Project Advisor, Flexibles Program - Europe

The Alliance to End Plastic Waste (AEPW) is seeking an experienced Project Advisor to support the delivery of its European Flexibles Program Workstream, a portfolio of projects focused on improving the collection, sorting, recycling, and circularity of flexible plastic packaging across Europe. The successful candidate will provide hands-on project management, program coordination, stakeholder engagement, governance, and delivery support across multiple projects and partners. The role requires a strong combination of project management expertise, practical experience in waste management and recycling systems, and the ability to coordinate a large number of stakeholders, meetings, deliverables, and approval processes. The Project Advisor will work closely with the European Flexibles Program Lead and other internal and external stakeholders to ensure projects are effectively structured, planned, tracked, governed, and delivered against agreed objectives, timelines, budgets, and milestones. Role responsibilitiesProgram Planning, Scheduling and Controls• Develop, maintain, and regularly update integrated program schedules across the European Flexibles portfolio using Microsoft Project.• Establish project workplans, milestones, deliverables, resource requirements, dependencies, and critical paths.• Monitor project progress against approved schedules, budgets, and objectives.• Identify schedule risks, execution challenges, and emerging issues and proactively propose mitigation measures.• Support schedule recovery planning and corrective actions where projects are delayed or off-track.• Maintain project dashboards, progress reports, and program status tracking tools.• Track and monitor action items and commitments across multiple projects and stakeholders.• Support portfolio-level visibility across all projects within the European Flexibles Program Workstream. Project Delivery and Execution• Support projects throughout the full project lifecycle, from development and approval through implementation and close-out.• Ensure projects are executed in accordance with approved scope, timelines, budgets, and governance requirements.• Coordinate activities across internal teams, consultants, and project partners.• Review project deliverables and outputs to ensure alignment with project objectives and program strategy.• Support project leads and partners in resolving delivery challenges and maintaining progress toward key milestones.• Monitor project performance and recommend corrective actions where necessary. Development of New Projects• Support the identification, assessment, and structuring of new project opportunities aligned with the European Flexibles strategy.• Work with internal teams and external partners to define project scope, objectives, deliverables, budgets, implementation approaches, and success criteria.• Develop project workplans, implementation schedules, and milestone plans.• Support preparation of project documentation required for internal governance and approval processes.• Assist in developing project budgets, resource requirements, risk assessments, and execution plans. Stakeholder and Partner Management• Coordinate with recyclers, waste management companies, producer responsibility organizations (PROs), brands, retailers, packaging producers, technology providers, consultants, NGOs, industry associations, academic institutions, and government stakeholders.• Support alignment and collaboration across multiple project participants and consortium partners.• Maintain regular communication and follow-up with project stakeholders to ensure commitments and deliverables are completed.• Facilitate workshops, technical working sessions, and stakeholder meetings.• Support relationship management with key project partners throughout project execution. Meeting Management, Documentation and Coordination• Organize, facilitate, and document internal and external meetings involving project teams, consultants, member companies, and project partners.• Prepare agendas, presentation materials, meeting summaries, decision logs, and action trackers.• Maintain comprehensive records of discussions, decisions, commitments, responsibilities, and next steps.• Proactively follow up with stakeholders to ensure agreed actions are completed.• Coordinate recurring project governance meetings and working sessions.• Consolidate inputs from multiple stakeholders into clear and concise reports, presentations, summaries, and briefing materials.• Ensure project files, records, and documentation remain organized, current, and accessible.• Support preparation of executive updates, governance materials, approval documentation, and leadership presentations. Governance, Reporting and Risk Management• Maintain project risk registers, issue logs, decision logs, and action trackers.• Support compliance with AEPW project development and approval processes.• Prepare project and program status reports for internal stakeholders and leadership.• Monitor and report on project performance against approved plans and objectives.• Support preparation of governance materials for project reviews and decision-making forums.• Ensure key decisions, risks, actions, and lessons learned are appropriately documented. Experience and QualificationsThe ideal candidate combines strong project management capabilities with practical experience in plastics recycling, waste management, circular economy, sustainability initiatives, or related sectors. The candidate should have a proven track record of managing complex programs involving multiple internal and external stakeholders and be comfortable operating in dynamic, multi-partner environments.

• Minimum 8 years of relevant experience managing complex projects or programs.• Demonstrated expertise in Microsoft Project, including schedule development, Gantt charts, resource planning, milestone tracking, dependency management, and critical path analysis.• Experience managing multiple concurrent projects or project portfolios.• Experience within plastics recycling, flexible packaging, municipal solid waste management, circular economy, environmental services, resource recovery, or sustainability-related sectors.• Strong understanding of the plastics value chain, recycling systems, collection and sorting infrastructure, and circularity solutions.• Experience coordinating projects involving industry consortia, recyclers, brands, waste management companies, technology providers, NGOs, government agencies, industry associations, or academic institutions.• Experience developing project workplans, budgets, governance structures, implementation plans, risk assessments, and reporting frameworks.

This is a flexible consulting assignment with an anticipated initial commitment of approximately 6 to 12 days per month, with the potential for increased involvement as project needs evolve and the European Flexibles Program Workstream expands. The role will involve regular interaction with internal AEPW teams, project partners, member companies, consultants, and stakeholders across Europe.