Power Markets Project Leader

Aurora has a newly created senior level career opportunity for an Advisory Project Lead in our new South African office. As the most senior member of the Advisory team, you will play a key role in leading client engagement, identifying issues, forming hypotheses, conducting analysis, and synthesizing conclusions into recommendations, while also driving internal culture and initiatives.

Department: Advisory

Location: Cape Town, South Africa

As South Africa is a new market for Aurora, this role presents an exciting opportunity to work closely with the Managing Director and Market Lead to develop Aurora’s regional market expansion strategy, while contributing to building a first‑class culture. Based in Cape Town, you have the chance to grow into a market leadership role by contributing to all service lines including subscription, advisory and software solutions.

Reporting directly to the Market Lead, you will execute our South African Advisory strategy, influence our Advisory development, and contribute to building a successful team with strong culture and efficient operational processes and systems. You will grow industry expertise under the guidance of senior leaders with deep experience addressing major strategic issues at the world’s leading electricity market modelling firm.

The successful candidate will be a leader – with a track record of success in team environments – combining a focused business development mindset with analytical rigour, excellent communication and relationship management skills.

While we value self‑starters who can work independently, we also offer a supportive environment and mentorship to help new joiners thrive. We encourage applications from smart, hard‑working candidates from all backgrounds who are eager to learn and can grow into the role.

A rare opportunity to be part of Aurora’s first African team. You will have the chance to join the world’s leading power analytics business, in Africa’s largest power market.

• Develop a clear and detailed understanding of the client’s business and expectations, scoping projects and managing them to time and budget.
• Oversee multiple projects simultaneously, providing both internal and external stakeholders with the orientation they need in critical project phases and situations.
• Ensure optimal delivery on clients’ expectations, including collaborating with project teams to deliver a suitable approach, oversee complex problem‑solving, ensuring independent, high quality, rigorous quantitative analysis, interpretation and communication of data insights.

• Contribute to building and growing close client relationships with key stakeholders across the market, ultimately becoming their trusted advisor.
• Acquire new clients and projects by collaborating with internal stakeholders to respond successfully to inbound requests for proposals.
• Good instinct in closing a sale and ability to identify key success factors including client use case and decision making processes, willingness to pay, etc.
• Identify new commercial opportunities through deepening market knowledge and client relationships, and ability to translate client problems into Aurora solutions in real time with clients as well as after meetings.

• In leading our advisory work, you will have the ability to add a strategic filter to our analysis for clients, especially with regards to buy‑side and sell‑side transactions.
• Develop our models: leveraging your position of influence and proximity to clients, you will play an active role in honing and advancing Aurora’s power sector models, especially in South Africa and neighbouring markets.
• Build an external profile and industry presence as a thought leader within the Southern African energy ecosystem. Over time, this will include representing Aurora in both public and private forums, such as:
  • Hosting the Energy Unplugged podcast
  • Leading public webinars on topical research topics
  • Speaking at major conferences to share Aurora analysis

• Work with the Market Lead to help develop and execute the Advisory strategy in South Africa, including formulating…