VP, Urban Forestry

American Forests• US,

2d•Remote

About The Position

The Vice President of Urban Forestry will serve as a partner to the Chief Program Officer (CPO) of Tree Equity and will lead the national field strategy and operations of AF’s ambitious, highly visible urban and community forestry efforts. This is a senior role for a seasoned program leader who has spent a career delivering urban forestry at scale: running programs within or directly serving state forestry agencies or programs, federal initiatives, municipal forestry systems, and/or the organizations that support them. This individual will bring genuine fluency in how these programs are funded, structured, and sustained, and will have working relationships with AF’s peers and partners in the urban forestry, planning, and/or climate fields. Delivering on impactful place-based programs across cities and states, the VP of Urban Forestry will lead a distributed team of regional directors and senior program leaders, and, alongside the CPO, will serve as a principal internal and external ambassador for American Forests’ urban forestry mission. This leader will also help connect emerging urban forestry science and research, ranging from climate vulnerability and urban heat, species resilience, ecosystem services, and public health, to on-the-ground program design and delivery. This role reports directly to the CPO and serves as the primary steward and connector around AF’s urban impacts, regional model, and catalytic capital deployment. This individual must be operationally disciplined, can work with non-profit and grant budgets with ease, and is able to bring structure and clarity to a growing, distributed team while maintaining strong relationships with partners across government and community partners and AF’s own departmental leadership to shape and execute the program and business models around how AF deploys its expertise and resources to communities across the U.S.

Requirements

12–15 years of professional experience, with at least 5–7 years in senior leadership roles with or directly serving state forestry agencies, USDA Forest Service programs, municipal forestry systems, or equivalent experience.
Trusted leader in the urban forestry state and/or federal fields
Deep, firsthand knowledge of how urban forestry programs are funded, structured, and delivered at the local, state, and federal levels, including state urban and community forestry grant programs, USFS cooperative agreements, municipal forestry budgets, and federal climate and infrastructure funding opportunities.
Demonstrated ability to lead complex, multi-jurisdictional programs with distributed teams and diverse funding sources.
Proven track record of building durable relationships with senior government officials, agency staff, municipal staff, and/or community partners.
Strong operational and strategic instincts, including budget fluency, and able to build structure and translate vision into workplans that get executed.
Experience managing or partnering with state urban and community forestry programs and/or USDA Forest Service urban forestry initiatives
Familiarity with urban forestry science and research — including climate vulnerability assessments, adaptive species selection, ecosystem services valuation, and urban heat analysis — and experience translating those insights into program decisions on the ground.
Experience with grant programs, community capital strategies, or workforce development initiatives in the environmental sector.
Comfort operating in politically complex environments — across state agencies, city governments, community organizations, and national funders simultaneously.
Demonstrated commitment to environmental justice and community-centered approaches to urban greening.

Responsibilities

Set and execute the national field strategy for the Tree Equity program, ensuring alignment with grant deliverables, multi-year growth goals, and performance commitments to funders and partners.
Help shape a coherent model to deliver our urban forestry expertise and funding and help build capacity to advance urban forestry within cities and states; as part of this, manage two Senior Directors -- whose growing teams include Regional Directors of field implementation in the Pacific Northwest, Southwest, and Northeast, as well as community engagement staff -- while establishing clear performance expectations and consistent quality and delivery of resources across geographies.
Oversee the impact of the Senior Director of Field Delivery to ensure proper evaluation, storytelling, systems, and cross-regional coordination.
Oversee the Senior Director of Catalyst Initiative & Fund to ensure impactful community capital deployment through $55 million of USDA-funded subgrants, as well as frontline organization and workforce development programming.
Leverage AF’s national partnerships with other peer organizations and city and state networks, such as ICLEI, Climate Mayors, C40 Cities, US Climate Alliance, and others, to increase urban forestry interest and capacity with new practitioners; deliver flexible technical assistance in emerging geographies; and test new markets for expansion.
Possess and maintain strong working relationships with state forestry agencies, USDA Forest Service urban and community forestry program staff, city leaders and municipal forestry directors, and regional networks, grounded in shared programmatic work, not just external representation.
Navigate the urban forestry funding landscape with confidence, including state urban and community forestry programs, federal, state, and innovative funding streams, municipal budgets and operations, and philanthropic sources, and help partners identify and access the right resources for their programs.
Stay current with urban forestry research and science and actively integrate those insights into our expertise and resources, technical assistance, program design, and field delivery.
Lead, coach, and grow a distributed team of senior program leaders, building a culture of accountability, collaboration, and continuous learning.
Partner with the Chief Program Officer on program design, talent strategy, and organizational planning as the program scales.
Identify and collaborate on cross-departmental initiatives to align place-based efforts across Tree Equity and Resilient Forests, Policy, and Data Science teams.
Partner with Philanthropy and Communications teams on outreach and fundraising strategy, proposal development, and funder engagement connected to urban forestry delivery.
Contribute substantive programmatic insight to grant narratives, concept notes, and funder reporting.
Ensure strong integration across field delivery, data tools, science and research, and storytelling to produce a coherent picture of program impact.