ApplyWhat We Can Achieve Together
The Conservation Impact System Team (IST) in the Chief Conservation Office plays a critical role in supporting global conservation implementation. The IST supports conservation teams, leaders, and executives to generate and use evidence in adaptive management and reporting so that TNC can achieve its goals for biodiversity, climate, and people. The IST is comprised of the Conservation Data Team (CDT) and Conservation Strategy Team that partner closely to provide support. The CDT is responsible for conservation data capacity building, data quality, science & systems, and organizational reporting, including reporting and recommendations to executives and the global board. The Policy & Conservation Data Advisor provides technical and scientific support as a subject matter expert on political science, policy analysis and evaluation, and reporting on policy results. They are a member of CDT and work collaboratively to support conservation teams, leaders, and executives across TNC. They have a dotted line of reporting into the Policy & Public Funding (PPF) Division.
We’re Looking for You
The Policy & Conservation Data Advisor undertakes advisor roles, analyses and research, and capacity‑building under the guidance of a program director or lead scientist. They are a trusted advisor and “doer” for the Policy & Public Funding function across TNC as well as for the PPF Division specifically. They tailor their data collection, analysis, and learning approaches to the maturity of the strategy and context. They use or promote advanced and common analytical techniques, appropriately balancing speed, practicality, and rigor. They work collaboratively with staff in business units and strategy teams to address specific needs related to generating and using evidence in adaptive management and reporting. They learn from specific projects and/or strategy experiences and then develop more generalizable products (i.e., tools), practices, or guidance to support business units and strategy teams across TNC, and the Policy and Public Funding function. They collaborate with other scientists within and outside TNC to enhance the TNC’s use of political science practices.
Responsibilities & Scope
- Supports Chief Conservation Office and Policy & Public Funding objectives by working in a complex matrix organization environment.
- Supports the adaptive management of TNC’s global policy strategy by providing analyses of policy results and policy strategy effectiveness across the organization.
- Produces and maintains dashboards to support leadership decisions related to adaptive management of strategies and portfolio management.
- Produces deeper policy evaluation of TNC’s global policy strategy priorities if needed.
- Builds capacity for evidence‑based management and reporting on policy work by developing, testing, and supporting adoption of products, practices, and guidance.
- Helps ensure data completeness and quality for policy work, as part of the Conservation Data Teams organization‑wide responsibility for data quality.
- Reporting on Policy & Public Funding strategies or projects.
- Supporting Policy & Public Funding strategy, portfolio, and budget reviews with data, analyses, and learnings.
- Travel may be required.
What You’ll Bring
- Master's Degree in political science or related field and 4 years of experience or equivalent combination of education and experience.
- Domain area expertise in environmental policy monitoring, evaluation, learning (MEL).
- Experience manipulating, analyzing and interpreting statistical or environmental data.
- Strong knowledge of common statistical software applications, such as R.
- Experience designing and implementing political science research.
- Experience supporting the management of policy strategies with data and analyses to better understand and support progress toward policy results and policy strategy effectiveness.
- Experience evaluating outcomes, including climate and biodiversity outcomes, from policies.
- Experience fundraising and/or writing grants and research proposals.
- Experience participating in cross functional multi‑disciplinary teams and communicating with a wide range of people.
- Experience managing smaller projects including financial aspects and coordinating the work of peers and partners.
- Record of peer reviewed publications in scientific journals.
- Strong communication and presentation skills.
Desired Qualifications
- Multi‑language skills and multi‑cultural or cross‑cultural experience appreciated.
- PhD in political science or related field.
- Experience with data visualization software, such as PowerBI.
- Experience with reporting systems and databases.
- Strong knowledge on valuation techniques and social dimensions of natural resource management.
- Proven negotiation skills.
- Training experience.
