Conservation X Labs Inc Transformative Technology Lead, South America Fire Fund Washington, DC · Remote · Full time Company website

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Our mission is to prevent an impending sixth mass extinction – the first in Earth’s history driven by the actions of a single species: ours. Unlike traditional conservation efforts, Conservation X Labs focuses on leveraging the best technology, the newest innovation, interdisciplinary genius, and the power of the marketplace to boldly confront the biggest problems facing the planet. Though humans have driven this sixth extinction, we know humans have the power to reverse it.

ABOUT CONSERVATION X LABS

Our mission is to prevent an impending sixth mass extinction, the first in Earth’s history driven by the actions of a single species: ours. Unlike traditional conservation efforts, Conservation X Labs focuses on leveraging the best technology, the newest innovation, interdisciplinary genius, and the power of the marketplace to boldly confront the biggest problems facing the planet. Though humans have driven us towards the sixth extinction, we know humans have the power to reverse it.

WHO WE ARE

Conservation X Labs (CXL) seeks to solve the world's greatest conservation problems by supporting innovative solutions that address the underlying drivers of extinction. We create transformative new technologies for biodiversity conservation, and to address drivers of species loss, lead innovation competitions, and empower talented innovators across disciplines to create game changing innovations that serve people and our planet.

CXL is the operational lead for the South America Fire Fund (SAFF), a new philanthropic Fund tackling fire, the leading cause of tropical primary forest loss, across three of South America’s most globally significant ecoregions: the Amazon, the Pantanal, and the Chiquitania. It is an experiment at the scale of the Amazon Basin. The Fund brings together an extraordinarily diverse coalition of local, regional, and international partners to build and test integrated fire prevention, detection, and response systems, creating the evidence base for scaling how to prevent the Amazon from tipping. Interventions span community-led stewardship, technology and innovation, behavior change, accelerated ecological restoration, and financial mechanisms that incentivize fire-safe land management. Technology underlies all these programs.

WHO YOU ARE

• You come at this as a technology person first. You have deep expertise in emerging technology, AI, sensor platforms, big data; you can see where things are heading, and you can spot a true leapfrog from an incremental step.
• You want to help solve one of the hardest ecological problems out there - keeping fire from tipping the Amazon, Pantanal, and Chiquitania past the point of no return, to a degraded grassland.
• You recognize that the biggest risk to the most consequential environmental problems is inaction.
• You are the person who turns strategy into things that actually happen. You own the day-to-day: the grants, the contracts, the deadlines, the deliverables, and you get satisfaction from a program that moves on schedule and shows real results in the field.
• You are highly organized and detail-oriented, and you can hold several grants, workstreams, partners, and deadlines in your head at once without dropping anything, working well without close supervision and under pressure.
• You are comfortable in the field and at the desk. You can help train a brigade on drones for fire mapping one week and prepare a funder briefing the next, and you can translate between technical detail and the people who need to act on it.
• You are a strong coordinator across cultures and disciplines, at ease keeping communities, brigades, Indigenous-led organizations, external consultants, and regional partners across Brazil, Bolivia, and Peru in sync, and flagging problems early rather than late.
• You are comfortable working in English; Spanish or Portuguese is a significant plus given the regional context, but it is not the core requirement for this role.
• You are a creative, forward-thinking problem-solver who stays steady in complex, multi-partner environments and takes corrective action when things drift off course.
• You are a translator. You can sit between major technology partners such as Google, startups, and hardware, sensor, and data providers on one side and a field program on the other, and make each side legible to the other.
• You think like a product manager and may be experienced as one too. You are comfortable owning technology and data systems from evaluation through deployment, and coordinating with the last-mile technology lead so together you cover the full arc from leapfrog innovation to community application.
• You are energized by the CXL mission to end extinction, and you want to spend this part of your career on a hard problem that matters.
• You are brilliant, hard working, self-motivated, iconoclastic, risk taking, team-oriented, and kind.

THE ROLE

The Transformative Technology Lead (Senior Program Manager) oversees day-to-day programmatic implementation of the Technology Strategy across the Fund’s three target ecoregions: the Amazon, the Pantanal, and the Chiquitania. Reporting directly to the CXL CEO (the Fund Lead) and working closely with the Regional Lead for Technology, Data, and Innovation and with CXL’s Director of Open Innovation, this role drives a technology-first agenda by managing grants, contracts, and program management; assisting with maintaining partner relationships; supporting field technology deployments and partner trainings; and organizing and implementing open innovation programs that advance fire prevention and response across South America.

The Senior Program Manager works on a daily basis with the Regional Lead for Technology, Data, and Innovation to execute strategic priorities, prepare materials for funders and partners, and ensure activities are delivered on time and with measurable impact. The role coordinates with external consultants (including trainers, technical advisers, and field specialists) and ensures seamless collaboration between team members, technical partners, and regional actors, including communities and brigades.

In line with the Fund’s technology priorities, this role champions leapfrogging technologies and the evaluation and adoption of innovative solutions, and serves as the Fund’s technical translator with major technology partners and technology providers. It also leads the Fund’s data systems and data-flow work (Pillar 3 of the Technology Strategy) with the Regional Lead for Technology.

POSITION DUTIES

Manage the execution and day-to-day operations of the SAFF Technology strategy together with the Regional Lead for Technology to ensure that the technology strategy translates into impact in the field, and support the larger SAFF strategy and experimental design with the Deputy Fund Lead and the Program Operations Director. The Transformative Technology Lead will also help develop and execute open innovation competitions under the guidance of the Fund Lead, the Deputy Fund Lead, and Open Innovation Director. With the Regional Lead, Transformative Technology Lead will build and leverage productive partnerships, support procurement efforts, serve as a product manager for technology, and identify and develop opportunities, including supporting additional funding opportunities.

