Great Plains Division Director

What You’ll Bring:

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:

• Bachelor’s degree, plus 12 years senior level experience in natural resource conservation, or equivalent experience.
• Experience in leading and managing a large multi-disciplinary team, including managing senior level leaders.
• Experience leading others through change and a general openness and comfort with accepting change.
• Experience in evaluating and/or negotiating complex, high profile or sensitive contracts and agreements.
• Experience working with a variety of political, business, not for profit, and environmental sectors and with varied local communities in the North America Region.
• Experience communicating with and presenting to diverse audiences including donors, board members, employees, outside partners, members of government or equivalent.
• Experience in fundraising, including cultivation of major donors.
• Fluency in English; excellent written and oral communication skills.

DESIRED QUALIFICATIONS:

• Graduate degree in business, law, natural resource management, or other relevant field.
• Experience working with Tribal Nations.
• Experience in DEIJ, equity, or other related work.
• Understanding of the political environment of the Great Plains region.
• Nonprofit experience appreciated.
• Multi-lingual skills appreciated.

The Division Director (“Director”) is the senior conservation leader and manager for the Conservancy’s Great Plains Division of the North America Region. They will lead the Division (made up of state programs, or “Chapters”) to advance The Nature Conservancy’s highest priorities through the Shared Conservation Agenda, develop and ensure execution of project plans, raise funds, engage volunteer trustees across borders, and develop emerging leaders. The Director adds value by building and leading highly effective, nimble, teams that deliver tangible results at significant scale.

The Director exercises collaborative leadership to engage and execute across geographic (e.g., other Divisions, North America Region, Global) and programmatic boundaries and cultivates mutually beneficial agreements and relationships. They foster alignment, teamwork, collaboration, innovation, cooperation, team spirit, and synergy amongst the divisional leadership team. The Director invites and engages the differences each person has and leverages them for greater outcomes. They promote inclusion, a diverse workforce, diversity of thought, and shared ownership and commitment to the organization’s highest priorities.

The Division Director holds the authority and is ultimately responsible for the financial performance and effective administration of the programs and projects within the Division. The Director actively manages the performance of Business Unit (BU) Leaders and holds them accountable for conservation and fundraising goals, compliance and risk management. The Director works with BU Leaders to allocate financial and human resources across the organization by approving budgets and advancing organizational priorities which dictate private and public fundraising goals. They work closely with Chapter trustee/advisory boards to advance The Nature Conservancy’s strategies.

As one of the leading conservation spokespeople for the Conservancy, the Director fundraises with public and private donors and ensures that sufficient resources are available to achieve the Conservancy’s organizational goals. They represent the Conservancy internally and externally to an array of communities, partners, policy makers and other audiences, advocating for and raising the visibility of The Nature Conservancy. The Division Director reports to the North America Region Managing Director, and is a member of the North America Council (NAC). As such, the Director plays a significant role in the strategic direction of the North America Region.

Success in the position will be demonstrated by:

• Staff across the Division has a shared ownership of TNC’s Shared Conservation Agenda, and is effectively collaborating to deliver maximum conservation impact and in achieving TNC’s 2030 Goals
• Continually increasing commitment of both division and regional resources (people and funding) to TNC’s priority conservation strategies and outcomes
• Engaged and diverse workforce in division and region (measured by Our TNC survey engagement scores and diversity statistics)
• Increasing funding for strategies that advance TNC’s Global priority conservation outcomes

$250,000- $286,000 annually