Associate Director, Forests

Job purpose and background

If you’re passionate about halting forests destruction, restoration and sustainable land use - and want to have a global environmental impact by working at the nexus of private and public sectors - this is the perfect job for you. CDP’s Associate Director, Forests and Land will be responsible for overseeing delivery of a select number of CDP’s funded program, providing thought leadership, supporting fundraising and team management and ensuring implementation of CDP’s forests and land strategy.

This role requires you to drive private sector action, provide insights to policy makers and support funding efforts, whilst working to mainstream corporate reporting by companies and investors as a new business norm.

The successful candidate will be recognized as an expert in the field. You will have a strong record of excellence, and demonstrable achievement of leading teams and initiatives in complex, fast-paced, and fluid environments. You should have experience working in multi-stakeholder settings and be comfortable communicating with senior-level stakeholders from government, business, finance and civil society. You should be passionate about CDP’s mission and be able to spot opportunities to develop integrated and inclusive multi-sectoral approach to systems change, as well as expand and grow CDP’s network.

About CDP’s forests program

CDP’s forests program works to remove commodity driven deforestation from corporate value chains to effectively contribute to a below 2 degrees, water secure world; and to decouple deforestation from forest risk commodity production. CDP’s work on forests was launched in 2014 and now boasts the backing of 525 financial institutions with over $96 trillion in assets. The program provides critical forests related data from the world’s largest corporations that buy, sell or trade key forests risk commodities (cattle products, palm oil, soy products and timber). The data is used to inform the global marketplace on investment risk and commercial opportunity, and to catalyze action, supporting companies in their efforts to remove deforestation from their supply chains. CDP will expand its focus beyond tropical deforestation from 2021, to include a broad range of forests, restoration and sustainable land use, as part of its 2025 strategy.

Key responsibilities include:

• Program Delivery: providing oversight and project management for effective and high-quality delivery of identified programs and projects
• Implementation of CDP's forests goals, towards halting deforestation and with the development of the new strategy, restoration and sustainable land use, working with CDP teams to ensure the strategy is socialized and implemented, including monitoring and evaluation
• Fundraising: work with CDP's Development team and the Global Director, Forests and Land on establishing long term, sustainable funding for the program. This will often mean being the content lead for large proposals
• Team management: line/ matrix management of at least three forest team members
• Supporting the strategic future of forests questionnaires, scoring methodologies, and accompanying guidance, taking a sector lead where necessary
• Supporting CDP's cities, states, and regions program, creating synergies between CDP's work with companies and sub-national actors - providing expert input and guidance as and when needed
• Maintaining and building thought leadership knowledge across CDP's body of work across forest and land
• Defining and implementing structures to collaborate across and within key CDP teams to deliver on forests and land goals
• Deputizing for the Global Director, Forests and Land externally and internally, as required

Essential skills and experience

• Around 8+ years of experience working in relevant fields (environment, tropical forests, land use change)
• Proven track record in analysis and report writing
• Demonstrable expertise in forests and land use, in particular the role that the private sector, capital markets and national and sub-national policy plays in driving change
• Strong project management skills
• Ability to deputize for CDP's senior leaders internally and externally
• Ability to effectively exercise management authority, including performance reviews, recruitment, discipline, and other personnel actions
• Ability to provide inputs into and adapt departmental plans and priorities to address resource and operational challenges
• Ability to work independently in a lean, cross-functional environment
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Good experience of Microsoft word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook
• Flexibility to travel internationally

This is a permanent role that can be based at any of CDP’s regional offices. You will report to the Global Director, Forests and Land.

Salary and benefits: Competitive NGO Salary and benefits dependent on experience and region. The person will need to be eligible to work in one of CDP’s regional offices.

Before you apply

We will only use the information you provide to process your application. For more details on how we use your information, see our applicants privacy notice. By emailing us your CV and covering letter, you are permitting CDP to use the information you have provided for recruitment purposes.

How to apply:

Please email your CV and a covering letter setting out how you meet the required skills and experience or key responsibilities, which should be no more than two pages, to [email protected] with ‘Associate Director, Forests’ followed by your first name and surname in the subject. The deadline is 9am on Wednesday 10 March. Interviews will take place on the same week.