How to flex your creative impact + a hands-on climate tech course

Opportunity Seeker highlights ways you can grow your career and personal impact. We’re here to open up opportunity so more of us can belong in spaces that need us.

Well, hello hello 👋. It’s a delight to have you here for another week of opportunities to grow your career and impact. If you have a very kind friend who thought you should be reading this, feel free to subscribe or find out more about me first.

Today is a creative special, but we’ll also be covering:

• Six C-level, executive + co-founder roles for those who want to scale up their career

• An opportunity to move to an Australian island 🦘

• How to become a UX Designer

• And a course called Voltage Vixens for those who want to learn hands-on climate tech skills

Maybe you’re feeling full of energy this week or maybe you need this reminder…

Time to flex your creative impact

Not all of us view ourselves as creative. But deep down all of us have a creative part of ourselves that needs an outlet, however much we might diminish its worth.

Kae Tempest’s book of essays about creativity, On Connection is one of my favourite reads from last year. You can hear them talk about reconnecting with creativity in this interview with Flea (yes, from Red Hot Chili Peppers).

And for those who want to scale their creative impact here’s a round up of opportunities…

• Virtual: Want to know how to turn your job into a climate career? Well, there’s a webinar later today (Aug 30), hosted by Grist. The session’s open to everyone, but aimed at creative professionals — 800 people have already signed up and you could be number 801.

• London: One of the London’s coolest galleries, Whitechapel Gallery is looking for new board members. They’d love someone with digital and tech experience, as well as those with experience in large-scale commercial orgs.

• Europe: You might know them as the company who helps you transfer large files, but WeTransfer puts its money where its mouth is. Their Chief Creative Officer, Damian Bradfield shared that they’ve opened another round of unrestricted creative bursaries — 50k for non profits, and 10k for artists.

• Virtual/Hybrid: Talking of bursaries, Collaborations for Future is looking to match 10 climate scientists with 10 creative designers to help visualise the Climate Crisis. The program gives a bursary of €9000 to each creative.

• Remote: Germany’s green challenger FinTech, Tomorrow Bank is looking of a UX/UI designer to join their team. They’ve now got over 100k customers, and I’ve even run into people using their card in Uganda. The world is a tiny place.

• UK/Remote: Beam, our giving partner from last week’s newsletter, is looking for a Creative Content Producer. You’ll get to have full ownership over their creative content.

*All three Beam campaigns highlighted in last week’s newsletter have now met their targets:

• Veronika will be moving into a place with her sister.

• Joyce will be able to cover the deposit to get a flat for her family.

• Abdulaziz is starting his construction training.

Thank you for supporting! 🚀🙏

C-level and executive roles around the 🌎

• San Francisco/Hybrid: Earth Justice is looking for a Chief Financial Officer. This non profit works on some of the big cases for environmental litigation, and sued Trump more than 150 times during his presidency. This is a super senior role and compensates generously.

• UK/Remote: It’s still ramping up its work, but the Centre for AI & Climate is looking for a full-stack developer to come onboard as co-founder/CTO. Set-up by some of the team with experience at Google’s DeepMind, and largely working out of the UK, this org is one to keep your eye on.

• Bristol/Hybrid: They’ve recently closed a Series A and been featured on Channel 4 news for their micro plastic solution, and now Bristol-based Matter are looking for a Chief Commercial Officer. It’s an ideal role for those with numbers heavy, marketing related experience, as you’ll be responsible for business intelligence, brand, sales and PR.

• NYC/Remote: The NY Tech Alliance is on the hunt for an Executive Director. Their mission is to expand access, equity and inclusion in the local ecosystem, and they’re wanting someone with experience working in smaller startups and non profits.

• London: For all my East London babes, Hackney Council is looking for a Director of Environment & Climate Change. And to say the compensation for this role is shockingly generous for a UK public servant position would be an understatement (fans self).

• Tasmania: For those who want an island home (yes, that is a reference to Christine Anu for all my 🐨 readers), Design Tasmania is looking for a new CEO to craft their future strategy, arts programming, and impact.

*Got an executive role you’d like me to spread the word about? Hit reply and share details with me for next week’s send out.

Learning opportunities

• Become a UX designer: Inspired by the creative job round up today? One of the most in demand tech jobs in 2022 was UX Designer. While parts of the job might come under threat from AI, there’s still a huge demand. Here’s two ways you can retrain and pivot:

  • Career Foundry has a 6 month UX Design Program with a job guarantee. The course costs can also be covered by the German government if you’re unemployed and a resident.

  • General Assembly has a 10wk UX Design Bootcamp. It’s ideal for those who want to grow in their current role; almost half of those enrolled have their current employer cover costs.

• Voltage Vixens: Want to learn hands on renewable energy skills? I first connected with product designer + founder, Krystal Persaud when she created a solar frame for your window to recharge devices. She’s now running her second cohort of Voltage Vixens. It’s a 6-week course aimed at creating community and foundational climate tech knowledge. They also have great merch. Krystal, if you’re listening I would love a hat.

Next week

Opportunity Seeker will be coming to you from the Scottish Highlands so prepare yourself for some mountain inspired posts ⛰️.

Signing off from cloudy Berlin…

P.S. Got a spare second and feeling generous of heart?

An article came out this week about children seeking refuge being put into adult prisons by the UK gov (please look after yourself if reading, it’s incredibly upsetting). In the face of news like this it’s easy to feel hopeless, but that’s not what this newsletter is about… we’re here to find opportunities for impact.

So the giving highlight this week is Safe Passage International. Founded in 2019, they’re an agile non profit working across France, Poland, Greece and the UK to reconnect refugee children with family members. Last year they worked with 754 people — truly impressive for a small org battling against swathes of legal red tape.

• You can support them regularly as a monthly donor here.

• Or you can sign up to their match campaign - every donation given here will be doubled in their holiday season campaign. Find out how this works here.

Want to know more? Here’s Anna* and Rahul* being reunited with family members. Or have a read of Safe Passage’s 2022 impact report.