Community-led Economies & Markets Global Advisor

What We Can Achieve Together

Within TNC’s Office of Equitable Conservation, which sits in the Chief Conservation Office, the Community-led Economies & Finance (CLEF) team works to ensure that Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and smallholders are at the center of the economic and financial systems that affect their lands, waters, and livelihoods. Grounded in TNC’s Voice, Choice, and Action (VCA) Framework and Human Rights Guide, the team operates across two integrated orientations: building community-led value through enterprises and markets and enabling community-controlled resources through reformed and inclusive financial mechanisms. These orientations are inseparable, and both rest on a foundation of self-determination.

This role serves as the team’s senior technical strategist for community-led economies, enterprises, and market systems. Reporting to the Director of Community-led Economies & Finance, it shapes the team’s approach to growing regenerative, community-controlled economic activity — bringing both the analytical rigor of an economist (systems thinking, incentive design, cost-benefit analysis, macro framing) and the practical expertise of someone who has worked on enterprise development, value chains, and market linkages.

This is not a desk-based strategy role. It requires close collaboration with regional, local, and global teams who drive implementation and manage relationships on the ground, with deference to local leadership. The relationship is deeply bidirectional and anchored in trust-building and right relations: some of the most innovative thinking around enterprise ecosystems, regenerative livelihoods, and conservation-linked economies is emerging directly from regional programs. The global role identifies replicable models across geographies, co-develops frameworks with regional teams, facilitates cross-regional learning, and connects regional innovations to global platforms and partnerships.

While economies and markets are the primary domain, this position also contributes to the team’s finance work where economic and enterprise expertise is needed — for example, analyzing the financial viability of community enterprises, informing investment pathway design, or advising on how enterprise support and financial inclusion strategies connect. This cross-pollination is by design: the team does not separate economic and financial work into silos.

The position is globally remote within countries where TNC has an established office. It requires a flexible schedule to collaborate across time zones (Pacific through East Africa) and a willingness to travel internationally (approximately 20–25%).

We’re Looking for You

CLEF works at the intersection of conservation, community rights, and economic systems — advancing regenerative, nature-positive economies that provide communities with sustainable alternatives to extractive land use. The landscapes where TNC works on natural climate solutions depend on communities being economically empowered. We need someone who thinks like an economist and acts like a practitioner — someone who can analyze why an economic system produces certain outcomes for communities and ecosystems, and then co-design interventions that shift those outcomes.

You bring deep expertise in community economic development, market systems, or enterprise support, and you’ve worked directly with or in service to Indigenous Peoples and local communities. You understand how to design landscape-level enterprise support ecosystems that work with all the actors whose participation is needed to unlock change. A signature initiative you’ll help advance is the team’s Community Enterprise Catalyst approach — a systemic model for unlocking community-led enterprise development across multiple landscapes. You’re as comfortable analyzing PES incentive structures and conducting cost-benefit analysis as you are co-developing market strategies with regional leads and managing relationships with specialized business development service providers.

Key responsibilities include:

Strategy & Technical Leadership

• Advance and co-develop the team’s strategic approach to community-led economies in collaboration with regional, local, and global teams — grounded in Indigenous rights, self-determination, community ownership, and equitable market relations.

• Bring economic analysis to the team’s work: diagnosing why economic systems produce the outcomes they do for communities and ecosystems, analyzing incentive structures and enabling conditions, conducting cost-benefit and feasibility analyses, and applying macro-level framing to inform where and how the team intervenes.

• Design landscape-level enterprise support ecosystems in collaboration with regional leads: mapping the actors needed to unlock change (communities, buyers, investors, business development service providers, government), conducting value chain analyses and livelihood diagnostics, identifying nature-positive value chains, and co-developing market strategies that move from analysis through to deployment with the communities and partners who will sustain them.

Portfolio Management

• Shape and prioritize a portfolio of economies and markets initiatives across multiple regions and conservation activity stages, in collaboration with regional, local, and global teams.

• Develop terms of reference, manage contracts, review deliverables, and advise on consultancy design for priority initiatives.

• Coordinate with responsible teams to define how the portfolio measures results and success, linking initiatives to TNC’s 2030 Goals and the institution-wide project portfolio.

Cross-Team Contribution & Knowledge Sharing

• Coordinate across Equitable Conservation to ensure coherence and embed community-led economies perspectives into broader divisional strategy.

• Co-develop with local, regional, and global teams best-practice publications, training materials, and advocacy resources that capture place-based innovation, and facilitate cross-regional learning — ensuring that models developed in one geography inform and strengthen approaches elsewhere.

• Collaborate with adjacent TNC teams — including Impact Finance & Markets, Tackle Climate Change, corporate engagement, and regional economies leads — to embed community-led economies approaches into broader organizational strategies so that natural climate solutions and conservation outcomes are supported by market systems that center community ownership.

• Contribute economic and enterprise expertise to the team’s finance work, including financial viability analysis, investment pathway design, and advising on how enterprise support connects to financial inclusion strategies.

External Engagement

• Build and manage partnerships with external organizations — including enterprise development partners, business development service providers, market actors, research institutions, and IP&LC-led networks — ensuring enterprise support draws on deep practitioner knowledge and advances shared objectives.

• Represent the team’s work at multilateral events and policy platforms (e.g., COP, Climate Week, regional forums) where community-led economies perspectives can influence conservation and climate agendas.

• Support fundraising and donor cultivation by co-designing fundable platforms, shaping narratives grounded in evidence and community voice, and contributing technical content to proposals.

