Senior Director, Carbon Science and Technical Development

Full-time

US-based Remote

About the role

This is a new role with a growing technical team on Native’s Project Development and Delivery team. This senior role will work with Native leadership to define and advance the company’s leadership position with Nature-Based Solutions projects, specifically advancing technical development and Native’s high quality approach to project design. Through this position, you will bring strategic insights and thought leadership to Native’s work in the voluntary carbon market.

You’re a fit for this role if you have deep knowledge of climate science and experience leading a team of technical professionals—from analysts to data engineers to content experts—all moving toward the same objective of developing high-quality climate action projects at scale. You bring team management and mentoring experience (especially in remote work environments), a balance of academic and commercial experience related to the voluntary carbon market and soil science, a knowledge of multiple ecosystem process models, and advanced statistics. You have a rigorous scientific approach to data collection, analysis, and reporting that will support and improve Native’s current and future portfolio of nature-based carbon removal projects.

This role sits within Native’s Project Team and reports to the Vice President, Project Development and Delivery (PDD).

What you’ll accomplish:

• Serve as the technical lead for climate, landscape, and data science and associated analyses
• Design and implement tools and solutions to assess project feasibility, support design and implementation, and facilitate ongoing MRV, ensuring high quality across Native’s project value chain, from origination to delivery
• Oversee and work within the technical team to implement high quality climate science quantification strategies, including direct measurement protocols, ecosystem process modeling, and other strategies aligned with third-party approved project methodologies
• Review and refine protocols and oversee all data collection and analysis related to field, remote sensing, and other data
• Advance existing and design new quality assurance and quality control procedures across all science and data analytics related to project portfolio activities; implement QA/QC procedures with technical team
• Manage technical team of data, soil, landscape, and geospatial science professionals, along with technical priorities based portfolio needs
• Partner with Native’s leadership and external stakeholders to define Native’s technical approach to Nature-Based Solution projects to create the gold standard for NBS projects across Native’s global portfolio
• Guide and support project origination and development efforts to undertake appropriate studies to calibrate and validate soil models
• Support field teams in the design of data collection for MRV systems to demonstrate carbon and ecosystem benefits
• Support team to facilitate capacity transfer to local stakeholders and field teams including technical training and developing Standards Operating Procedures
• As needed for internal and external purposes, review and synthesize scientific literature on relevant topics for diverse audiences
• Support technical members of the PDD team to execute ecological, process-based models to estimate soil organic carbon stocks based on project activities
• Collaborate with Native’s Market Strategy and Engagement team to support clients’ technical understanding of projects

What you bring:

• PhD in soil, ecology, climate, or closely related sciences
• Experience with academic research, publication of peer-reviewed journal articles, and applications relevant to land-based conservation, restoration, or payment for ecosystem service programs
• Experience leading carbon science and modeling activities with extensive experience in applying best practices in science and technology to quantify landscape level change through soil, crop, and/or forest carbon removals
• Deep understanding of statistical and ecosystem process-based models used to quantify carbon and ecosystem change
• Fluency in R and Python
• Familiarity with utilizing cloud-based database systems and structures for project data (e.g., SQL)
• 5+ years of direct leadership experience
• Comfortable working with projects concurrently across multiple geographies and time zones
• Comfortable working in a fluid environment with fast deadlines to meet internal and external deadlines
• A high degree of emotional intelligence
• Openness to learning opportunities and skills training

Bonus:

• Experience with project management software
• Experience with remote sensing and geospatial analysis, but in an applied context, not just academic

About Native, a Public Benefit Corporation

Since 2000, Native has worked with stakeholders to develop authentic solutions to their sustainability challenges and to implement community and landscape-scale projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, strengthen businesses, and contribute to progress on climate change around the world.

We construct unique projects to meet climate goals, drive business value, and deliver tangible benefits to stakeholder communities. Our methods enable companies to put their sustainability strategies into practice by investing in catalytic climate action projects. Since our founding, we have prioritized projects that promote equity and agency within their community by generating economic, social and resilience benefits to indigenous and local communities.

We know that diverse perspectives and experiences make our team and our work more impactful. We’re committed to building a diverse, equitable, and inclusive work environment where we continually learn from each other, and in turn strengthen the people, communities, and companies at the heart of Native’s climate action initiatives.