Programmatic Management (70%)

• Scan the landscape for breakthrough innovations that can transform our ability to prevent the Amazon from tipping, connect with emerging innovators and companies, and evaluate the best of these ideas for deployment. Identify and articulate gaps in current fire prevention and mitigation solutions where an open innovation approach will have the greatest impact.
• Ensure that the Technology Strategy components and activities are executed in a timely and effective manner that furthers the Fund’s goals and objectives .
• Support, develop, and administer grants and contracts, tracking deadlines, budgets, and partner activities, with the larger SAFF operations team.
• Track and manage the Technology Strategy workflow with project management techniques and systems such as Airtable, ensuring deadlines and deliverables stay on course or adapt as the team learns from on the ground implementation.
• Serve as the technical lead and translator between the Fund and major technology partners and technology providers, evaluating and championing leapfrog innovations that can be deployed within the Fund’s timeframe.
• Lead the Fund’s data systems and data-flow strategy (Pillar 3 of the Technology Strategy), including coordinating any partner-built underlying data infrastructure and ensuring systems connect, are useful and usable, and sustainable and scalable.
• Source & test mature, deployable technologies through focused, fast-moving mechanisms such as targeted RFPs, alongside open innovation programs.
• Apply product management practices across technology development, from evaluation and selection through field deployment.
• Collaborate with the Fund’s other technical teams, including Financial Innovation, Behavior Change, Cross-Border Collaboration, and Accelerated Restoration.
• Work with the Monitoring & Evaluation team to develop and implement impact tracking plans for the Technology Strategy that support the Fund’s experimental design.
• Collaborate with the Regional Lead for Technology, Data, and Innovation in field operations, including grantee support and training brigades in key technologies such as drones for fire mapping.
• Collaborate with the Regional Lead for Technology, Data, and Innovation, in preparing strategic documents, briefings, partner updates, and internal reports that track progress and inform decision-making.
• Collaborate with the Regional Lead for Technology, Data, and Innovation in developing and managing the brigade technology support strategy, including equipment deployment, training programs, integrated data management, situational awareness tools, and capacity assessments across target landscapes.
• Identity potential inadvertent and negative impacts
• Coordinate with external consultants (including trainers, technical advisers, and field specialists) to integrate their contributions with regional partners and facilitate knowledge transfer to communities and brigades.
• Apply agile management approaches to the Technology strategy, including adapting, mitigating risk, and managing resources to deliver target outcomes.

Implement and manage processes of relevant open innovation programs (30%)

• Help design and execute open innovation competitions, including the Accelerated Restoration Challenge.
• Lead the launch, implementation, and management of a South America Fire Grand Challenge competition focused on supporting innovations in the region.
• Serve as primary liaison for the South America Fire Grand Challenge to applicants, partners, funders, and government officials.
• Attend and present at relevant conferences, convenings, and events in support of the challenges.
• Support other CXL programs and team members as opportunities arise. CXL is a dynamic organization where team members work together to support priorities even as they change.

QUALIFICATIONS

• Self-starter and collaborative team player with at least 5 years of professional experience managing technology, innovation, or development technology or nature-tech programs; a degree in a relevant field or equivalent, including engineering, computer science, conservation.
• Deep expertise in applying transformative technologies, such as AI, sensor systems, and big data, in a catalytic and equitable way particularly in the global south, and the ability to evaluate and advocate for leapfrog technologies on their merits, and recognize potential inadvertent effects and mitigate them.
• Technical fluency with expertise in applied methods to translate technology into operational systems in the field that inform and underlie other goals such as unlocking finance, early detection and rapid response, foresight, and accelerated restoration.
• Excellent organizational skills with the ability to manage multiple grants, contracts, and workstreams simultaneously and under pressure. Keen attention to detail with ability to operate without close supervision.
• Creative and forward-thinking, with a track record of problem-solving in complex, multi-partner environments.
• Ability to work across cultures, disciplines, and diverse stakeholder groups, and
• Strong analytical skills, with the ability to evaluate technologies, assess field program needs, and translate technical information for diverse audiences.
• Experience with accelerating technology development and/or field technology deployments (such as drones, remote sensing, fire monitoring systems, and/or GIS) and coordinating external consultants, trainers, or technical advisers.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills in English.

PREFERRED:

• Practical technology experience and capabilities in any of the following: the application of artificial intelligence, including both software and hardware for AI, computer vision, large landscape and language foundation models and systems for environmental change, AI-driven geospatial models, predictive environmental degradation & restoration, as well as/or experience in developing sensors, communication systems, and aerial platforms including drones and nanosatellites, edge computing, and embedded systems.
• Technology product management experience
• Training or experience with tropical forests management and wildfire
• Experience working with or for Indigenous-led conservation organizations.
• Experience in running conservation or development projects
• Working fluency in Spanish or Portuguese

This role is based in Washington, D.C., Bolivia, Peru, or Brazil. The salary range is $104,000 to $139,000 per year for candidates based in Washington, D.C. For candidates based in Latin America (Bolivia, Peru, or Brazil), CXL offers a competitive salary set using local labor market data.

Staff based in the U.S. also receive health, dental, and vision insurance and a 401(k) match. These benefits are tied to U.S. employment and do not apply to Latin America-based staff, whose salary and benefits follow their local employment arrangement.

The rest is the same wherever you are based: we do not cap vacation or sick days, we take off the weekdays between December 25 and January 1 along with recognized public holidays, and CXL supports professional development. The position involves some domestic and international travel.