Commercial Head of Nature Recovery

Overview

ABOUT US

This is a full-time position at Real Wild Estates, one of the UK’s specialist advisory business for nature restoration and ecological land management for nature recovery. More information about Real Wild Estates is viewable on our website and via our brochure, which can be downloaded from www.realwildestates.com.

Real Wild Estates (from here on as RWE) is a unique 2-year-old start up business, backed by a major multinational investor and specialising in delivering financially-viable nature recovery at scale, across the UK, with a focus on large ecosystem restoration projects.  Having advised, re-envisioned, strategized, monetised, baselined and overseen projects totalling over 35,000 acres across the UK in the last two years, with predicted pipeline growth within the next years, we are seeking a talented naturalist or ecologist with a strong commercial background, big-picture vision and aspirations for UK nature recovery.

Reporting to the Managing Director, this is an exciting chance for someone with the right attitude and mindset, to help shape large areas of UK land as we see a wave of landowners, landholders, NGOs and communities seeking nature restoration and natural capital services. You will be selling our tailored services nationally, in England and Scotland, and occasionally Wales, covering all aspects of nature-friendly land management, from one end of the restoration spectrum to the other – from regenerative and nature friendly farming to ambitious restoration and rewilding, and, alongside others, combining this with advising on property acquisition for nature recovery, ecotourism and natural capital monetisation. 

JOB DESCRIPTION & RESPONSIBILITIES

As commercial head of nature restoration, you will be pivotal in helping our clients turn land back to nature – benefiting biodiversity, the local community, climate resilience as well as driving the nascent ‘business of nature’ market.  Your day-to-day role will be to carry out a wide array of tasks and responsibilities centred around landowners and landholders liaison, helping them re-envision, strategise, monetise and implement nature restoration on both large-scale land holdings and also land suitable for Biodiversity Net Gain and Biodiversity credits.  This job will involve key roles as follows.

• Drive the ambitious growth and development of the advisory and land management side of the business, alongside the wider team at RWE.
• Meeting prospective clients and landowners to explain and sell both the benefits of ecosystem restoration and the suite of services that we provide.
• Taking the editorial role in servicing clients with our various visioning and scoping reports, strategy and management reports, baseline and ecological surveys, and natural capital reporting.
• Build and manage the team to fulfil the ecological requirements needs as the company expands.
• Overseeing and managing clients and estate teams needs and expectations on all sites under our banner.
• Coordination of baseline and ecological surveys for sites we manage alongside our ecological team
• Taking a lead interest on all grants and schemes including Countryside Stewardship and ELMs as well as liaising between landowners and our Head of Natural Capital on natural capital and carbon forecasting and monetising.
• Securing, sub-contracting and managing a range of ecological restoration specialists including contract foresters, graziers, deer-control & other specialised services.
• Develop site-specific community and stakeholder engagement strategies, especially in areas where there are cultural sensitivities to ecological restoration,
• Continue to develop the KPI’s and biodiversity metrics as indicators of success in all restoration projects.
• Support the Managing Director and team with daily activities including detail-focused briefings on specific areas of ecology, lead generation, ESG, research & scheduling visits.
• Lead on RWE’s social media ecological engagement via our LinkedIn to engage new stakeholders, clients and the public with what we do.
• Research, innovate and support new ecological restoration strategies for landscapes.

DESIRED SKILLS, EXPERIENCE & OUTLOOK

• As an experience, driven individual with a proven track record of teamwork and delivering both ecological outcomes and commercial deals, you will be passionate about ecological restoration, not simply conservation, be ambitious and positive in your environmental outlook.
• With over a decade of post-university experience under your belt, you will now be looking for a long-term employer where you can grow and develop your career, as the demand for nature restoration and nature-based services gathers pace.
• An excellent degree in natural sciences or zoology is desirable but not essential provided you demonstrate expertise in ecology and have a strong, proven ecological track record. An ability to write and/or edit high quality reports, including scoping, vision and ecological strategy documents for clients is essential.
• Good commercial rural land agency/consultancy experience – selling services to landowners and landholders is essential.
• Practical on-the-ground experience of present land management, having worked with or as a land holder is important and highly valued; we are a business that constantly innovates solutions to wildlife decline but before we can begin working with estates, a deep understanding of British wildlife, its threats and the needs of its species is necessary.
• Specialism in a particular area is welcomed provided this comes second to a holistic understanding of the natural world. Ideally your practical experience will have covered being able to reach out to and contract relevant experts, especially in the field of ecological metrics and baseline surveys, and you demonstrate the ability to bring on and work with new ecological partners.
• Your previous roles will have demonstrated the ability to work calmly under pressure, deliver to deadlines, led project teams and managed work colleagues, and where needed put in the extra hours and passion to get a critical project over the line, with strong people skills both within and outside the organisation.
• You will relish working with new clients and even challenging clients, who really want to make sure that their best interests are being served by a potential partnership with RWE. You will be accustomed to working as a collective team on a daily basis, to both business and ecological targets and also within a wider organisation.
• You will have experience working with farmers, landowners and land managers from a range of social and cultural backgrounds.
• Overall, your outlook is positive, ambitious, determined and pragmatic – yet commercial too. You are passionate about seeing nature restoration succeed here in the UK, by involving a wide array of stakeholders and partners, and understanding the importance of people and community to making this vision a reality.
• Even if you do not match all of the above criteria, we welcome aspirational candidates who fulfil, or could grow to fulfil, most of the above criteria, attitude and mindsets.

CONTRACT

Pay. Commercial pay, pension and car allowance commensurate with experience.

Start Date:  As soon as possible

Probation Period: 3 Months

Contract Type:  This is a permanent fixed term position subject to ongoing performance.

Location:  Remote-working but with co working days in Somerset and London.  Need to be in easy access to South Somerset/North Dorset, ideally living in south-west England.  Will require travel across mainland UK.

NEXT STEPS

Please send us a full cover letter and CV, including references or testimonials, to [email protected] although an additional short video testimonial is also welcomed.  Candidates will be shortlisted as soon as the review process is complete, leading to two interviews, the first with Managing Director, and the second with the wider team. One or other will be in person and may include a specific piece of work. Each interview will last approximately 45 minutes.