Vice President, Animal Behaviour

Advertised on: 21 Oct 2025_

Mandai Wildlife Group is the steward of Mandai Wildlife Reserve, located adjacent to Singapore’s Central Catchment Nature Reserve, is a fully integrated nature-based precinct comprising five world-class wildlife parks, immersive green public spaces, and a sustainably designed eco-friendly resort.

We are seeking a self-driven and energetic individual to lead and inspire the development of ethical, engaging, and educational animal behavior and presentation programs that align with the organization’s mission of conservation, education, and ethical engagement. This role promotes wildlife-friendly mindsets through meaningful human-animal interactions, grounded in positive reinforcement training, animal welfare, and conservation ethics.

**DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES**

1. Operations & Administration
- Provide strategic oversight and executive leadership for the ABP department, including stewardship of organisational structure, workforce planning, and fiscal governance.
- Drive alignment of departmental structure and resources with corporate objectives, ensuring operational excellence and long-term sustainability.
- Oversee strategic financial planning and governance for the department, ensuring optimal allocation of operational and capital resources to support long-term institutional priorities.
- Provide leadership in safeguarding animal welfare, operational integrity, and guest experience by maintaining high-level visibility and responsiveness to emergent issues across health, safety, and show management domains.
- Foster a culture of accountability and alignment by maintaining structured communication within and across divisions and departments, ensuring policy adherence and the continuous refinement of documented procedures in support of organisational excellence.

2. Animal Care, Training, and Enrichment
- Ensure that the highest standards of animal care are practiced in ABP including feeding, cleaning, and monitoring animal health.
- Champion positive reinforcement training and behavioral enrichment practices.
- Ensure that managers oversee the ABP enrichment programme, providing regular and frequent species appropriate enrichment for every animal in the collection.

3. Animal Programmes & Presentations
- Oversee all live animal programs across attractions, ensuring world-class standards of animal care and welfare for all ABP animals.
- Curate and produce programs that foster empathy, respect, and understanding of wildlife.
- Ensure integrated and appropriate theming across all presentations consistent with the purpose, vision and values of MWG.
- Champion excellence in visitor engagement by strategically evaluating the quality of animal presentations and the impact of educational storytelling. Ensure that every experience not only captivates and entertains but also deepens conservation awareness and inspires meaningful post-visit action and behavioral change. Evaluate program success through guest feedback, animal welfare metrics, and staff development outcomes.
4. Animal Welfare
Champion animal welfare related initiatives at the Life Science level in collaboration with the Animal Welfare Scientific Advisory Group (AWSAG).
- Oversee the implementation and maintenance of high standards of animal welfare practices for all animals in ABP, ensuring compliance with international welfare standards (e.g., AZA, EAZA, WAZA) via regular assessments and audits.
- Collaborate with external partners and accredited zoos to share best practices.
- Assume a leadership role in advocacy efforts to promote ethical animal handling practices and awareness about animal welfare issues within MWG and the zoo community at both regional and global platforms.
- Prepare for and participate in accreditation audits with relevant zoological associations to maintain our accreditation status.
5. Research Initiatives
Lead and/or collaborate with other departments in the design, conduct, analyses and dissemination of original animal welfare research that supports MWG’s animal welfare outcomes.
- Provide guidance and opportunities for staff skills development in planning, designing, and implementing behavioural research projects, and in the analysis of data and production of research papers for publication.
6. Animal Population Planning
Identify appropriate ambassador animals for public engagement that meet the criteria included in Ambassador Animal Policy.
- Ensure consistent availability of suitable animals for presentations through internal breeding programs and external ethical sources.
- Oversee the effort in developing and implementing population management strategies for species managed by the ABP department.
- Ensure alignment with MWG’s overall animal collection planning efforts as well as ensuring steady pipeline of appropriate ambassador animals for our programmes to deliver memorable wildlife experiences.
- Lead conservation education initiatives and support species recovery efforts.
7. Training