CEO

Acre; United States; Remote; USD 250,000 - 420,000; Full time

Job summary

Fair Trade USA is seeking a CEO who can lead a fully remote social enterprise to expand the Fair Trade Certified movement. The role demands strong C-suite experience, strategic growth leadership, and proven ability to engage a broad network of producers, brands, retailers, and consumers.

The CEO will drive an integrated growth engine, maintain high standards of integrity and measurable impact, and partner with the Board to innovate and scale the organization for greater global impact.

Qualifications

• Proven C-suite executive leadership, with a track record of organizational performance and results in high-growth environments.
• Strong financial acumen and P&L ownership. Demonstrated success managing large-scale budgets and driving sustained year-on-year revenue growth.
• Consumer brand or marketing leadership. Proven experience building or scaling a consumer brand or certified product and an understanding of shelf space.
• Demonstrated ability to drive accountability and develop an effective leadership team.
• US-based or able to operate with primary presence in the US market, with willingness to travel extensively.

Responsibilities

• Lead growth engine connecting integrity, measurable impact, consumer trust, and value for brands and retailers.
• Strengthen Fair Trade Certified as a consumer movement across brands and categories.
• Ensure processes that drive impact are understood and improved, with resource allocation toward opportunities.
• Build relationships across distributed workforce and stakeholders in a fully remote environment.

Skills

C-suite leadership

Financial acumen

Brand marketing leadership

Leadership development

Remote leadership

Job description

Acre is proud to be partnering with Fair Trade USA in the search for thier next CEO.

The Opportunity

Fair Trade USA harnesses the power of markets to build fairer, more resilient global supply chains, improving people's lives, protecting the environment, and demonstrating how everyday commerce can become a powerful force for building a better world.

Fair Trade USA is a fully remote social enterprise of approximately 144 employees with an annual operating budget of approximately $22 million. Through its certification and partner network, Fair Trade Certified generates more than $80 million annually in Community Development Funds benefiting farmers, workers, and fishers around the world.

Yet the opportunity is much greater.

Fair Trade Certified has significant untapped potential to expand buyer and consumer demand and turn the millions of people already connected to Fair Trade - through brands, retailers, workplaces, communities, and everyday purchasing decisions, into more engaged participants and advocates. Our next CEO will lead the effort to unlock that potential, building an organization and movement that makes Fair Trade Certified increasingly meaningful and accessible to consumers, more valuable to brands and retailers, and capable of generating substantially greater impact for producers and workers.

The CEO will have meaningful freedom to innovate and build, supported by an engaged Board and an extraordinary network of employees, producers, brands, retailers, consumers, and other stakeholders.

The CEO Mandate

The CEO will lead Fair Trade USA in building an integrated growth engine connecting:

• Integrity and measurable impact → consumer trust and engagement → greater value for brands and retailers → increased demand → greater producer and worker impact.
• A central opportunity is to strengthen Fair Trade Certified as a consumer movement, not simply a certification, building relationships with consumers who increasingly understand, trust, seek out, purchase, and advocate for Fair Trade Certified products across brands and categories.
• Growth must reinforce, never compromise, the integrity and measurable impact that give Fair Trade Certified its credibility and value.
• The CEO will ensure the organization understands and continually improves the processes that drive its impact, measures what works, and allocates people and resources toward the greatest opportunities.

The Leader We Seek

First and foremost, we seek a proven organizational builder and people leader with significant P&L and commercial leadership experience.

We seek a leader driven by purpose and the pursuit of excellence who builds the organization capable of producing exceptional results rather than becoming the source of every important answer.

The successful candidate will be a lifelong learner: curious, self-aware, and able to develop new capabilities, attract strong talent and expertise, and adapt as circumstances change.

Because Fair Trade USA is fully remote, the CEO must also be able to build genuine relationships, trust, engagement, and organizational connection across a distributed workforce, and personally thrive in that environment.

Key Competencies

• Strategic judgment and business acumen. Develops and executes strategy with a track record in driving growth. Identifies critical levers, makes difficult trade-offs, allocates resources wisely, and translates strategy into measurable results. Trustworthy and values-driven, holding self and team to a high bar.
• Organizational building and people development. Creates shared purpose and priorities, develops leadership throughout the organization, and combines meaningful autonomy with clear accountability. Understands that the organization's long-term strength depends on the people and culture built under their leadership.
• Consumer and demand growth. Builds the talent, partnerships, and strategies required to increase buyer and consumer engagement and make Fair Trade Certified more valuable to brands, retailers, and consumers. Brings a track record in consumer brand building or demand generation and can make the business case for Fair Trade in a buyer's language.
• Execution discipline and decisiveness. Translates strategy into execution through clear priorities, capable leaders, accountability, and measurable results. Knows when hands-on involvement will provide direction, remove obstacles, develop people, and strengthen engagement; and when stepping back will build greater ownership and organizational capability. Makes tough calls, clearly articulates the why, and ensures commitments are met.
• Communication and partnerships. Builds a strong track record of partnerships with major brands and retailers. Communicates clearly and with credibility, adapting their approach for staff, the board, and external partners.
• Innovative change agent. Willing to challenge existing models and approaches where the evidence demands it. Keeps Fair Trade USA ahead of a changing economy, digital landscape, and evolving partner and consumer expectations.

A successful CEO will ultimately be known not simply for what they accomplished, but for what Fair Trade Certified became capable of accomplishing under their leadership.

Required Qualifications

• Proven C-suite executive leadership, with a track record of organizational performance and results in high-growth environments.
• Strong financial acumen and P&L ownership. Demonstrated success managing large-scale budgets and driving sustained year-on-year revenue growth.
• Consumer brand or marketing leadership. Proven experience building or scaling a consumer brand or certified product and an understanding of what it takes to earn and hold shelf space.
• Demonstrated ability to drive accountability and develop an effective leadership team.
• US-based or able to operate with primary presence in the US market, with willingness to travel extensively.

Preferred Qualifications

Experience or knowledge in several of the following areas would strengthen a candidate's fit:

• Fair Trade, responsible sourcing, or certification.
• Sustainability and assurance.
• Consumer products, retail, or related industries, with relevant networks.
• Social enterprise or mission-driven organization leadership.
• Sales experience and partner development across a diverse stakeholder base.
• Board and governance relationships, with strong influencing skills across senior audiences.
• Credibility and passion for Fair Trade USA's mission. Culturally competent, with experience working in or with Global South communities.
• Experience with distributed or remote organizations.

We can build specialized expertise around an exceptional organizational leader. It is much harder to build exceptional organizational leadership around a functional specialist.