Senior Project Finance lead/VP Project Finance

Earthshot supports NGOs, governments, land stewards, and companies to get their reforestation and conservation carbon projects registered and financed. Our cutting-edge scientific predictive analytics help us automate and streamline every development stage of a carbon project. Our vision at Earthshot is to scale reforestation and conservation globally to a level that meets the ecological and climate crises challenge.

Earthshot’s goal is to be the easiest and best way to develop and finance a nature restoration or conservation carbon project.

A few highlights we’re excited about:

• Projects: over 1 million hectares under conservation and reforestation with $25m+ in projects financed in 2023
• Financial: 100%+ yoy growth and well-funded for continued expansion
• Product: Released LandOS v2, a pioneering product innovation that automates many of the most time-consuming steps in developing a carbon project.

Earthshot's current focus is to scale carbon development work for reforestation and conservation, prioritize regulations and automation in technology and science, and explore projects with adjacent ecosystems like mangroves, Improved Forest Management (IFM), and agroforestry, and we need your help to do it.

The Role: VP Project Finance/Senior Project Finance Lead

We are looking for an experienced project finance leader who can fully own the process of developing a dedicated financing facility to deploy capital into nature-based carbon projects globally. This will involve using your existing network and creating new connections with institutional investors to co-develop a diligence and deployment framework and start deploying capital to projects within the next year. This is a role for someone who is a thought leader in making nature an investable asset class at scale.

1-year outcomes

• Secure $100m dedicated project finance facility with 1-3 institutional partners
• Secure $10m early-stage Technical Assistance project finance facility
• Co-design a diligence, risk, and deployment framework for project investments
• Support brokering one-off project finance deals while this facility is set up

Responsibilities

• You will own the process of designing, raising, and deploying a project finance facility in partnership with 1-3 institutional investors.
• You will be hiring and managing a small project finance team as this facility starts getting deployed.
• Deeply integrating with the carbon development team to understand how to invest effectively in our partner projects as well as support new project origination
• You will be on the core company leadership team and working directly with the CEO to determine project finance company strategy.

Skills and qualities for the role

• 10+ years in project finance, nature-based solutions financing, carbon markets, investment banking, green bonds, or similar. Maybe you’ve worked at Generate, or Macquarie, or another infrastructure investor and are ready to scale up a new asset class or become the industry leader in NbS investment.
• Collaborative leadership style, mission-oriented, and low-ego; this is about ecosystem restoration and leaving a restored planet for future generations, and working together to get there.
• The skillset of a traditional finance career but looking for something with direct impact
• Deep investor network that you can use to secure this $100m project finance facility and the capacity to scale to $1BN+ in the coming years.
• High technical financial sophistication and ability to design a novel risk-return framework for NbS projects with support from the CEO and carbon development team.
• A thought leader in making nature an investable asset class.
• A deep love for nature and a desire to help build a more integrated future for humanity

Location: Remote, with preference for New York (where the money is) or San Francisco (for in-person leadership collaboration).

Working at Earthshot

We are a close community of international team members working remotely. Each team member determines their day-to-day. We practice transparency, autonomy, and authenticity. We use Hubspot, Slack, Notion, Rippling, Zoom and GSuite. We have full participation at the weekly All Hands and host annual team retreats. We appreciate good humor, kindness, and a genuine love of this planet.

We are committed to fostering an inclusive and diverse workplace where every individual feels valued, respected, and empowered to bring their authentic selves to work. We believe in the power of diversity, not just in terms of backgrounds or experiences, but also in the unique abilities of individuals to offer fresh perspectives and innovative ideas. We actively seek to create an environment where differences are celebrated and leveraged to drive positive change. We embrace diversity in all its forms, including but not limited to race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, ability or religion.

If you feel called to join our team, complete this form and include your resume and cover letter.