Vice President, Sustainable Finance Apfd

**SUMMARY**

The Vice President leads highly visible Sustainable Finance programmatic and team-based strategic research and/or technical initiatives/ projects that directly impact Conservation International (CI’s) objectives. As a key figure in the organization, he/she is accountable for developing and leading a Sustainable Finance program to ensure that programmatic work plans, outcomes, and overarching objectives are achieved.

Sustainable finance is an essential element of the Protection and Production “PnP” strategies being explored with government partners in Asia and the Pacific. Investing in the development of specialized financial knowledge, skills and competencies to facilitate these opportunities is key even in the design phase of this work. To advance current and near-term proposed PnP initiatives, a combination of more senior, strategic leadership on instrument design and structuring and strong research and analytical support is fundamental.

Developing regional capacity to expand CI leadership in the area of “planet positive” impact investing will require additional strategy development which engages the perspectives of regional and country leadership and further key market assessment. The GFCR in Indonesia provides an initial entry point for formalizing this work which could be expanded to other markets where the convergence of market (i.e. donor) demand and strategically aligned pipeline opportunities can be identified.

The Vice President is in continuous contact with a broad array of senior-level internal and external stakeholders critical to the program’s success and reputation. He/She will effectively leverage partners and alliances to secure major funding and expand CI’s reach and scale of impact for a portfolio of Sustainable Finance programs. He/She will lead the delivery of high-impact outputs primarily through peer-review publications in world-class journals. This includes synthesizing CI’s Sustainable Finance major scientific breakthroughs to generate key and persuasive messages for various stakeholders that effectively engage scientists in cross-cutting teams for division-wide initiatives.

The Vice President is fully accountable for managing a department or program with considerable diversity and complexity and has overall responsibility for motivating human resources to meet program objectives. He/She have maximum independence in performing job duties and decisions have a visible impact on CI’s resources and reputation.

**KEY RESPONSIBILITIES**
- Champion adaptive management and lead teams to deliver highly visible, high-impact technical projects and/or partnerships within CI and external organizations.
- Lead and align program research with CI’s Sustainable Program Agenda and institutional priorities. This position is expected to involve the development of new Sustainable Finance capacity in the Asia-Pacific Field Division (APFD) in support of strategic, institutionally aligned initiatives as below:

- Support for Climate Smart Shrimp (Fund) including oversight of new Analyst positions, with emphasis on Asia regional implementation
- Support for UCSB-CI interdisciplinary Research (Blue Economy)
- Lead the design of Indonesia CI Ventures capacity under GFCR.
- Support for local CI Ventures team and activities.
- Lead the design and development of(non-carbon) sustainable financing capacity in region with initial focus on 1) Protection Production Finance Initiatives; and 2) impact investment related engagement.
- Support regionally and globally relevant Blue Nature Alliance Initiative
- Full transition of US State Department Forest Finance Incubator to CFD/Global Policy
- Plays a key role in strategic planning efforts and directly contributes to the overall Sustainable Finance strategic plan including creating 5-10 year outcomes, annual work plans, and other strategy documents.
- Provide leadership and technical expertise in the implementation of CI’s Sustainable Finance agenda, including engaging staff in cross-cutting teams for division and/or CI-wide initiatives.
- Provide leadership and programmatic decision-making in identifying and developing new innovative projects and programs. Lead fundraising efforts, project proposals, and other efforts to identify and secure new sources of funding.
- Actively cultivate and engage influential institutional partners. Routinely represent CI at external meetings with partners, donors, foundations, and government officials.
- Publish extensively in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
- Develop technical materials and briefings to advise executive leaderships, key external stakeholders, and others on highly complex matters with a global impact.
- Other related duties as assigned.

**PEOPLE AND RESOURCE MANAGEMENT RESPONSIBILITIES**
- Manage a large or highly visible program.
- Fully accountable for the program’s budget and human resources.
- Effectively manage, engage and motivate direct reports.

**QUALIFICATIONS**
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