Conservation International seeks an experienced, dynamic leader as its next Chief Operating Officer (COO) to bring vision, direction, and leadership for its global operations. CI is one of the world’s leading environmental organizations implementing critical climate change, biodiversity protection, sustainable agriculture and natural climate solutions initiatives in 30 countries. Founded 35 years ago, CI now implements $200m worth of conservation programming globally, has 1400 employees and is poised to hire 200 more staff by mid-2024. This is an exciting and pivotal role for a seasoned operations executive to manage such growth effectively and develop a more sophisticated US and global operations engine for CI. Reporting to the Chief Executive Officer, the COO will be empowered with the authority and responsibility to manage CI’s operations across the entire global organization, including Information Technology, Human Resources, Finance and Accounting and Global Administration.

Since its inception 35 years ago, CI has been committed to a truly global approach to conservation management. Working with governments, local partners and indigenous communities is at the heart of how CI implements conservation programming. CI believes in empowering its distributed leadership 3 across its countries of operation. Therefore, CI seeks to introduce greater standardization, efficiency, and data management across its global operations for seamless information exchange, compliance, reporting and risk management through integrated systems.

The incoming COO needs to be a visionary leader who a proven track-record of can develop and implement a strategic plan to build operations infrastructure to match CI’s size and growth. While direct knowledge of conservation is not required, it is especially important that the COO have international experience and a passion for CI’s mission. In addition, the COO will need to understand CI’s donor base and funding sources to be able to assess the needs across the entire organization.

This individual must bring a passion and appreciation for diverse perspectives, talents, cultures, and identities and work collaboratively and respectfully at all levels of CI.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Establish a close partnership with the CEO and executive team and lead a clearly articulated operational strategy in support of CI’s strategic goals.
• Work closely with the Executive Committee and senior leadership to ensure a culture of open and direct communication in a positive, fair, and accountable workplace.
• Provide programmatic leadership and input for all strategic plan implementation processes with the CEO and executive leadership team. Coach program directors as they implement the strategic plan and transition program operations.
• Develop and implement a system for tracking and reporting on the progress of the strategic plan implementation.
• Achieve harmony and flow across our global programs and divisions to ensure that our local, country, regional, and global teams can work together in harmony. Update and modernize roles, rights, and responsibilities for positions, focusing on decision-making and increasing the speed at which things are executed. Ensure consistent application of policies and practices, with the authority to ensure appropriate accountability across the organization.
• Have accountability for leading and monitoring overall and organization-wide risk levels. Identify and monitor areas of business risk and implement strategies to mitigate as appropriate. Monitor compliance and take actions to address any issues or gaps identified.
• Direct the development and implementation of short-term and long-term fiscal planning including annual budgeting and multi-year forecasting, ensuring the highest levels of fiscal responsibility.
• Develop and utilize predictive models and analyses to provide insight into the organization’s operations and business plans. Support effective decision-making and planning through financial and management analyses, performance indicators, reports, and recommendations.
• Direct the current and long-term effectiveness of CI’s financial functions including accounting, budgetary controls, financial planning and analysis, grant and contract management, financing, banking, investments, taxes, and reporting.
• Provide governance for IT and implement best practices for a high-quality, consistent and reliable infrastructure across CI’s global workforce, ensuring systems integration and the promotion of the most efficient use of technology resources.
• Ensure adherence to generally accepted accounting practices, donor rules and regulations, and applicable tax laws.
• Represent CI in forums and build partnerships needed to advance CI’s agenda, including multilateral agencies, government bodies, NGOs, private sector partners, and other key public and private donors to achieve CI’s mission.