Director, Livelihoods & Human Rights at Rainforest Alliance

Position summary:
The Global Programs department will serve as a major programmatic resource hub to guide and support Rainforest Alliance’s implementation of its strategy through global initiatives, regional projects, and partnerships, as well as to draw on for developing external engagements with companies, consumers, donors, and other stakeholders. The department facilitates and ensures consistent programmatic design that brings together the range of programs required to achieve impact and delivers its services in a synergistic and coordinated manner.

The Director, Livelihoods and Human Rights oversees the Livelihoods and Human Rights unit within the Global Programs department. The Director activates the full potential of Rainforest Alliance’s livelihoods and human rights programs, in line with the organization’s goals of people having improved economic well-being and respect for people’s fundamental labor and human rights. The Director leads the strategic positioning and further development of these programmatic expertise areas, steers communication with external stakeholders, engages in alliances, and ensures a consistent, comprehensive programmatic expertise portfolio.

The Director will supervise a multi-disciplinary, international team of strategic leaders in the field of human rights and social science, gender, youth inclusion and supply chain and farm economics. The Director will ensure effective collaboration and coordination across Rainforest Alliance departments with regards to global, and selected regional programs.

As a leader, the Director will be committed to providing clear direction and to support the teams in driving impact. As we move forward into a more agile Rainforest Alliance, our leaders will be at the forefront of innovating what and how we make that impact as well as how we support our people to grow whilst doing so.

Everything we do focuses on what serves our producers and achieving our mission, and our leaders develop teams who work across and beyond organizational boundaries to deliver excellence to our producers. By defining clear priorities and enabling creative viable solutions to complex problems through robust yet flexible decision-making processes, the Director will contribute to a data-driven and conscientious culture.

Identifying critical cross-departmental and external alliance growth opportunities as well as having the expertise and communication style to positively influence these successful collaborations is key to the success of this role.

Responsibilities: 

• The Rainforest Alliance’s Core Values are Impact, Change, Collaboration, Openness and Trust and as such they form the basis of the behaviours we demonstrate;
• Proactively lead the organization in achieving its livelihood and human rights impacts in the 2030 Strategy, promoting speed, scale and simplification in design, implementation and impact creation;
• Complete organization and effective operating of the new Livelihoods and Human Rights unit, in close collaboration with the Sr Director Global Programs and team members;
• Promote Rainforest Alliance’s livelihoods and human rights impact to stakeholders and partners in a compelling way that resonates with their interests, activating its full potential, and supporting the organizations’ fundraising efforts;
• Represent Rainforest Alliance at key events, presentations, policy forums and roundtables;
• Maintain a continuous assessment and solid management of Rainforest Alliance’s programmatic expertise areas related to livelihoods and human rights, ensuring the unit provides thought leadership, programmatic expertise into proposal development and select program implementation, input on the requirements for tech and data platforms, and interpretation of dashboards;
• Ensure consistency, coordination, accountability, and continuous learning between expertise areas in the unit, leading all aspects of Rainforest Alliance’s interests as a whole, rather than from a single programmatic expertise area only;
• Ensure seamless, effective and service oriented processes for collaboration cross-functionally;
• Guide program design and implementation using research, learnings, impact data, and qualitative feedback to make data- driven decisions;
• Cultivate a culture of positive and proactive collaboration, communicate widely and inclusively across the organization, clearly demonstrating having taken broad perspectives into consideration, and embed continuous learning and simplification into all aspects of programmatic work;
• Ensure an effective embedding of a producer centric approach in all livelihoods and human rights work;
• Carry out supervisory responsibilities in accordance with the organization’s policies applicable laws and corporate behavioural framework- responsibilities include hiring; mentoring and evaluating; guiding professional development opportunities; and addressing employee relations issues; and;
• Other duties, as assigned.

Qualifications: 

• Degree in Social Sciences; master’s degree highly preferred;
• At least 10-12 years of progressive relevant experience, with at least 8 years working in the field of livelihoods and human rights and leading senior staff in multiple countries;
• At least 8 years of senior-leadership level experience, including industry collaboration, strategic alliances, and systems change methodologies improving producer and market value;
• Extraordinary commitment, energy and a positive mindset;
• Knowledge of sustainable development issues and commitment to Rainforest Alliance’s goals of strengthening livelihoods and securing human rights;
• Understanding of how livelihood and human rights issues are related to conserving forests and other high-value ecosystems; restoring production systems and rural landscapes; and mitigating climate change and building climate resilience;
• Direct experience working with agricultural producers (small, medium and large) and/or forest communities preferred;
• Key competencies: Transformational leadership, innovation, adaptability, persuasion, critical and reflective thinking, public speaking, resourcefulness, relationship builder based on trust, empathy and openness, and strong organizational skills to manage multiple priorities in a time sensitive manner;
• High quality spoken and written English, preferably with knowledge of other languages.