Global Policy Lead, Grids of the Future

About this role

The Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (Global Energy Alliance) The Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (Global Energy Alliance) works for a world where everyone has access to affordable, reliable, clean electricity and the means to use it to improve their lives. Our Alliance builds transformative public, private, philanthropic partnerships to end energy poverty and accelerate green economic opportunity. Founded in 2021 by The Rockefeller Foundation, IKEA Foundation, and Bezos Earth Fund, we design innovative projects/programs, unlock finance, strengthen institutions and transform markets, delivering progress anchored in deep community engagement. By uniting actors across the value chain, from households to heads of state, we go beyond individual projects to drive lasting systems change. With work in more than 30 countries across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, our Alliance aims to reach 1 billion people with clean electricity, prevent 4 billion tons of carbon emissions and create or improve 150 million jobs.

Position Overview

About the Global Energy Alliance

The Global Energy Alliance (the Alliance) works for a world where everyone has access to affordable, reliable, clean electricity and the means to use it to improve their lives. Our Alliance builds transformative public, private, philanthropic partnerships to end energy poverty and accelerate green economic opportunity. Founded in 2021 by The Rockefeller Foundation, IKEA Foundation, and Bezos Earth Fund, we design innovative projects/programs, unlock finance, strengthen institutions and transform markets, delivering progress anchored in deep community engagement. By uniting actors across the value chain, from households to heads of state, we go beyond individual projects to drive lasting systems change. With work in more than 30 countries across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, our Alliance aims to reach 1 billion people with clean electricity, prevent 4 billion tons of carbon emissions and create or improve 150 million jobs.

Grids of the Future is GEA's programme for delivering abundant, reliable, and clean electricity across the Global South. In many emerging economies, the utilities that supply most electricity are held back by aging infrastructure, underinvestment, and a lack of reliable data. Efforts to modernize often remain stuck in isolated pilots rather than reaching the whole grid. The programme works in close partnership with utilities, governments, regulators, and innovators. It supports grid digitalization, the integration of renewables and battery storage, greater demand flexibility, and a stronger network of local innovators. Together, these help emerging economies move from aging, fossil fuel dependent grids to modern grids that are ready for renewable energy. The programme brings together the policy, regulatory, and delivery work that this transition depends on.

Why this role matters

Policy and regulatory work is among the highest-leverage elements of GEA's model. A single regulatory change — a revised grid code, a cost-reflective tariff methodology, an open-access framework — can unlock public and private investment worth many multiples of GEA's programme budget in a given market. This role owns that leverage: converting GEA's programme evidence into the market reforms that allow clean energy investment to scale, reducing the regulatory risk premium that holds back private capital, and underpinning GEA's proposition to systems-change funders. It is also central to GEA's distinctive position in a crowded field: linking grid infrastructure to demand, jobs, and opportunity — grids for people, not just grids for their own sake.

About the role

The position leads policy and regulatory work for GEA's global Grids of the Future programme, also working in close partnership with the Powering Opportunity pillar, so that policy and regulatory strategies reflect the interdependence of grid investment and demand growth. It sits within the Scalable Solutions function and supports the Grids of the Future teams across GEA's priority markets, including India, Southeast Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Africa. The work helps low-and-middle-income countries modernize their grids and integrate large volumes of low-cost renewable energy in a reliable and financially sustainable way. The role draws on regulatory experience from advanced power markets and adapts it to the realities of state-owned utilities in the Global South.

Accountabilities

Lead the policy and regulatory strategy for grid modernization in priority markets

• Lead the development and execution of GEA's policy and regulatory strategy for grid modernization across its priority markets, including India, Southeast Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Africa. Prioritise deep engagement in select countries where GEA has live grids and demand-side work, with lighter-touch support elsewhere.

• Develop a deep understanding of power market design in GEA's priority markets. This includes market regulations at the national and sub-national level, grid codes, planning frameworks, and the factors that affect renewable energy integration and grid modernization.

• Bring relevant expertise from advanced power markets in the Global North, such as demand flexibility and related market and regulatory designs. Adapt this expertise to the conditions of Global South power systems.

• Advocate for the regulatory and market reforms needed to accelerate grid modernization and demand growth, through evidence-based engagement with governments, regulators, and international fora.

• Work with the Powering Opportunity team to ensure policy and regulatory strategies reflect the interdependence of grid investment and demand growth, and carry GEA's integrated narrative — grids for people, jobs, and opportunity — into global and country-level policy engagement.

• Build policy and regulatory partnerships with global and regional…