Senior Implementation Manager, Africa

South Pole is an energetic, global company offering comprehensive sustainability solutions and services. With offices spanning all continents across the globe, we strive to create a sustainable society and economy that positively impacts our climate, ecosystems and developing communities. With our solutions, we inspire and enable our customers to create value from sustainability-related activities.

Our Project Development team is at the forefront of developing and managing climate mitigation activities. By working closely with project owners and developers as well as their local communities, we manage the complete registration, verification and evaluation of carbon projects to enable the issuance of emission-reduction certificates, in line with official carbon standards. If you are a smart, ambitious and dynamic sustainability professional with a strong passion to make a real difference in the fight against climate change, the below position may be right for you

**Job summary**:
South Pole is working with a series of strategic partners in Africa, including ThicketGrowth, to develop substantial emissions avoidance projects. ThicketGrowth was created to catalyse landscape-level restoration through the deployment of carbon finance. In the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, historical land clearance and overgrazing of domestic livestock has caused widespread degradation of the Subtropical Thicket biome, with commensurate impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services.

As part of the Implementation team within the Climate Projects Business Line and the Africa region, the Senior Implementation Manager will coordinate and lead catalysing landscape-level restoration of the Eastern Cape Province ecosystem in South Africa and manage the commercial relations with South Pole’s project partners on the ground, in coordination with the Regional Director, Africa and the overall implementation team in the region.

Reporting directly to the Regional Director Africa, the Senior Implementation Manager will be responsible for the successful implementation of nature based solutions project activities, own-risk investments management, and ensuring the project partners agree with the framework of the project implementation phases. Additionally, the Senior Implementation Manager will be responsible for stakeholder management and promoting the permanence and technical evaluation to ensure medium/long-term project management of the activities linked to the restoration of this area, and support the Africa team business development activities.

**Main tasks & responsibilities**:

- Leading and overseeing project implementation activities in the region with commitments to partners and communities associated with these projects
- Support all the necessary due diligence activities (risk assessment, implementation models, etc.) to ensure South Pole’s investment
- Further develop and implement the business strategy focusing on rapid growth and positioning of ThicketGrowth as a world leader in landscape-level ecosystem restoration
- In coordination with the Climate Projects Implementation team, Africa become the main go-to-person and relationship manager of key project partners and establish an active communication with them on matters related to technical and commercial issues linked to ThicketGrowth activity
- Identify possible partners and collaborators for the development and implementation of project activities including planning and development of site visits and other types of business trips/trainings
- Engage with landowners in the landscape to strategically acquire land for ecosystem restoration, using a combination of land acquisition and biodiversity stewardship mechanisms
- Proactively think through upcoming challenges and opportunities for projects developed with partners, including upcoming project revalidations, addition of project activities or additional community engagement
- Setting up an efficient communication and workflow with regular meetings and information sharing with key project partners on the ground and support collecting data for technical and financial reporting and due diligence
- Develop and maintain diverse partnerships with investors, operational partners, research institutions, Government and civil society and attract investors into projects with budgets of tens of millions of US dollars
- Contributing to client presentations for supporting project implementation
- Actively engage with current project partners for additional future joint project implementation and opportunities development in close collaboration with the Africa team
- Conduct research relevant to new project leads, project developers, project partners, relevant regulatory regimes/policies in the designated region.
- Attend meetings, seminars, workshops, and events with the primary goal of promoting South Pole and our activities and identifying potential leads

**Requirements**:
Essential
- University degree in Environmental Sci