Head of Business Development

The Recruitment Room

  • London
  • Permanent
  • Full-time
  • 10 days ago
What we are looking forThe Head of Business Development will be one of the senior leaders in the company. You will identify and engage with potential strategic partners looking to invest in our projects, as well as further develop the relationships with existing partners. You will be the primary person at the company responsible for sourcing and structuring the financing that powers large-scale tropical restoration forestry projects.We’re looking for a growth and relationship-oriented leader who also likes to know all the details. You are excited to both engage with investors around the world and visit the project sites to work with our operations teams and showcase our projects in West Africa.You will work closely with the founders and Chief of Staff as well as the market development and carbon teams to put forward the investment cases qualitatively and quantitatively. A major focus will be spending time with potential partners to understand their investment requirements for nature-based solutions, specifically ARR, and their goals related to project design. You will be the market representative for us, serving as a connection between the restoration we are driving at scale and the investor landscape. As part of the business development process, you will develop agreements with strategic partners and model each partnership’s financial structuring, creating momentum for our operations and building a growing group of enthusiastic partners.You will be one of the closest people to the voluntary and compliance carbon markets from our organization, constantly having a pulse on what investors are thinking, who is investing in this category, who could invest in this category – and be able to develop strong theses on where the market is going in the future.What does the job involve
  • Maintain pace of our project growth with strategic partner onboarding – both with partners in the voluntary carbon markets and the compliance carbon markets
  • Lead the business development function, including identifying and sourcing potential strategic partners across the investor landscape for both voluntary and compliance carbon markets, driving the process from engagement to investment, and maintaining the relationships with partners after the projects have launched
  • Model the financial structure of partnerships and collaborate with strategic partners to agree on the investment structure and requirements.
  • Develop and manage systems and processes for tracking outreach, key contacts, and stages for potential partners
  • Manage all reporting to strategic partners, including gathering the necessary information from the operations, ESG, silviculture, science and data teams and producing the progress or milestone documents
  • Keep our team updated on investor sentiment and trends in the market, and continue evolving our investment theses for our projects
Qualifications
  • Expertise and proven track record in business development and relationship management • Experience in sourcing financing for multi-million dollar projects or deals, ideally in Sub-Saharan Africa
  • Deep understanding of carbon assets and investments or excitement to learn.
  • Minimum 7 years of experience in business development or related role
  • Strong written communication, with an ability to clearly craft investment cases
  • Ability to financially model partnership structures and deals
  • Highly analytical and detail-oriented but practical and adaptable
  • Ability to travel to meet with global project partners and be on-the-ground to visit our operations as needed.
  • Fluency in English
  • Role is based in London.
  • Beneficial but not required: Experience in sourcing investments for nature-based solutions, particularly in forestry.
Benefits
  • 25 days paid holiday per year, plus bank holidays.
  • Hybrid working policy, with flexibility on location and hours (headquarters in London with operations in Africa)
  • Dedicated professional development allowance and wellness allowances.
  • Generous parental leave and workplace nursery scheme

The Recruitment Room