Project Manager, Restoration Finance & India Liaison

This is a hybrid position which requires 8 days/month in the office. You can be based in our office in Washington DC, London, or The Hague. Existing work authorization is required at the time of application submission as WRI is unable to sponsor any visa work sponsorship for this position. To be eligible for this position in US, you must be a resident of DC, Maryland or Virginia at the start of employment.

About the Program:

WRI’s Global Restoration Initiative informs, enables, and invests in people that restore degraded land. The team’s investment program for locally led enterprises and community non-profits currently finances, trains, and monitors 230+ growing organizations across Africa, Latin America, and South Asia.

The program operates three funding windows: In Africa, TerraFund for AFR100 has made 200+ investments in local organizations through grants, low-interest loans, and equity finance, with a focus on the Lake Kivu & Rusizi River Basin in Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Rwanda; the Greater Rift Valley of Kenya; and the Ghana Cocoa Belt. In India, Harit Bharat Fund has financed its first cohort of 20 restoration champions in the states of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra. And globally, the Priceless Planet Coalition is financing large-scale restoration projects that benefit the climate, biodiversity, and communities. In 2025, TerraFund will launch a new program focused on the Brazilian Amazon.

To build this pipeline of champions ready for investment, WRI has worked with local service providers to source and train more than 500 organizations in Africa, Brazil, and India on the fundamentals of financial management, pitching, and monitoring and evaluation.

These portfolios for funding and capacity building are built through the TerraMatch platform, an end-to-end system that hosts open calls for proposals, connects champions with technical assistance, and tracks the progress of funded projects through a standard monitoring, reporting, and verification protocol.

Through its more than 50 core business processes and tested standards, TerraFund shows that targeted investments in locally led champions can build viable restoration economies around the world.

Job Highlight:

Reporting to Senior Portfolio Manager, TerraFund, Global Restoration Initiative, you will integrate equity into your work.

You will initially focus on supporting Harit Bharat Fund, WRI’s investment program for locally led restoration projects in India, as it scopes and implements its expansion strategy to train and fund restoration champions and converge government finance into their work. You will support the program’s core team at WRI India with application, selection, and project management processes for champions that apply for funding and technical assistance, quality-assuring data submitted through TerraMatch, and coordinating collaboration and technical exchange between WRI India and WRI’s offices in the U.S., Africa, and Brazil. You will also coordinate delivery of restoration monitoring deliverables that require collaboration between data scientists, project managers, and TerraMatch product staff. You will contribute to communications products and fundraising targets related to this goal.

You will also support the team in its engagement with WRI Indonesia, which is refining its restoration strategy for full implementation in 2026. You will management the strategy and collaboration process, ensuring coherence between global and Indonesia priorities on restoration finance, capacity-building, and monitoring.

This is an opportunity to work on the Global Restoration Initiative’s rapidly growing team and to liaise with external and internal partners to improve the efficiency of the evolving restoration sector across Africa, Brazil, India, and Indonesia. You will work directly with the Senior Portfolio Manager, Restoration Finance and the initiative’s Project Management Office (PMO) to manage collaboration between WRI India and other WRI offices.

What will you do:

Project Management (100%): -

• Co-develop and co-manage the yearly workplan for Harit Bharat Fund, in collaboration with leadership in WRI India. This includes working closely with experts in investment, capacity-building, monitoring and evaluation, operations, and communications
  • Support project screening processes during open requests-for-proposals, ensuring that each applicant receives thorough vetting from the knowledgeable team members at WRI and at partner organizations
    • Develop, socialize, and improve project management processes for funded projects, aligning stakeholders across WRI and partner organizations
      • Connect lessons on mobilizing public finance for restoration from WRI India with other geographies
        • Co-manage budgets and operational collaboration between WRI Global and WRI India
          • Contribute to communications projects about project outcomes that lead to direct impact for our core audiences
            • Coordinate communication and sharing on restoration finance delivery between staff in India, U.S., Europe, and Africa through asynchronous communication techniques, in collaboration with the Knowledge Management Officer
              • Contribute to fundraising proposals focused on India and Indonesia and communications products that outline lessons learned from these geographies
                • Join WRI India and WRI Indonesia Restoration team meetings to keep up to date with their strategy and work

                  What will you need:

                  • Education: You have a completed a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies, business, forestry, agriculture, data science, or related field. Relevant work experience in lieu of degree is accepted
                  • Experience: You have minimum 5 yr of relevant experience, including in project delivery in the environmental space
                  • You understand restoration work or sustainable land management issues.
                  • Ability to manage a complex workload remotely and organize a cross-functional team to meet deadlines
                  • Experience working with people from different cultures and backgrounds and coaching them to deliver timely results
                  • Experience owning and managing workplans through online project management tools, such as Airtable and Asana
                  • If based in the U.S., you can work a modified schedule to accommodate India’s time zone
                  • Languages: Verbal and written proficiency in English with additional fluency in Hindi and/or Bahasa Indonesia, considered valuable
                  • Requirements: Existing work authorization is required where this position is based. WRI is unable to authorize visa work authorization

                    Potential Salary: US salary range is between 84,000 and 95,000 USD. UK: 45K – 56 K GBP; NL: 57K – 71K EUR. If located in another country office, salary will be determined by local market conditions. Salary is commensurate with experience and other compensable factors.

                    How to Apply: Please submit a resume with a required cover letter by the date of 28 February 2025. We may close for applications sooner if we receive a high volume of qualified applications.

                    We are unable to consider your application without a cover letter in addition to your resume.

                    You must apply through the WRI Careers portal to be considered.