Chief Operating Officer

Wildlife Conservation Network; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 210,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, vision insurance

Chiropractic/acupuncture coverage

Basic life insurance & AD&D

Health FSA & Dependent care

Retirement plan with 100% 6% match

11 paid holidays + 1 floating holiday

15 days paid vacation + raises with 1d

Paid sick leave

Employee discount program

Job summary

Wildlife Conservation Network seeks a COO to turn strategy into operational reality for a $100M global funder. The role reports to the CEO, owns annual planning, performance rhythm, and cross-team execution, and leads HR, organizational design, and governance as the organization scales.

The COO will partner with the CFO and senior leaders to align plans with budgeting, drive accountability, and build systems and dashboards that measure impact and efficiency across programs and donor operations.

Qualifications

• 15+ years of progressive leadership with ~$30M+ annual revenue experience.
• Strategic executive presence with the ability to partner with the CEO and board.
• Proven change-management leadership during major growth periods.
• Experience leading or partnering with an HR/people function and talent development.

Responsibilities

• Join as executive team member and translate strategy into operational plans and results.
• Design and lead the organization’s operating rhythm, planning, and KPI reviews.
• Oversee HR, recruitment, compensation, performance management, and culture scale.
• Guide organizational design during multi-year growth and cross-team alignment.
• Build metrics, dashboards, and reporting for leadership and board.

Skills

Leadership

Strategic thinking

Change management

HR leadership

People development

Job description

Wildlife Conservation Network is one of the most effective and fastest-growing organizations in global conservation. We protect endangered wildlife by supporting conservationists who help wildlife and people coexist and thrive, and by giving donors a trusted, high-impact way to invest in their work. WCN is projected to raise $80-100 million annually and currently funds conservation in more than 70 countries, across all 7 continents.

WCN deploys philanthropic funding through a vetted network of Conservation Partners, species-focused Wildlife Funds, our Rising Wildlife Leaders program for emerging conservationists, and other initiatives. Across every program, we get funding to the field efficiently, connect conservationists with donors and with each other, and equip them with the tools and support they need to succeed.

Position Summary

To power its next chapter of continued growth and complexity, WCN is creating its first Chief Operating Officer position: an executive-team seat, reporting to the CEO, that owns how the organization plans, decides, and executes our work. The COO turns strategy into operational reality: the annual planning and performance rhythm, decision and execution discipline across teams, organizational design through a multi-year growth transition, and the operational infrastructure a scaling global funder requires, with the people function reporting in as part of that foundation. This is a strategic executive role with hands-on reach: an operator who builds the systems a $100M organization needs and leads through them, and a trusted thought partner to the CEO.

Mission, Vision & Values Alignment

Every dollar WCN moves to conservationists depends on an organization that runs well. The COO’s work is mission aligned. When planning is clear, decisions are owned, and operations hum, more funding reaches the field faster, and the people who raise it and grant it do their best work. This role lives WCN’s values in operational form. Impact: build the systems that let WCN measure and grow what matters, not just what is visible. Integrity: run the organization so commitments are kept, data is trusted, and decisions hold. Community: develop the people and culture that make WCN a place conservationists, donors, and colleagues stay with for decades. Service: treat every team as a customer of operations, from fundraisers to Conservation Partners. Collaboration: connect departments so the whole organization moves as one.

