strategy, resilience, water supply, reuse, groundwater, and infrastructure implementation.
• Develop strategic relationships with engineering firms, technology providers, financial and management advisors, and other partners that extend ESA's reach while protecting its differentiated role.
• Identify practical applications of emerging technology and data that improve client decisions, project readiness, compliance, and long-term program performance.

Matrix Leadership & Talent

• Create shared priorities and accountability across Client Service Managers, Practice Leaders, Regional Directors, Business Group Directors, and project leaders.
• Coach client and technical leaders in executive engagement, consultative selling, upstream discovery, account planning, and lifecycle growth.
• Work with regional and practice leadership to recruit, retain, and deploy the talent required to deliver the market strategy.
• Model One ESA leadership by mentoring, sharing relationships, information, credit, and opportunities across organizational boundaries.
• Contribute actively to enterprise strategy and perform other senior leadership responsibilities as needed.

What's Special About ESA

Joining ESA means becoming part of a close-knit team of environmental professionals who contribute to outstanding projects, improve environmental stewardship, and advance a more sustainable and resilient future for our communities and wild places.

At ESA, we provide benefits such as medical, dental, and vision insurance (paid at 70% for you AND your family), annual allocations of company share through our ESOP, a 401(k) plan with company match, and paid vacation, sick leave, and holidays, to name a few.

We also provide specific programs whether you want to further your technical expertise, sharpen your business acumen, or help lead the next generation of employee-owners. We want to support you in reaching your career goals through tuition reimbursement, professional development bonuses, and attendance at conferences.

CA Pay Transparency Clause

$250,000 — $300,000 USD

Who We Are

We are a 100% employee-owned environmental consulting firm who values diversity and inclusion and celebrate the differences that make each of us unique. Our culture is built on mutual respect, recognizing that our variety of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives leads to better solutions, which fosters our continued success for our employee-owners and clients.

In accordance with ESA's duty and responsibility to provide and maintain a safe workplace that is free of known hazards and to minimize the exposure to potential hazards, any employee who works from an ESA office or conducts any other in-person ESA work-related activity is required to submit their proof of vaccination status or have received an approved exemption and accommodation in states which this applies.

Please note: We do NOT accept unsolicited resumes from agencies

ESA is an Equal Opportunity Employer, committed to a diverse and inclusive work environment. (EOEM/V/F/D)