Director, Concept Design

The Rainforest Alliance is creating a more sustainable world by using social and market forces to protect nature and improve the lives of farmers and forest communities. To achieve our mission, we partner with diverse allies around the world to drive positive change across global supply chains and in many of our most critically important natural landscapes.

Our?alliance?spans 70 countries and?includes farmers and forest communities, companies, governments, civil society, and millions of individuals. Together we work to protect forestsand biodiversity, take action on climate, and promote the rights and improve the livelihoods of rural people.

As an international nonprofit organization with more than 30 years of experience in sustainability transformation, we understand that the social and economic well-being of rural communities is tightly connected to ecosystem health. This knowledge has shaped our rigorous programs to advance sustainable land-use and commodity production.

At the Rainforest Alliance we combat climate change, protect forests and biodiversity, promote human rights, and improve livelihoods. The enormity of the social and environmental challenges we are facing requires working together in a broad alliance. This is why we bring farmers, forest communities, companies, and consumers together to change the way the world produces, sources, and consumes.

Why

To protect nature and improve lives it's becoming increasingly urgent that we approach the way we use our land and produce food and other products in more sustainable ways. For this to succeed we need to fundamentally change the way that businesses operate and source, and the choices we all make as consumers.

How

Our growing global alliance aims to transform our relationship with our natural resources and each other, to create a better future for people and nature together.

The Rainforest Alliance encourages diversity and inclusion across the global organization. With this commitment to diversity, we are proud to be an equal opportunity employer and do not discriminate on the basis of gender, race, color, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, ages, disability and any other protected group.

intro:

The Supply Chain Excellence department provides guidance, services and digital tools to producers and companies, enabling them to join our programs, achieve certification, monitor progress, trade and make sustainability claims, and generally manage their supply chains and responsible sourcing relationships

The team is structured across three pillars, accountable for the consolidation and alignment of strategic programmatic direction (concept owners / Product Managers) and implementation; the design process, overall architecture and development; and customer success / support.These teams work closely together, and with key internal and external stakeholders, to deliver our concept strategies.

We are looking for someone with a passion for delivering customer-centric, and industry-leading products and services that add value to our Supply Chain partners whilst contributing to the Rainforest Alliance vision of a world where people and nature thrive in harmony.

Position summary:

We are looking for an intellectually curious, strategically minded Director of Concept Design, who has a demonstrated track record in developing teams through effective and strong leadership and empowering employees to design and roll out best-in-class products.You will have an ambition for excellence and galvanize support internally in order to transform our current products, with a focus on optimal value delivery, and setting them up for scale.A confident leader, the Director will ensure the big picture ambitions are aligned and realized, driving decisions in line with our strategy, and standing behind those decisions in potentially challenging conversations.

In this role as manager of managers, you will be responsible for ensuring our teams build an enterprise vision that is customer-centric with buy in across all stakeholders, and uses total value assessment capabilities to make selections and set priorities.Your team of product managers co-create and land the strategy, vision, and continuous improvement agenda for the full suite of products targeted towards our supply chain partners, continually looking to advance the value propositions, making today better, and creating the future.

You will ensure that the overall strategy and vision is translated into a roadmap with concrete objectives, and work across senior internal and external stakeholders to ensure alignment.You will make sure that changes are implemented and embedded in the broader ecosystem of products, with exceptional attention to change management best practice, through dedicated implementation support within the team.

To be successful in this role, you will need to be driven to provide products that meet the needs of commodity supply chains, whilst contributing to our mission, having a strong strategic focus, and a deep understanding of customer needs and values.You will need to demonstrate the ability to partner with a wide range of stakeholders at leadership level, to support and understand our ambitions and strategies in the different sectors and geographies. You will need strong people management skills and the ability to lead teams through change. We are looking for a candidate who will bring thought leadership, confidence and a willingness to take calculated risks.

Responsibilities:

· Work with business stakeholders at all levels and across the entire organisation, to develop and deliver an aligned rolling 3-5 year strategy and ambition for products targeting Supply Chain partners;

· Actively look for continuous improvement and innovation opportunities by maintaining excellent knowledge of relevant industry trends and best-practice, through external connections and leveraging internal expertise;

· Work with the Portfolio Director and Enterprise Architect to define the strategic ambition, define potential solutions, and ensure it is translated to realistic, resourced and prioritised roadmaps;

· Consult with senior business stakeholders, and represent their views throughout change processes, making sure that the requirements are clearly understood, and deliver maximum value;

· Coordinate global roll-outs (internally and externally) ensuring development, communications, marketing materials, trainings, knowledge transfers etc are in place to maximise the likelihood of successful launch and adoption;

· Be a problem solver, identifying underlying challenges and work proactively and collaboratively to solve them; and

· Work closely with the Supply Chain Excellence leadership group to ensure accomplishment of department objectives.

skills & Qualifications:

· Masters degree in Product Development, Business Administration, or related field;

· At least10 years of related experience in product development and product strategy design;

· In depth knowledge of global commodity supply chains and their sustainability needs;

· Excellent influencing and facilitation skills with a proven ability to convene and reconcile different stakeholder interests and influence towards a common vision/plan;

· Strong awareness of relevant external trends; able to identify innovative opportunities and work collaboratively towards assessment and alignment on potential fit;

· Expertise in systems thinking and change management, with experience landing strategic ambitions in the market;

· 5 years minimum experience as a manager of a senior team;

· Experience working with voluntary standards within agriculture/forestry an advantage;

· Excellent interpersonal skills with ability to interact culturally, linguistically, and diplomatically laterally and vertically;

· Self-motivated, creative and results-oriented, with a passion for creating and taking to market win-win propositions;

· Fluency in English, both verbal and written, with strong communication skills; and

· Ability to travel a maximum of 20% per year, nationally and internationally.

Salary:

Commensurate with experience.

Deadline: July 8, 2022

Notes:

Only candidates authorized to work in the locations in which we are registered will be considered

If you have any questions about the job vacancy, please contact the HR department: recruitment@ra.org