Senior Manager, Land Development

Stanford Climate Ventures; Salt Lake City, Northern (UT, KY); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Fervo Energy, with a Salt Lake City, UT base and a hybrid work model, seeks a Senior Manager — Land Development to architect the land portfolio strategy and integrate it into long-range planning.

The role partners with senior management to drive leasing, acquisitions, and growth across federal, state, and fee lands while leveraging GIS, analytics, and cross-functional collaboration for informed decisions.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree and 12+ years in land management, strategy, or related field.
• Experience presenting executive-level recommendations to C-suite and boards.
• Strong financial modeling and acreage valuation skills.

Responsibilities

• Lead land strategy and long-range planning, evaluating leasing and acquisitions.
• Coordinate portfolio optimization with Finance and Operations for capital allocation.
• Develop leasing, acquisitions, and growth initiatives across federal and state lands.
• Build land market intelligence and present insights to executives.

Skills

Asset management

Strategic planning

Executive communication

Financial acumen

Stakeholder management

Education

Bachelor's degree

Advanced degree (MBA/MS/JD) preferred

Tools

GIS

Analytics tools

Job description

Fervo Energy is building the most cost-effective, repeatable geothermal power plants in the world — requiring a durable land and resource portfolio, disciplined long-range planning, and the ability to secure the resources, rights, and agreements needed for growth. As Fervo scales from first-of-a-kind projects to fleet-wide deployment, we're seeking a Senior Manager — Land Development to architect the company's land portfolio strategy and its integration into long-range planning. This role reports to the Sr. Director of Land, Environmental and Permitting, working extensively with Sr. Management and Executive components of Fervo.

The role partners with all internal stakeholders to develop and execute the company's lease development strategy, ensure the lease portfolio supports the corporate long-range plan, guide land-related investment decisions, and lease portfolio development across federal, state, and fee lands and emerging markets. The ideal candidate combines deep asset management expertise with strong analytical and executive-communication skills — synthesizing complex information into clear recommendations while collaborating to build alignment across all Fervo Teams.

Job Type

Full-time

Responsibilities

Land Strategy & Long-Range Planning

• Leads land and lease strategy and valuation for the annual long-range plan, setting priorities and evaluating leasing, acquisition, and relinquishment tradeoffs to maximize enterprise value; develops integrated outlooks and presents strategic recommendations.

Land Portfolio Strategy & Capital Allocation

• Leads portfolio optimization and high-grading using economic models and scenario/sensitivity analysis, and partners with Finance and Operations to prioritize capital deployment — bonus payments, rentals, acquisition spend — based on acreage economics, risk, and commercial structure.

Leasing, Acquisitions & Growth Initiatives

• Develops leasing and acquisition strategies across BLM, SITLA, and fee lands, identifies growth positions in domestic geothermal, leads new-market assessments and due diligence on acquisitions and partnerships, and supports negotiation of leases, surface agreements, and joint ventures.

Market Intelligence & Competitive Position

• Builds the company's land market intelligence capability, monitoring competitor activity and policy developments, benchmarking land position and costs against competitors, and translating insights into strategic recommendations and executive updates.

Executive Communications & Cross-Functional Leadership

• Prepares executive and investor presentations, leads cross-functional land initiatives across Land Administration, Legal, Development, Engineering, Drilling, Operations, Commercial, Finance, and Policy, and drives continuous improvement using GIS, analytics, and AI-enabled tools.

Qualifications

Required

• Bachelor's degree, plus 12+ years of progressive experience in land management, strategy, corporate planning, or business development, preferably in energy.
• Demonstrated experience executing asset acquisition, development, or deployment strategies that support enterprise and long-range planning.
• Proven track record presenting executive-level recommendations to C-suite executives, Boards of Directors, investors, and other stakeholders, with extensive experience evaluating acquisitions, divestitures, and joint ventures.
• Strong financial acumen — acreage valuation, economic modeling, capital allocation — and the ability to synthesize complex information into clear recommendations.
• Exceptional communication, negotiation, and stakeholder-management skills, with experience leading cross-functional teams in highly-matrixed organizations.
• Ability to make high-quality decisions in ambiguous, fast-moving environments; willing to travel up to 25% of the time.

Preferred

• Advanced degree in Business, Engineering, Economics, or a related discipline (MBA, MS, JD, or equivalent).
• Direct experience in geothermal, power generation, upstream energy, renewables, or capital-intensive infrastructure, including geothermal-specific considerations (resource rights, unitization, Geothermal Steam Act).
• Prior experience in high-growth environments, building processes while scaling organizations.
• Demonstrated success building market intelligence or analytics capabilities, leveraging modelling and/or automated tools or processes to improve strategic decision-making.
• 10+ years of experience at a senior management level with a publicly traded energy company; demonstrated success in developing growth strategies based on market intelligence for a portfolio of projects; experience presenting progress updates and strategic plans to executive leadership.

Location

Fervo Energy has corporate offices in Houston, TX, Golden, CO, Reno, NV , Oakland, CA and Salt Lake City, UT. This position is preferred to be based out of our Salt Lake City, UT office, with a hybrid work model.