Shea Jameel on relationship-based sustainability leadership, a common approach to driving sustainability across industries, and practical steps for interview preparation.

Hey friends,

I am excited to share a new episode of the Sustainability Skill Set podcast with you.

In this episode, I had a great conversation with Shea Jameel, a corporate sustainability leader with experience across multiple industries. She is currently Senior Director of Sustainability at Marsh McLennan, a professional services firm that advises clients on risk, insurance, and strategy.

Episode 11. Shea Jameel on relationship-based sustainability leadership, a common approach to driving sustainability across industries, and practical steps for interview preparation.

This episode is great for working professionals and sustainability job seekers alike. We discussed how she’s built success on strong relationships and the core strategy for sustainability in any industry. She also shared some very helpful and practical tips for sustainability job seekers around interviewing.

Here’s what I found most interesting:

#1 - Strong relationships matter when you are trying to drive change.

Shea has focused on relationships throughout her career, which helps her sustainability initiatives succeed. She takes the time and puts in effort to get to know each organization she enters. She treats individuals within each department as key stakeholders, but also as humans, getting to know what they care about and forming a trusting relationship with them.

This approach allows Shea to collect great ideas from her colleagues and learn from their unique perspectives to build her sustainability strategies. She believes that partnership is key to success.

Shea recommends going on a ‘listening tour’ to get to know people. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to building these relationships. You must consider who you’re speaking with and get to know what resonates with them.

Don’t expect it to come quickly or easily. However, when you start building your sustainability strategy and you have to ask for support, you’ll be leaning on the relationships you’ve built, and they will be the key to your success.

#2 - Even if your job title doesn’t include ‘sustainability’ you can look for ways to contribute to your company’s sustainability goals.

If you’re just starting your career, Shea recommends getting a degree in sustainability, or a sustainability-adjacent degree like business, environmental science, or environmental engineering.

However, if you are already in the workforce, you can raise your hand TODAY to start working on sustainability. Shea recommends looking for where sustainability issues intersect with your industry or your company.

If your company has set sustainability goals, ask yourself how you can contribute to those. If you work in operations, you might be able to implement changes that reduce water use or greenhouse gas emissions. If you work in marketing, you might be able to help shape your company’s narrative to focus more on sustainability.

If your company already has a sustainability department or leader, they likely need support. They need ideas from people who see all corners of the organization on how they can make small improvements that contribute to the company’s sustainability goals.

Regardless of where you work, the decisions you make every day can have a meaningful impact.

If your company does not have a sustainability leader or goals, this is a role you could fill. That’s how Shea did it.

Shea transitioned into sustainability from an engineering background by volunteering to help her company respond to sustainability requests, which led to her starting a waste task force.

You can start by simply identifying an improvement that could be made and doing something about it.

#3 - Shea’s approach to building sustainability strategies has been largely the same across multiple industries.

Shea has worked in many industries. I wanted to know whether each industry required a tailored approach to sustainability.

To my surprise, Shea said that she’s used mostly the same approach any time she is building a sustainability strategy, regardless of the industry!

First, she identifies the most impactful areas to focus on. This often involves a ‘materiality assessment’. At this stage, she speaks with everyone who is impacted by the business to determine what they care about. She might speak with customers, employees, shareholders, and leaders of local communities.

Second, she figures out how to ‘move the needle’ by making meaningful improvements. The most important part here is taking ACTION. This step requires her to make the business case for investments in sustainability.

And that’s it!

Now, this is an oversimplification of the difficulties that go into leading successful sustainability initiatives, but it’s a great reminder that the core elements of ‘sustainability work’ come down to identifying the most impactful areas and then taking action to improve organizations.

#4 - Become a generalist or a specialist… it’s your choice!

Shea has seen that a board approach, or a focused approach, can work for sustainability careers.

If you have broad experience in multiple industries or functions, you can pose that as a strength during interviews. Your perspective across industries and functions means that you can understand a business more wholistically and can relate to more people. This is an asset, especially for sustainability professionals who often need to wear multiple hats.

If you’ve developed more focused experience in your career, you can leverage that deep subject matter expertise. Shea reminds us that there is often crossover between non-’sustainability’ careers and sustainability-focused roles. For example, if you work in finance or accounting, then your past experience lends itself well to a new role called ‘ESG controller’ which focuses on ESG reporting and disclosure. In this case, you may benefit from highlighting your experience with SEC reporting and company processes/controls.

#5 - Prepare for interviews like you would prepare for an exam in school.

Shea recommends preparing for interviews like you would prepare for an exam. She described how she her friends and family would perform mock interviews to help her practice responding to random questions while remaining confident and tying in her experience.

Another great tip: When discussing your skills during an interview, it is important to tell stories of times where you demonstrated those skills to prove to the interviewer that you know what you’re talking about.

Shea highlighted a few skills that she thinks are most important for sustainability interviews, including communication, project management, and adapting to change. Remember, you can make claims about ‘soft’ skills such as adaptability more tangible by telling a story of a time where you had to completely change the plan, but you succeeded regardless.

Finally, Shea suggested doing some homework on the company you are interviewing with. Get to know any sustainability materials they have published and weave your understanding of the company’s strategy into your responses.

Read or listen to the full episode to learn more.

I would love to hear from you. Feel free to hit that reply button anytime and let me know what you think!

Wishing you the best,

Louis DeMaso