Adaptation and Resilience Finance Lead

The Nature Conservancy • Arlington, IN

1d • $90,000 - $149,600

About The Position

The Adaptation and Resilience Finance Lead will oversee all aspects of the Adaptation and Resilience team’s finance and investment strategy. This position would lead a team and serve a pillar of work focused on designing and mobilizing alternative sources of finance to enable projects and partners, as well as essential stakeholders such as local communities, to build resilience and adapt to the impacts of climate change. This will include supporting both the supply of finance through the development of resilience- and adaptation-specific financial mechanisms, as well as building demand for finance by identifying and building the capacity of projects, partners, and nature-based businesses to access finance. The position will sit under The Nature Conservancy’s adaptation and resilience work within the Global Tackle Climate Change team.

The Adaptation and Resilience Finance Lead will design and implement the Finance pillar of the Adaptation strategy to align with global priorities and regional needs on identifying, mobilizing, and scaling finance solutions. The role is responsible for designing and strengthening financial products, with an emphasis on insurance and results-based finance (e.g. crediting schemes and outcome bonds). This includes developing and piloting insurance and risk- transfer mechanisms that complement long term risk reduction and improved financial protection for vulnerable communities. The role will also expand the use of innovative tools such as guarantees or first-loss mechanisms to scale up blended finance instruments to attract private capital for adaptation and resilience investments. In addition, this position will support the mobilization of finance by identifying and engaging of projects, partners, and key stakeholders – including local communities and nature-positive businesses - to adopt and utilize the financial products developed. In parallel, the Finance Lead will be responsible for increasing private sector engagement by leading an external facing strategy that showcases how public and private financial institutions, investment funds, and other forms of capital deployment can have measurable adaptation and resilience outcomes for nature and people. The goal is to move beyond individual projects and into systemic financial solutions that have durable policies and markets for the adaptation and resilience space. The location for this position is flexible within countries where The Nature Conservancy has an established office. Salary is based on physical working location. No relocation assistance. This is a four-year funded position with the possibility for extension based on deliverables and funding.

Requirements

• BA/BS degree and 10 years’ experience in finance or equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Fundraising experience, including identifying donor prospects and donor cultivation.
• Experience directing a major program or project of strategic importance, including management/supervision of multi-disciplinary teams, creating and managing budgets, and meeting deadlines.
• Experience working with current trends and practices in adaptation and resilience finance associated geographic regions.
• Experience in partnership development and negotiations with non-profit partners, community groups, financial institutions and/or government agencies.

Nice To Haves

• Multi- lingual and multi-cultural or cross-cultural experience appreciated.
• 10-12 years’ experience in sourcing and leading financial transactions such as insurance products, bonds, or private placement deal or equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Knowledge of conservation finance and experience conceiving and implementing strategic conservation finance initiatives.
• Communicating clearly via written, spoken, and graphical means in English and other relevant languages.
• Experience influencing, developing and implementing conservation policy and plans at the state or country level.
• Adept at navigating complex stakeholder environments - including coalition building, organizational and external diplomacy, and trusted with political and financial sensitivities.

Responsibilities

• Lead the finance pillar of the Tackle Climate Change’s Adaptation strategy to identify, develop, and implement finance solutions for climate adaptation and resilience. This includes collaboratively designing and implementing a scaling strategy for adaptation finance with other TNC global, regional, and local businesses units along with donors, partners, and key industry actors (e.g. insurance, development finance institutions, public development banks, vertical climate funds, commercial banks, institutional and impact investors, corporates, standards bodies, and national and sub-national governments).
• Source and lead transactions -- specifically blended, catalytic, and insurance/risk mitigation programs -- directly delivering financial modeling, risk assessment, capital structuring, due‑diligence, negotiations with counter-parties, and providing technical financial expertise to partners in multi‑stakeholder deal processes.
• Work closely with teams inside TNC’s Impact Finance and Markets division, especially the NatureVest team, to leverage best practices for developing finance tools, compliance with TNC SOP’s governing non-grant transactions, and collaboratively engage with shared private-sector partners.
• Global scope that works with other global priorities, programmatic size and scope is that of a large, complex business unit, multiple small to mid-sized business units, division/regional or a large program area spanning parts of multiple states/divisions.
• Recruit, retain and manage high quality and effective multi-disciplinary staff with responsibility for performance management, training and career development.
• Develops and executes on long-term strategy for the Finance pillar of TNC’s Adaptation and Resilience team.
• May help develop other risk mechanisms as appropriate to deliver on the adaptation and resilience strategy.
• Makes independent strategic decisions frequently based on analysis, ambiguous information, experience and judgment.
• May require frequent travel domestically and/or internationally and evening and weekend hours.

Benefits

• TNC offers a competitive, comprehensive benefits package including health care benefits, flexible spending accounts, a 401(k) plan with an 8% employer match, parental leave, accrued paid time off, life insurance, disability coverage, employee assistance program, other life and work well-being benefits.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level