Carbon Finance Manager (Fixed-Term)

Overview

This role supports the organization’s intensive agroforestry carbon programs, which currently include four programs with close to 40,000 active farmers. Each program enrolls new farmers in cohorts every season and plans to generate carbon credits for sale in the next one to three years.

The Carbon Finance Manager/Lead ensures program teams have strong, accessible, and useful financial modeling. Operational financial models must be reliable and reflect real-world conditions, and the role also translates these operational models into investment-grade financial statements to support development of partnerships, funding, and financing opportunities.

Responsibilities

• Own financial modeling and analysis (40%)

  • Build, maintain, and stress-test complex financial models of carbon projects, including carbon credit production, issuance volumes, operational costs, and financing structures and costs.
  • Maintain program- and portfolio-level rollups for leadership to use in strategic decision-making.
  • Support or conduct analysis to identify opportunities for performance improvement and financial viability.

• Improve org-wide fluency of carbon finance strategy (30%)

  • Build fluency and increase the utility of financial models with program teams to guide operational decisions.
  • Align financial forecasts with country program teams, the central Finance team, and partnerships/business development stakeholders.
  • Prepare materials for leadership calls to update senior stakeholders on fundraising progress and the financial health of carbon projects.

• Support external fundraising and partnerships (30%)

  • Support the partnerships team in evaluating financing options and produce 3-statement financial summaries for discussion with carbon buyers and investors.
  • Conduct sensitivity analysis to inform pricing strategies and risk management for carbon credit generation.
  • Support the business development team with investor due diligence.

Requirements

• Relevant academic background in finance, economics, PES, or other relevant field.
• Advanced proficiency in financial modeling and accounting standards, including proven ability to build dynamic models from scratch for project finance or structured finance across multiple regulatory jurisdictions.
• Understanding of the operational and financial realities of implementing high-integrity PES programs, ideally demonstrated through practical experience with the Voluntary Carbon Market (VCM).
• Proven ability to build team fluency in models and identify and summarize practical insights from complex financial models.
• Experience setting complex multi-year budgets and managing performance against those targets.
• Strong project management skills, including experience leading complex initiatives with diverse stakeholders.
• 5+ years of professional experience, including 3+ years in climate finance, project finance, accounting, or a related field.
• 1+ years of professional experience in one of the organization’s countries of operation, with particular focus on Kenya, Rwanda, Zambia, Malawi, and Tanzania.

Preferred Qualifications

• Not specified.

Compensation & Benefits

• Health insurance, housing, and comprehensive benefits.

Location

• Flexible: Kenya, Rwanda, Malawi, Zambia, Tanzania.

Contract Duration

• 1 Year Renewable

Additional Information

• Preferred start date: As soon as possible.
• Application process: The organization hires on a rolling basis and reviews applications continuously until a hire is made.

Eligibility

This role is only open to citizens or permanent residents of Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Burundi, and Nigeria.

Equal Opportunity

The organization is an equal opportunity workplace and is committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender, gender identity or expression.