Senior External Affairs Manager, Italy

The primary purpose of this role is to strengthen, enhance, and safeguard SSE's reputation in Italy through meaningful stakeholder engagement, effective communications, and trusted relationship-building. The role plays a key part in creating positive connections with local communities, industry partners, and external stakeholders, ensuring SSE is recognised as a responsible, forward-thinking, and collaborative organisation.

Working closely with a diverse network of stakeholders, the successful candidate will build strong partnerships and influence outcomes through engagement, advocacy, and collaboration. This includes fostering constructive relationships with Italian government representatives, regulatory bodies, trade associations, transmission and distribution operators (TSOs and DSOs), non-governmental organisations, industry peers, and other key external partners. Through proactive issues management, public affairs, media relations, and strategic communications, the role will help support SSE's ambitions while creating shared value for stakeholders and the communities we serve.

• Build and nurture meaningful stakeholder relationships at both national and regional level by developing and delivering collaborative engagement, communications, and public affairs strategies that strengthen SSE's reputation and support project success across Italy.

• Proactively identify and respond to emerging opportunities and challenges, working closely with communities, partners, and stakeholders to build trust, address concerns, and support positive outcomes.

• Champion SSE's story and purpose, coordinating external communications, media engagement, and industry representation to enhance visibility, foster understanding, and build confidence in SSE's activities and ambitions.

• Cultivate strong partnerships with regulatory and institutional stakeholders, providing insight on policy developments, representing SSE's interests, and helping shape a supportive environment for sustainable growth.

• Strong knowledge of the Italian renewable energy sector and policy landscape.
• Experience supporting renewable energy projects through permitting and stakeholder engagement.
• Understanding of local and regional government structures, with the ability to build effective relationships.
• Experience in communications, media relations, public affairs, or stakeholder engagement.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills in Italian and English.
• The ability to create engaging communications and tailor messages for different audiences across a range of channels.