Corporate strategy jobs

Corporate Strategy & Leadership Jobs in Renewable Energy

Corporate strategy and leadership roles decide where a renewable energy company puts its capital: which markets and technologies to enter or leave, which assets to buy, build, or sell, and how the balance sheet carries it all. The category covers strategy managers, corporate development and M&A teams, corporate planning, and executive posts from managing director to CFO and CEO. The sums behind those decisions are large: the IEA expected around $2.2 trillion to flow into clean energy in 2025, twice the $1.1 trillion going to oil, gas, and coal.

What the work involves

A strategy manager at a developer or utility builds the case for the board: market entry studies, portfolio reviews, long-term price and policy scenarios, and the five-year plan that sets hiring and investment targets for everyone else. Corporate development teams execute the resulting moves, screening acquisition targets, running sale processes for stakes in operating assets, and negotiating partnerships. Titles in this space include Strategy Manager, Strategy Associate, Corporate Development Analyst, Corporate Development Principal for M&A, and Corporate Planning Associate. The work draws on investment and valuation skills and overlaps with business development, which finds individual projects rather than setting the direction of the whole company.

Strategy in this sector has become less about growth targets and more about capital discipline. Ørsted is the clearest example: when adverse developments in the US offshore wind market ruled out its planned partial sale of the Sunrise Wind project, it had to raise DKK 60 billion from shareholders in 2025, with the Danish state as majority owner backing the issue. Decisions of that kind, and the choice of which markets to exit, are now the core of the job.

Who is hiring

US developers and utilities post the most: Hanwha Energy USA and NextEra Energy, whose Juno Beach headquarters in Florida appears among the top locations. EDP Renewables in Madrid, BayWa r.e. in Munich, Ørsted, OVO Energy, and Australian grid company TransGrid hire for strategy and planning teams, while Commonwealth Fusion Systems, asset management software company Power Factors, and climate tech incubator Greentown Labs recruit for corporate development roles at earlier-stage companies. The main European hubs are Berlin, London, Hamburg, Oslo, Munich, Amsterdam, and Madrid.

Neighbouring functions often appear in the same listings but belong elsewhere: company lawyers and paralegals in legal and contract management, controllers and group accountants in accounting and finance, and executive assistants in administration.

Backgrounds and the leadership gap

Strategy teams recruit from management consultancies, investment banks, and the corporate finance departments of utilities and oil and gas companies; an engineering degree followed by an MBA or a few years in advisory work is a common profile. The step from strategy manager to executive usually runs through line responsibility for a market or business unit.

That step remains unevenly open. IRENA's 2025 gender review found that women hold 32% of all renewable energy jobs but only 19% of senior leadership positions, the widest gap of any role category it measured. For women in strategy teams, the barrier sits at exactly the step from manager to executive.