Core Responsibilities

• Serve as a member of WCN’s executive team: shape organizational strategy with the CEO and fellow C-suite Officers, and own its translation into operational plans, priorities, and results.
• Design and lead WCN’s operating rhythm: strategic planning, annual work and workforce planning, quarterly goal and KPI reviews, and executive agendas that keep a growing global organization aligned and accountable.
• Lead the people function: HR reports to this role, with a defined direct CEO channel for executive-level and conflict-of-interest matters. Oversee the systems that bring in, develop and retain great people for a scaling international organization: recruitment, onboarding, compensation and benefits, performance management, professional development, and the mechanisms that help culture and values scale with the organization.
• Lead organizational design and change management through WCN’s multi-year growth transition: rigorously sequence workplans, goal-setting, and communication that bring people along as the structure evolves.
• Establish decision-making frameworks that put decisions at the right level with clear owners, escalating unresolved cross-team tradeoffs to the CEO while each C-suite officer remains accountable for results in their own area, so our fast-growing organization keeps pace.
• Build operational excellence across teams: streamlined processes, knowledge management, and the ability for teams to execute together across departments.
• Recruit, then lead, a Director of Impact to build WCN’s impact measurement function in close partnership with relevant departmental leaders, translating conservation and fundraising results into credible, meaningful measures, not just an operational dashboard.
• Own Development Operations as an operational hub for the administration and management of donor gifts and acknowledgements, donor reporting, and donor information (e.g. keeping donor records and lists accurate across the organization), including modernizing donor management and forecasting processes in partnership with the Finance and Systems teams.
• Within the first 6 months, may explore and assess other opportunities to streamline other operational functions related to the administration and management of outgoing grants, considering possible efficiency gains with Finance and Conservation Programs teams.
• Partner with the CFO to connect annual work planning to the budgeting cycle, so plans, priorities, and resources move together.
• Own organizational performance reporting: define WCN’s operational metrics, create or refine the dashboard that tracks them, and deliver a clear, honest picture of progress against plan for the CEO and, as needed, the board.
• Serve as a facilitator across the entire team, including the leadership team and evolving cross-departmental teams to bring operational leads together to align execution, surface issues early and turn cross-departmental initiatives into delivered outcomes.
• Oversee administrative infrastructure and office operations, including the Office Coordinator role and administrative support functions across teams, ensuring the organization’s administrative capacity keeps pace as it grows.
• Partner with CFO to evaluate organizational risk and compliance, including insurance, operational and employment compliance, and policies and controls that can scale with WCN.

Qualifications

Required

• 15+ years of progressive leadership, including service on an executive or senior leadership team at an organization with at least $30M in annual revenue, having navigated a period of rapid growth, such as approximately doubling within 2-3 years, where operational infrastructure had to catch up with the pace of fundraising success, and where they built the systems and discipline that growth required rather than inheriting them already in place.
• A strategic executive presence: operates as a peer to C-suite Officers, a thought partner to the CEO, and a credible voice with the board.
• Demonstrated change management leadership through a restructure, significant growth phase, or comparable organizational transition.
• Experience leading or closely partnering with an HR / people function: recruitment, onboarding, compensation and benefits, performance management, and talent development.
• A player-coach style: equally comfortable building systems hands-on and leading the people who run them.

Preferred

• Nonprofit or mission-driven sector experience at comparable scale; conservation and philanthropy fluency developable through immersion.
• Experience developing shared-services or operations functions in support of donor engagement and grants administration.
• A track record of cross-functional partnership with IT/systems leaders, bringing an operator’s perspective to platform and data decisions that affect the whole organization.
• Experience operating in organizations with an international footprint, including familiarity with Employer of Record (EOR) arrangements and international grantmaking practices.

Key Working Relationships

• CEO: reporting line and closest partnership; this role turns shared strategy into managed execution across the organization.
• CFO: close coordination to ensure operating plans, priorities, and resources move together, with both functions adapting as WCN’s scale and complexity grow; finance, accounting, and IT systems sit with the CFO.
• Director, Systems and Technology (Finance): one of a close working group with Director of Impact and Sr Manager of Development Operations; different reporting lines, deliberate close connections.
• Chief Growth Officer and Chief Programs Officer: peer partnership on strategy; the COO sets the shared planning and review process and coordinates execution across these teams, while each C-suite officer remains accountable for results in their own area.
• Donor Engagement team: close coordination to ensure Development Operations continues to understand and meet WCN’s direct fundraising needs, including the administrative support Development Operations already provides to the rest of the Donor Engagement team.
• As WCN continues to scale, the boundaries between these roles may be refined over time; this description reflects how the organization is structured today.

Compensation is based on qualifications, experience, and location of residence. The annual salary range for San Francisco Bay Area-based candidates is $210,000-$240,000. In addition, benefits include medical, dental, vision insurance contributions, chiropractic/acupuncture, basic life insurance, AD&D, Health FSA and Dependent care, a retirement plan where WCN matches 100% of employee’s contribution up to 6% of employee’s salary, 11 paid holidays with 1 paid floating holiday, 15 days of paid vacation in the first year (+1 day per year worked), paid sick leave, and an employee discount program.

Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

WCN is committed to the principles of being an equal opportunity employer (EOE). WCN’s organizational policies, practices, programs, activities and decisions regarding employment are not based on a person’s race, color, sex, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, national origin, disability, veteran status, parental status, housing status, or other protected status, in accordance with applicable law. Black, Indigenous, people of color, women, individuals identifying with the LGBTQIA+ community, or members of other underrepresented groups in the conservation sector are strongly encouraged to apply.

WCN provides reasonable accommodations for applicants and employees with disabilities; to request one during the hiring process, contact [e-mail]