Transformative Technology Lead, South America Fire Fund

ABOUT CONSERVATION X LABS

Our mission is to prevent an impending sixth mass extinction, the first in Earth's history driven by the actions of a single species: ours. Unlike traditional conservation efforts, Conservation X Labs focuses on leveraging the best technology, the newest innovation, interdisciplinary genius, and the power of the marketplace to boldly confront the biggest problems facing the planet. Though humans have driven us towards the sixth extinction, we know humans have the power to reverse it.

Conservation X Labs (CXL) seeks to solve the world's greatest conservation problems by supporting innovative solutions that address the underlying drivers of extinction. We create transformative new technologies for biodiversity conservation, and to address drivers of species loss, lead innovation competitions, and empower talented innovators across disciplines to create game changing innovations that serve people and our planet.

• You come at this as a technology person first. You have deep expertise in emerging technology, AI, sensor platforms, big data; you can see where things are heading, and you can spot a true leapfrog from an incremental step.
• You want to help solve one of the hardest ecological problems out there - keeping fire from tipping the Amazon, Pantanal, and Chiquitania past the point of no return, to a degraded grassland.
• You recognize that the biggest risk to the most consequential environmental problems is inaction.
• You are the person who turns strategy into things that actually happen. You own the day-to-day: the grants, the contracts, the deadlines, the deliverables, and you get satisfaction from a program that moves on schedule and shows real results in the field.
• You are highly organized and detail-oriented, and you can hold several grants, work streams, partners, and deadlines in your head at once without dropping anything, working well without close supervision and under pressure.
• You are comfortable in the field and at the desk. You can help train a brigade on drones for fire mapping one week and prepare a funder briefing the next, and you can translate between technical detail and the people who need to act on it.
• You are a strong coordinator across cultures and disciplines, at ease keeping communities, brigades, Indigenous-led organizations, external consultants, and regional partners across Brazil, Bolivia, and Peru in sync, and flagging problems early rather than late.
• You are comfortable working in English;
  Spanish or Portuguese is a significant plus given the regional context, but it is not the core requirement for this role.
• You are a creative, forward-thinking problem-solver who stays steady in complex, multi-partner environments and takes corrective action when things drift off course.
• You are a translator. You can sit between major technology partners such as Google, startups, and hardware, sensor, and data providers on one side and a field program on the other, and make each side legible to the other.
• You think like a product manager and may be experienced as one too. You are comfortable owning technology and data systems from evaluation through deployment, and coordinating with the last-mile technology lead so together you cover the full arc from leapfrog innovation to community application.
• You are energized by the CXL mission to end extinction, and you want to spend this part of your career on a hard problem that matters.
• You are brilliant, hard working, self-motivated, iconoclastic, risk taking, team-oriented, and kind.

The Transformative Technology Lead (Senior Program Manager) oversees day-to-day programmatic implementation of the Technology Strategy across the Fund's three target ecoregions: the Amazon, the Pantanal, and the Chiquitania. Reporting directly to the CXL CEO (the Fund Lead) and working closely with the Regional Lead for Technology, Data, and Innovation and with CXL's Director of Open Innovation, this role drives a technology-first agenda by managing grants, contracts, and program management;

assisting with maintaining partner relationships; supporting field technology deployments and partner trainings; and organizing and implementing open innovation programs that advance fire prevention and response across South America.

The Senior Program Manager works on a daily basis with the Regional Lead for Technology, Data, and Innovation to execute strategic priorities, prepare materials for funders and partners, and ensure activities are delivered on…