Job Description
Position: Regional Director, Sudano-Sahel
Reports to: Vice President, Global Field Conservation
Positions Managed: Country Directors and Regional team
Location: Kigali, Rwanda
Program/Sector: Sudano Sahel Region
Position Type: Full-time
Scope/Capacity: Regional
Coordinates with: Regional and country program staff, thematic program staff, government partners, private sector partner organizations
Expected Travel: Significant travel within the region
Start Date: 1 April 2025
Organizational Background:
The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) is a US non-profit, tax-exempt, private organization established in 1895 that saves wildlife and wild places by understanding critical issues, crafting science-based solutions, and taking conservation actions that benefit nature and humanity. With more than a century of experience, long-term commitments in dozens of landscapes, field presence in 56 nations, and experience of helping establish over 150 protected areas across the globe, WCS has amassed the biological knowledge, cultural understanding and partnerships to ensure that vibrant, wild places and wildlife thrive alongside local communities. Working with local communities and organizations, that knowledge is applied to address species, habitat and ecosystem management issues critical to improving the quality of life of poor rural people whose livelihoods depend on the direct utilization of natural resources.
Program Summary:
The Sudano-Sahel Region (SSR) comprises four country programs: Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad and Nigeria, reporting to a regional office based in Kigali, Rwanda. The Sudano-Sahel ecoregion forms a vast transitional landscape between the arid Sahara Desert and the humid Guinean savannas, characterized by a mosaic of ecological systems. This region supports a gradient of habitats, from the sparse, drought-adapted vegetation of the Sahel, dominated by Acacia species, to the denser woodlands and perennial grasses of the Sudanian zone. As a biodiversity hotspot, the Sudano-Sahel harbors both widespread and endemic species, playing a critical role in sustaining ecosystem services such as water regulation and resilience to climate variability. WCS works in several key protected areas across the region, supporting government and other partners in site-based conservation efforts, as well as engaging in key landscape management issues such as agropastoralism and transhumance, with local land-holders and stakeholders.
Job Purpose:
The Wildlife Conservation Society seeks a motivated and experienced leader to direct this region and drive conservation programming across the Sudano-Sahel region. The successful candidate will be expected to guide and implement a regional strategy that delivers effective protected area management as part of landscape approach to the sustainable management of this fragile zone. The position requires sector-level expertise and experience working at the nexus of environment, people, climate and conflict, a proven experience in program development and operations, and strong leadership and communication skills.
Specifically, the candidate will ensure:
– Development and implementation of a regional strategic vision
– Management support and strategic guidance to country programs in the implementation of this vision
– Build-out and management of a lean but highly targeted regional technical and operational support team
– Strategic partnership development with government, bilateral, multilateral agencies and partner institutions in the region in order to enhance and enable the regional vision
Major Responsibilities:
• Generating and delivering a bold, broad, and forward-looking vision for conservation in the region, accompanied by a holistic strategy that incorporates fundraising, people, and operational plans to achieve it
• Building effective and strategic regional partnerships that complement and enhance our conservation delivery and ensuring strong regional representation to governments, donors, partners and policy processes
• Actively contributing to the WCS Global Leadership Team and creating nodes of engagement for other global departmental and cross-regional exchange and engagement
• Together with organizational stakeholders, develop a powerful communication approach aimed at engaging prospective donors, trustees, partners, and the general public
• Leading the region to address threats and opportunities that are both common across countries and too large for individual country programs to address alone
• Improving and enhancing operational support to Country Programs to increase impact in our protected area landscapes, coordinate capacities and manage expansion
• Strengthening internal systems to better position the region to compete in a world of larger scale and more complex grants and policy initiatives. This includes overseeing the development of operational, business development and administration improvements to our programs.
• Ensuring that a system of accountability and knowledge management for programs within the region is in place with which to share results, evaluate progress and encourage critical peer review
• Promoting and facilitating opportunities to enhance the work of country programs through strong and effective connections between WCS global thematic program expertise and country programs that are fully aligned with regional priorities
• Lead and hold leadership accountable for cultivating a work culture that aligns with WCS Core Values and enables the team to attract, develop, and retain top talent.
Qualification Requirements
Minimum Requirements and Job Skills:
• At least 10 years relevant work experience in building and delivering effective programs in at least one of the following sectors: biodiversity conservation, community livelihoods, climate resilience and conflict
• Experience managing complex or multiple projects, including staffing, workloads, and finances under deadlines
• Proven experience of operating and delivering successful programs in challenging field conditions
• Strong team leadership skills and supervisory experience for large or multiple teams
• Strong fundraising track record and familiarity with relevant bilateral and multilateral donor agencies operating in the sector
• Excellent communication and inter-personal skills and demonstrated success in working with diverse partners, including national governments, to achieve common objectives.
• High level negotiation and influencing skills, and the capacity to develop and maintain strong relationships with governments, donors, not-for-profit, scientific and political communities or corporate sectors
• Excellent oral and written communication skills in English and proficient in French
• Willing to undertake significant travel
• Commitment to WCS’s mission and Core Values, which are: Respect, Accountability & Transparency, Innovation, Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion, Collaboration, and Integrity
Preferred requirements:
• Familiarity and experience of working with the conservation context and governance context of the Sudano-Sahel
• Impact-orientated, with program-building and fundraising skills
• Strong leadership and team building skills
How to Apply:
Interested candidates, who meet the above qualifications, skills and experience, should apply to this link .
WCS is an equal opportunity employer, and the organization complies with all employment and labor laws and regulations that prohibit discrimination in hiring and ensures that candidates from all backgrounds are fairly and consistently considered during the recruitment process. We are dedicated to hiring and engaging a diverse workforce. We are committed to cultivating an inclusive work environment and look for future team members who share that same value. The organization provides equal employment opportunities for all qualified candidates. The organization does not discriminate for employment based on gender, race/ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, sex, age, disability, marital status, sexual orientation, citizenship status, caste, genetic information or any other covered status or characteristic protected by laws and regulations/and similar categories.
It is everyone’s responsibility to ensure that we do not tolerate discrimination or harassment based upon a person’s membership in one of these protected categories in areas such as recruitment, selection, job assignment, supervision, training, promotions, job grading, transfers, termination, compensation, benefits, educational opportunities, WCS sponsored recreational activities and facilities.
The organization complies with the spirit and intent of relevant local laws and WCS’s employment policies.
