Global Teams Lead, Conservation Strategy

The Nature Conservancy • Arlington, TX

20d

About The Position

The Conservation Impact System Team (IST) in the Chief Conservation Office plays a critical role in supporting global conservation implementation by managing TNC’s conservation system that supports teams in planning, measuring and adapting their work to accelerate progress and maximize impact. There are two core practices and learning areas the Impact System Team supports as TNC works to achieve our 2030 Goals: 1) monitoring, evaluation and learning to improve data quality and drive accountability to impact; and 2) adaptive management at the strategy and portfolio level to drive accelerated impact. The Conservation Strategy Team (CST) is dedicated to this second core practice & learning area of the IST (adaptive management to drive accelerated impact). The team is responsible for the continued development and implementation of TNC’s strategy and portfolio management guidance and support to conservation teams, managers, and the Chief Conservation Officer. The Global Teams Lead, Conservation Strategy will lead the work of the CST with TNC’s Global Teams (Protect, Provide, Tackle Climate Change) and the EU region, supporting conservation teams to adaptively manage their strategies towards scaled impact, and supporting conservation leadership to manage and resource teams towards enabling that impact. The Global Teams Lead will cultivate an understanding of what drives customer satisfaction (customer = TNC conservation teams) in the Global Priority teams and the EU region and will be charged with ensuring customer success. The lead will serve as a cross-cultural broker, ensuring that the offerings and methodologies are culturally relevant and culturally meaningful to conservation teams. The Global Teams Lead will build and maintain strong, trusting relationships with key leadership in the Protect, Provide, and Tackle Priorities and the EU region, collaborating with them to ensure the leadership and TNC conservation teams have support in strategy development, adaptive management, and portfolio management as they work towards impact. The Global Teams Lead will also work with leadership to make prioritization decisions about where to focus time and resources, and how to influence enabling conditions for effective conservation strategy, adaptive implementation, and portfolio management in the region. The Global Teams Lead will also collaborate closely with their Global Teams Lead counterpart on the Conservation Data Team. The Global Teams Lead will oversee the delivery of CST support, including directly providing support to teams, and as needed, the vetting, hiring, and management of external consultants to augment delivery of CST support. They will take a learn-by-doing approach to the development, implementation, and iteration of strategy development, adaptive management, & portfolio management support, to quickly learn what works and what doesn’t work and adjust accordingly.

Requirements

• BA/BS degree and 7 years related experience or equivalent combination of education and experience
• 2 years experience acting as a project lead
• Deep understanding of agile methodology and experience working in a hyper-agile environment.
• Deep understanding of human-centered design and experience utilizing it for product design.
• Experience coaching and/or facilitating teams in agile collaboration settings.
• Experience in managing and tracking complex and/or multiple projects.
• Experience collaborating with multi-disciplinary teams.
• Deep multi-cultural or cross-cultural experience within one or more of the TNC Global Regions (Africa, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and/or Europe).
• Current resident in one of the TNC Global Regions (Africa, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and/or Europe), in a country where TNC is registered
• Willingness to work a flexible schedule to align with a variety of time zones
• Experience with self-directed navigation of complex and open-ended projects to achieve outcomes.
• Knowledge of, and commitment to, centering equity, justice, diversity, and inclusion principles and practices in a professional setting.
• Experience with and/or commitment to nature-based solutions for the climate and biodiversity crises, which also benefit people and communities.
• Excellent interpersonal skills

Nice To Haves

• Experience in Conservation and/or development space
• Experience in the entrepreneurial and/or innovation space
• Experience working in a learning-driven organization
• Experience with organizational change, systems thinking, and/or systems change
• Ability to leverage the latest technology to achieve desired results
• Disciplined with a high say/do ratio (frequently does what they say they are going to do)
• Excitement about working on an agile team that is continually adapting their own ways of working
• Experience with a growth mindset, creativity, and resourcefulness
• Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning experience

Responsibilities

• Build enabling conditions for adaptive management in the Global Priority Teams and the EU Region
• Build trusting relationships with key TNC leadership in the Global Priority Teams and the EU region
• Work with Global leadership (Deputies, Strategy Leads) and EU Regional leadership to identify top priority teams needing adaptive management support, and focus support on them
• Collaborate with Global Priority leadership (Deputies, Strategy Leads) and EU Regional leadership, supporting prioritization and strategic decision-making to advance the impact and mission of adaptive management in the region
• Collaborate with other Global Priority and EU Regional Leadership team members to help influence and advance specific enabling conditions in the region for adaptive management, with a specific focus on global-regional collaboration
• Provide targeted adaptive management coaching, aligned with global priority and EU region needs
• Provide customized conservation strategy, implementation and/or adaptive management coaching, facilitation, and/or training support to teams, while staying grounded in agile/adaptive management principles and values
• Ensure support provided to teams is content appropriate, using a collaborative approach to design approaches and engaging local contractors as needed
• Take a holistic view of support for conservation teams, identifying approaches that are well suited to the context teams sit within
• Ensure conservation strategy and adaptive management support provided to teams is aligned with and supportive to the global and EU region portfolio management process, and supports teams to close key evidence gaps identified through that process
• Support other members of the Global Priority Teams and EU regional team to use adaptive management toolsets as they support other high priority teams and programs
• As needed, collaborate with CST regional leads to support global priority teams to improve their conservation strategy and adaptive implementation in regions, given that their work must touch down in-region.
• Measure / monitor value provided by CST support, ensuring our work is leading to magnified conservation impact in the Global Teams and EU region
• Identify opportunities to scale up support models that meet the broader needs of the Global Teams and EU region and expand conservation impact
• Identify potential opportunities to expand CST’s value proposition in a way that expands conservation impact while staying true to the mission of the CST
• Support CST’s work with global regions & EU by proactively recognizing potential collaboration areas, capturing and sharing learnings, and participating in cross-regional experimentation
• Act as key point of contact for TNC’s Global Priority Teams (which collectively have work that touch down across TNC’s regions) and for the EU region
• Support Global Priority Teams in effectively collaborating with place-based TNC teams, ensuring that ownership is shared appropriately to support responsible and impactful operations in the field.
• Be willing to work flexible hours, spanning a variety of time zones (and effectively self-manage work/life balance in this context)
• Potentially frequent international travel to support teams as needed

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.
• We’re proud to offer a flexible work environment that supports of the health and well-being of the people we employ.

What This Job Offers

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