What You’ll Bring

• Bachelor’s degree in economics, international development, business administration, environmental management, or a related field, and a minimum of 6 years of related experience — gained through formal training, professional practice, and/or lived experience; or equivalent combination of education and experience.

• Experience in community economic development, market systems development, enterprise support, value chain analysis, or related practice areas, with demonstrated depth in one or more of: landscape-level enterprise development, sociobioeconomy or sustainable livelihood approaches, market linkage and buyer engagement, community-led business model design, economic systems analysis, incentive design, or regenerative economic systems.

• Experience working directly with or in service to Indigenous Peoples, local communities, smallholders, or community-based enterprises — not solely in advisory roles external to those communities.

• Demonstrated commitment to equity, Indigenous rights, self-determination, and community governance in both process and outcomes of economic development work.

• Strong analytical skills, including the ability to apply economic and systems-level thinking (cost-benefit analysis, incentive mapping, macro framing) to conservation and community development challenges.

• Strong analytical, quantitative, and communication skills, including the ability to translate technical finance concepts into language accessible to non-specialist audiences

• Experience managing complex projects across multiple geographies and coordinating with partners and teams over whom there is no direct supervisory authority.

• Cross-cultural work experience, including in low- and middle-income countries.

• Written and oral fluency in English.

• Willingness to travel internationally approximately 20–25%, including occasional evenings or weekends to accommodate field visits and cross-time-zone collaboration.

Desired qualifications:

• Advanced degree (Master’s or equivalent) in a relevant field.

• Experience working for or with grassroots IP&LC organizations, community-led enterprises, cooperatives, or producer associations.

• Experience designing landscape-level enterprise support ecosystems — coordinating across communities, buyers, investors, BDS providers, and government to remove systemic barriers to community-led economic development.

• Familiarity with conservation-linked economic models such as sustainable forest products, community-based natural resource management, ecotourism, payments for ecosystem services, and carbon-linked livelihoods.

• Experience with Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) and rights-based approaches to economic engagement.

• Experience with incubators, accelerators, blended finance platforms, or similar enterprise support mechanisms that bridge community-led development with market and investment systems.

• Multisectoral experience spanning private, public, and non-profit sectors, including engagement with corporate or market actors.

• Proficiency in Spanish and/or Portuguese; additional languages spoken in TNC focal geographies (French, Bahasa Indonesia, Swahili) are valued.

• Entrepreneurial mindset and comfort working in an evolving, unstructured environment where approaches are being co-created with partners.

The starting pay range for a candidate selected for this position is generally within the range of $83,760 - 124,200. This range only applies to candidates whose country of employment is the USA. Where a successful candidate’s actual pay will fall within this range will be based on a variety of factors, including, for example, the candidate's location, qualifications, specific skills, and experience. Please note countries outside the USA would have a different pay range in the local currency based on the local labor market, and not tied to USA pay or ranges. Your geographic location will be confirmed during the recruitment.

Who We Are:

The Nature Conservancy’s mission is to protect the lands and waters upon which all life depends. As a science-based organization, we create innovative, on-the-ground solutions to our world’s toughest challenges so that we can create a world in which people and nature thrive. We’re rooted in our mission and guided by our values, which include respect for all people, communities, and cultures. Whether it’s career development, flexible schedules, or a rewarding mission, there’s many reasons to love life inside TNC. Want a better insight to TNC? Check out our TNC Talent playlist on YouTube to hear stories from staff or visit Glassdoor.

One goal is to cultivate an inclusive work environment so that all our colleagues around the globe feel a sense of belonging and that their unique contributions to our mission are valued. In addition to the requirements in our job postings, we recognize that people come with talent and experiences outside of a job and consider each applicant’s unique experience. Please apply – we’d love to hear from you. To quote a popular saying at TNC, “you’ll join for the mission, and stay for the people.”

What We Bring:

Since 1951, TNC has been doing work you can believe in. Through grassroots action, we have grown from a small non-profit into one of the most effective and wide-reaching environmental organizations in the world. Thanks to more than 1 million members, over 400 scientists, and the dedicated efforts of our diverse staff and partners, we impact conservation around the world!

TNC offers a competitive, comprehensive benefits package including health care benefits, flexible spending accounts, a 401(k) plan with an 8% employer match, parental leave, accrued paid time off, life insurance, disability coverage, employee assistance program, other life and work well-being benefits. Learn more about our Benefits and Perks here.

We’re proud to offer a flexible work environment that supports of the health and well-being of the people we employ.

Our recruiting process includes a rolling interview process to ensure we engage applicants in a timely manner. This means we may review applications in the order in which they are received. Once a strong candidate pool is identified, the role will be unposted. The timeline may vary depending on the expressed interest in the role, so we highly encourage candidates to apply as soon as possible.

Employees must submit their application by logging into Workday and applying via the Jobs Hub.

The Nature Conservancy is an Equal Opportunity Employer.Our commitment to equal employment opportunity includes the recognition that our conservation mission is best advanced by the leadership and contributions of people of all backgrounds, beliefs, and culture. Recruiting and mentoring staff to create an inclusive organization is a priority, and we encourage applicants from all cultures, races, colors, religions, sexes, national or regional origins, ages, disability status, sexual orientation, gender identity, military, protected veteran status or other status protected by law.

The successful applicant must meet the requirements of The Nature Conservancy's background screening process.

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TNC is committed to offering accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans in our job application process. If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, please send a note to applyhelp@tnc.org with Request for Accommodation in the subject line.