World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the world’s leading conservation organization, seeks a Senior Director, Large Initiatives & Infrastructure on the Freshwater team based in Washington, DC. The Freshwater team has four primary initiatives that work to ensure the conservation of water for people and nature around the world – Free-Flowing Rivers, the Pantanal, Corporate Water Stewardship, and Water in North America, specifically working on the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo river basin. The Senior Director position will lead and support development and implementation of large-scale and transboundary projects across the Freshwater team and will also support WWF’s broader efforts related to ensuring sustainable infrastructure planning, development, and investment globally.
The Senior Director position will provide strategic leadership, management, coordination, and oversight of large-scale, water-related initiatives and investments within WWF-US and the network, especially those targeted in priority freshwater ecosystems and river basins. This position will also drive the development and execution of new, large-scale initiatives that aim to scale up and out WWF’s work and impact, leveraging partnerships, financing, and resources of others, including bilateral and multilateral donors, private sector and others. The Senior Director will support work to develop WWF framework and guidelines for sustainable water infrastructure development, including system-scale planning and early stage design of large-scale infrastructure investments, and prefeasibility and feasibility stage analysis, particularly related to water (including water for agriculture), to mitigate negative impacts on the environment, ecosystems and biodiversity, and to ensure they are resilient to climate change. The Senior Director will also work with network leads to support the strategic development of a portfolio of public-private partnerships and “bankable water projects” using blended finance mechanisms in key geographies. The Senior Director will work within a sustainable development context, especially for water infrastructure development, ensuring the balanced need of people and nature, conservation and biodiversity.
- Provide strategic vision and support in the development, implementation, and oversight of large-scale, water-related initiatives
- Project development, management and oversight of large FW initiatives, especially with other WWF national offices
- Provide leadership and support to develop and manage key external partnerships, especially finance and donor institutions, private sector, civil society, and others
- Lead for the Freshwater team, in coordination with WWF colleagues, on coordinating engagement of US executive branch and multilateral institutions and in support of network related to infrastructure and finance
- Support FW representation and strategic thought leadership for WWF’s Belt & Road/ Greening Infrastructure Initiative
- Strategic leadership and coordination of for WWF-US FW team approach and value proposition for scalable impact esp. related to systems scale planning and implementation of infrastructure
- Provide strategic leadership and coordination to drive resource mobilization for sustainable water-related projects and investments, especially through bilateral, multilateral and private sector mechanisms
- Development, execution and oversight of financial deals related to water infrastructure and water projects
- 12 Years relevant experience, at least 8 years post-graduate
- 5 years or more experience managing large scale infrastructure and/or finance projects strongly preferred
- 5 years or more experience developing and managing complex, large-scale water or infrastructure related projects strongly preferred
- Excellent written and oral communication skills
- Strategy development, policy and research experience preferred
- Excellent project management skills; PMP training and certification preferred
- Diplomatic and representational experience to highest levels of government preferred
- Ability to communicate in Spanish and/or Portuguese, both orally and in writing preferred