Director of Strategy and Policy

Amazon Conservation Association is looking for a Director of Strategy and Policy to help guide the organization’s growth and work across the Amazon. The Director will advance the organization’s conservation strategies and initiatives in the Amazon by: 1) interpreting key conservation trends and issues, global and regional conventions and initiatives and connecting our strategies with them; 2) engaging bi- and multi-lateral funders and major foundations in order to optimize the impact of our efforts; 3) building and strengthening strategic partnerships – government entities, NGOs, Indigenous and other community-based groups, etc. – and strategic platforms that help move our major conservation and climate initiatives forward.

Organizational Background

Amazon Conservation Association (also known as Amazon Conservation) is a nonprofit organization based in Washington, DC, USA with partners across the Amazon basin. Amazon Conservation’s mission is to unite science, innovation, and people to protect the Amazon—the greatest wild forest on Earth. As conservation pioneers since 1999, our holistic approach focuses on three strategic areas: protecting wild places, empowering people, and putting science and technology to work. Our on-the-ground work, carried out through our sister organizations Conservación Amazónica-ACCA in Peru and Conservación Amazónica-ACEAA in Bolivia, are geographically focused in the headwaters of the Amazon basin. From this base, we incubate solutions that we take to scale through building partnerships across the region, including in Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil, and Venezuela, where we have been strengthening coverage of our real-time monitoring efforts to combat illegal deforestation through our flagship Monitoring of the Andes Amazon Program (MAAP).

To date, our most significant efforts:

• Helped establish and support protection and management of more than 9.3 million acres of protected areas in Peru and Bolivia.
• Support local people to build a forest-based bioeconomy in the southwest Amazon through sustainable production of açaí, Brazil nuts, and other products.
• Support indigenous groups, communities, governments, and local NGOs to combat illegal deforestation through real-time monitoring and defense strategies that employ the latest in technology.
• Provide cutting-edge analyses on deforestation, fires, and climate change across 100% of the Amazon through our Monitoring of the Andes Amazon Program (MAAP).
• Carry out science that backs our conservation efforts and the world’s understanding of the Amazon, both inside and outside our premier biological research stations.

Through these conservation efforts and by building strong partnerships, we are widening and deepening our work to apply nature-based solutions that strengthen climate resiliency for people and nature. For more information, please visit www.amazonconservation.org.

Position Responsibilities and Duties

The Director will work closely with the President of Amazon Conservation and the Executive Directors of our sister organizations Conservación Amazónica – ACCA (Peru) and Conservación Amazónica – ACEAA (Bolivia), key partner organizations, and Amazon Conservation senior management to ensure we are well positioned within the major trends, productive long-term institutional relationships, and within major funding opportunities to advance our mission and strategies.

• Interpret the context and opportunities within the Amazon to better position and advance the Alliance’s work, and provide thought leadership for the development of Alliance strategies and major project concepts, connecting them to major global, regional, and national plans, contexts, trends, and initiatives.
• Help guide senior leadership to prioritize and increase engagement with major international and regional platforms and fora relevant to advance our mission, represent the Alliance, and orchestrate positioning and meaningful participation of Alliance and partner organizations.
• Position Amazon Conservation and partners with public and foundation donors and help build strong working relationships and initiatives with them.
• Support effective, strategic communications (events, press, social media, etc.) to ensure key strategies and actions are well disseminated and Amazon Conservation is well-positioned within relevant conservation, climate, science, and sustainable development communities.
• Strategically contribute to project proposal conceptualization and development, ensuring strong linkage with global issues, trends, and donor priorities.
• In close coordination with the MAAP team, help raise the profile of and better position Amazon Conservation’s MAAP initiative throughout the Amazon with local NGOs, national/regional governments, and multi- and bilateral institutions.
• Build strong working relationships with our partners in the region and support elevating their missions and institutional profiles in line with our common needs, goals, and strategies.
• Help orchestrate the development of strong strategic partnerships with government entities, and international, national, and regional organizations that build a common front for advancing our shared conservation efforts.

Requirements

• BA/BS, MA preferred, or other relevant degree with at least 10 years of relevant work experience, ideally in a role evaluating policy and making actionable recommendations to senior leadership. Experience in a leadership position in a nonprofit organization is strongly preferred.
• Direct knowledge and leadership experience working in the Amazon region in conservation, climate, sustainable development, or other related themes.
• Understanding of the major conservation and development trends and issues within the Amazon – indigenous peoples, science, deforestation, climate change, biodiversity, local organizations, forest-based production, and experience working closely with one or more of the countries in the region.
• Knowledge and experience with major conventions, including UNFCCC, CBD, and with regional platforms and agreements – Leticia Pact, ACTO, Science Panel for the Amazon, among others.
• Proven track record of supporting organizations in raising funding from government and multilateral institutions, such as the IDB, GEF, GCF, USAID, and World Bank.
• Proven experience developing and deploying strategic plans.
• Strong writer and verbal communicator that can distill complicated information into fluent and accessible prose.
• Knowledge and experience working with private foundations.
• Advanced Spanish and English required, Portuguese a strong plus.
• Ability to work effectively with various internal (partners, Board Members, Alliance members, etc.) and external stakeholders.
• Proven ability to network and work in coalitions across diverse constituencies, with people from different cultures and backgrounds.
• Willing and able to travel 20 to 30% of the time regionally in Latin America, the U.S., and other countries when needed.

The ideal candidate will be located in a key Amazonian country, however, candidates located in the DMV area (Washington, DC – Maryland – Virginia) will also be considered. The Amazon Conservation DC office operates in a hybrid work environment. 

Salary commensurable with experience and location.