Opportunity

Natel Energy is working to support healthy rivers, promote biodiversity, and decarbonize the grid through FishSafe™ hydropower. We are an Alameda, California-based provider of high-performance hydraulic turbines designed for high fish survival, with operating installations in the United States and Europe. We design and test our turbines in Alameda and work with manufacturing partners to deliver them to customers across North America and Europe.

You will join us as a Senior Manager (or Associate Director) of Public Affairs to help drive the next phase of our growth. You will sit at the intersection of commercial strategy, content marketing, and public policy, reporting to the VP of External Affairs. In this role you will have significant leadership over translating regulatory frameworks and economic evidence into commercial opportunities across North America and Europe.

You will engage directly with regulators and legislators in Europe and Canada, manage the in-country policy consultants and lobbyists who carry that work forward, lead international policy research, set account-based marketing strategy for our European and Canadian accounts, and translate empirical data into clear value propositions for our customers. You will flex between activities like applying systematic policy analysis to EU regulatory directives and crafting compelling ROI case studies.

This is a role for a high-output strategist who can also build the thing. We are a lean team, and no job is too small.

Responsibilities

• Global policy analysis & strategy for Europe and Canada: Lead policy and regulatory analysis for Europe, Canada, and other geographies outside of the United States. Take ownership of researching and analyzing regulatory frameworks, environmental compliance standards, and clean energy policies. Identify market entry barriers and government incentives, directly informing Natel’s strategic approach to geographic expansion.

• Direct political and legislative engagement: Represent Natel directly with regulators, ministries, agencies, and elected officials in Europe and Canada. Build and sustain working relationships with agency staff and policymakers, and lead Natel’s participation in consultations, rulemakings, standards processes, and industry coalitions.

• Manage country-specific policy consultants and lobbyists: Direct and hold accountable in-country regulatory consultants and lobbyists in France, Switzerland, Sweden, Germany, and Canada as appropriate. Set their scope, priorities, and deliverables; coordinate their work into a single coherent regulatory strategy; and flag where we need to add, change, or end an engagement.

• Advise on strategic direction for market expansion: Apply regulatory and legislative analysis to support decision making, strategy, and tactics for long term and short term market expansion.

• Research-based sales enablement: Translate policy incentives (like EU green subsidies) into clear, high-impact content including ROI visualizations, one-pagers, digital ads, and slide decks that help convert leads and accelerate the sales cycle. You will both write and design these—we are a small, nimble team!

• Set Account-Based Marketing strategy for Europe and Canada: Partner with the commercial team and our Marketing Manager to design ABM campaigns targeting strategic accounts within Europe and Canada. You set the strategy, targeting, and content; marketing executes. Create bespoke material that speaks directly to the specific regulatory tradeoffs, economic constraints, and organizational goals of individual asset owners.

• Event leadership: Own conference strategy and abstract submissions, and manage our presence at key industry events in Europe and Canada to ensure Natel maintains a market-leading position.

Required Skills & Qualifications

We are looking for someone who can move fluidly between rigorous policy research, direct engagement with policymakers, and fast, persuasive commercial content. You should bring:

• 7-10+ years of experience in public affairs, government relations, B2B marketing, or strategic communications

• Demonstrated ability to research, interpret, and compare regulatory frameworks

• Experience engaging regulators, agency staff, ministries, or elected officials on behalf of an organization—not only analyzing policy but influencing it

• Experience directing external consultants, lobbyists, or retained advisors: setting scope, holding them to deliverables, and synthesizing their work into one strategy

• Understanding of how to create and implement change within complex public and private organizations, including mapping stakeholder motivations and leading strategic planning initiatives

• Demonstrated experience designing and leading Account-Based Marketing strategies or supporting complex sales cycles, with an understanding that marketing and policy research are ultimately about clearing the path to revenue

• Exceptional writing skills. You must be able to adopt different voices for different audiences (regulators  vs. utilities  vs. legislators) and translate dense statistical or policy information into punchy value propositions

• Working proficiency in content design. You can build a polished one-pager, slide deck, or ROI visualization yourself  (in Figma, Canva, Google Slides, Adobe or equivalent) without waiting on a designer. We will ask to see examples.

• A “doer” mentality. You are comfortable working in a lean environment where you are often the one conducting the research, taking the meeting, building the deck, and launching the campaign

• Ability to work independently and communicate clearly across a distributed team

Not Required, but Pluses

Not Required, but Pluses:

• Master of Public Affairs or Master of Public Policy

• Experience in energy, climate tech, or infrastructure

• Familiarity with US, European, and/or Canadian environmental or energy policies

• Working proficiency in French, German, or Swedish

• Familiarity with CRM and ABM tools like Hubspot

Compensation & Benefits

The starting base salary range for the Senior Manager role is $110,000 - $138,000. The starting base salary for Associate Director is $135,000-$168,000. These ranges may be modified in the future. Starting pay for the successful applicant will depend on a variety of job-related factors, which may include job-related knowledge, skills, and experience, market location, business needs, other compensation components, and/or market demands.

In addition to competitive salaries, we offer equity to new employees and incentive compensation based on team performance.

We are proud to offer great benefits like 4 weeks of paid vacation, 2 weeks of paid sick leave, 401k matching, and health insurance (along with dental, vision and life insurance). We want our team to live full lives outside of work.

Location

Natel's team and test facility is located in Alameda, California, and we welcome both in-person and remote candidates. About half our team works in Alameda regularly and the rest are fully remote, connected by Slack and video with occasional full-team gatherings. This role requires 10–20% travel to Europe and Canada for regulatory and legislative engagements, industry events, and stakeholder meetings.

Workday must overlap by at least 6 hours with Alameda, CA, USA.

Our hiring process

Natel Energy is committed to building, supporting, and growing a diverse team. We have a standardized interview process designed to reduce individual bias, and have structured pay scales to prevent inequity. We don’t discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.