VP Programs, Climate & Biodiversity

The Vice President of Programs, Climate & Biodiversity is tasked with setting the overall strategic vision for campaign portfolios spanning climate justice, fossil fuel elimination, marine conservation, and international environmental governance. Working closely alongside the President and Senior Management Team, you will guide Program Directors to build ambitious, evidence-backed campaign initiatives that target systemic environmental harms and promote accountability. Beyond campaign strategy, this executive leads resource mobilization by partnering with the Development department to pitch high-value grant opportunities, cultivate major philanthropic donors, and ensure financial resilience. You will also oversee divisional budgeting, drive cross-program coordination with the food and agriculture teams, and serve as an executive voice in key coalition spaces, media appearances, and board engagements.

In this post, you will gain unmatched exposure to international movement politics and systemic policy levers through direct collaboration with the global Friends of the Earth federation across more than 70 nations. Navigating complex campaigns at this altitude deepens your mastery of macro-level climate economics, trade mechanisms, and international ocean governance frameworks. Additionally, the executive scope provides hands-on refinement of nonprofit organizational governance. You will sharpen your capacities in high-stakes philanthropic stewardship, board relations, equity-centered cross-functional leadership, and large-scale program risk management.

The ideal profile features substantial experience leading advocacy campaigns, public policy interventions, or environmental non-profit divisions at an executive level. Candidates must exhibit proven success in major gift stewardship and philanthropic cultivation, showing clear capability to fund complex policy and campaign portfolios. Deep subject-matter command of climate policy, energy transitions, or biodiversity frameworks is essential, alongside a track record of managing senior issue leads. Furthermore, strong candidates bring a demonstrated grounding in anti-racism, environmental justice, and international solidarity, with the emotional intelligence required to balance autonomous, passionate campaign teams.

Ensure your application materials move past operational management to focus on strategic leadership and systemic campaign victories. Illustrate instances where your leadership shifted legislative frameworks, held corporate or financial bad actors accountable, or unlocked key philanthropic funding for advocacy work. Given Friends of the Earth's unapologetic posture, align your cover letter with their ethos of speaking uncomfortable truths to power rather than settling for compromise. Explicitly highlight your philosophy on equity, movement solidarity, and managing specialized programmatic directors within distributed, progressive environments.

The position concentrates on systemic and structural environmental advocacy rather than internal corporate ESG metrics. Key priority areas center around accelerating the phaseout of fossil fuels, halting biodiversity loss, challenging damaging international financial flows, and curbing maritime pollution. Moreover, the role operates at the critical intersection of ecological stability, human rights, and economic justice. You will ensure that program outcomes actively resist environmental racism and foster equitable community transitions away from extractive economic models.

A primary challenge will be balancing visionary campaign ambition with organizational resourcing. Leading progressive advocacy often requires challenging heavily entrenched economic interests while navigating shifting political environments, requiring agility in realigning campaign priorities without burning out programmatic staff. Additionally, serving as a co-leader across a remote division demands intentional effort to avoid program silos. You will need to maintain strategic cohesion and strong cross-departmental collaboration between climate, biodiversity, and agriculture portfolios while respecting the autonomy of expert directors.

A regular day could involve an early alignment meeting with the President to review high-stakes policy priorities or board materials, followed by a strategy session with the Climate and Oceans Program Director to evaluate a fossil fuel campaign escalation. Later in the morning, you might meet with major philanthropic partners to pitch a multi-year grant initiative focused on biodiversity safeguards. In the afternoon, you could represent the organization in a coalition strategy call with international allies from the Friends of the Earth network, review divisional budgets, and work with communications teams to calibrate press lines for an urgent environmental ruling.

As a key member of the executive leadership team, this role offers premier visibility across the broader climate and social justice sectors. Success here positions an executive as an influential thought leader capable of shaping progressive environmental policy globally. Within the organization, the position delivers senior-most strategic oversight, offering opportunities to help drive organizational design, expand national and international networks, and potentially step into chief executive or global coalition leadership roles in the future.

Internal stakeholders include the President, Board of Directors, and peer Vice President of Programs, alongside direct reports such as the Directors of Economic Policy and Climate, Energy, and Oceans. You will also collaborate continuously with the Development, Communications, and Operations departments. Externally, you will engage regularly with institutional philanthropists, foundation leads, coalition allies across environmental and racial justice movements, media representatives, and sister organizations within Friends of the Earth International.