Rare is a $35 million fast-growing, international conservation organization. We believe conservation comes down to people—their behaviors toward nature, their beliefs about its value, and their ability to protect it without sacrificing basic life needs.
Rare’s culture is results-oriented and entrepreneurial. Our core programs in sustainable agriculture, climate change, behavior science, and coastal fisheries, are all designed to inspire change so that both people and nature thrive.
Rare has been implementing its coastal fisheries initiative, Fish Forever, in the Philippines for over 10 years. It is an innovative global movement to transform near-shore fisheries (www.fishforever.org). Fish Forever has ambitious objectives to combat chronic overfishing: recovering fish stocks; increasing the economic value of local fisheries; ensuring food security to vulnerable communities; protecting the most biologically diverse marine habitats; contributing to climate change resilience; and building local leadership capacity to ensure sustainability. Fish Forever focuses on implementing managed access areas that secures tenure for local fishing communities and within these areas establish fully protected reserves to enable fish populations to recover and replenish surrounding fishing areas. Rare has worked with over 60 local governments and 300 communities in the Philippines and is looking to further scale its work through multiple delivery pathways, partnerships, government engagement and innovative financing.
Core Responsibilities:
The Vice President, Philippines will promote Rare’s mission of inspiring change so people and nature thrive by leading and managing the implementation of the Fish Forever strategy in the country. She/he will ensure the effective and efficient delivery and expansion of the program in collaboration with local government, donors and other stakeholders. She/he will lead the Philippines team to ensure the Country Program remains viable and competitive and strategically aligned with the global Rare strategy. She/he will collaborate with the global leadership team, particularly the Managing Director of Fish Forever and other functional units to ensure that the business objectives are achieved.
The Vice President, Philippines has a key role as a member of the Fish Forever Leadership Team (LT) and as such is responsible for providing input on all strategic initiatives at Rare.
The Vice President, Philippines, is a seasoned leader with a record of success in the region, and brings with him/her a large existing local and regional network and proven track record of implementing community-oriented programs across broad geographic areas. He or she has tremendous managerial and leadership capacity, business acumen, and is dedicated to helping the organization achieve ambitious objectives for growth and impact.
The Vice President, Philippines, will exercise independent judgment regarding the following areas of significance:
Program and Rare Representation:
Serves as the Country’s primary spokesperson and as Rare’s representative for internal and external stakeholder communications. Ambassador for the advancement of advocacy and policy efforts in the country related to Rare’s mission at the national and local level to identify and influence decision makers in the areas of conservation, climate change, and marine fisheries policy and financing, and sustainable development.
Fundraising and Development:
Maintains and secures mid- to long-term funding for the country program by actively seeking diversified international and local sources of funding in view of identified country program needs. Works closely with Rare’s Development and Communications teams to ensure strategic, coordinated and collaborative fundraising.
Team Leadership:
Ensures a cohesive and productive team by adapting goals, communicating direction, utilizing creative thinking, clarifying roles and responsibilities, and demonstrating good judgment and clear decision-making. Sets a strong example to others through a productive work environment. Supports ongoing development of staff; working in close collaboration with the Fish Forever program team and Rare support teams across a global network of offices. The Philippines VP will also be the key leader in advancing Rare’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion strategy.
Program and Technical Support, Innovation Driver:
Demonstrates a clear understanding of programmatic goals and the technical aspects of program needs, appropriately applying procedures, requirements, regulations, and policies to ensure that technical goals are attained and programmatic commitments to donors and partners are met. At the same time, the Philippines VP will also identify and advance opportunities for strategic innovation that can advance delivery efficiency, effectiveness and scaling for impact.
Finance and Operations Oversight:
Ensuring effective and sound financial and operational management and demonstrating strong management skills by overseeing effective work plans and budgets, appropriate risk management, ensuring appropriate staffing and training, implementing effective time management and providing clear and effective communications to Philippines and global staff.
Experience and Education:
- Higher degree (MBA, M.S., M.A).
- 10+ years successful experience managing complex multi-sector programs in a global setting; experience in the Philippines essential.
- At least 5 years proven experience in managing local, global and US government grants and/or cooperative agreements. Other international donor experiences an advantage.
- At least 8 years proven experience in leading and managing staff, including talent acquisitions, recruitment networking, staff development, training, mentoring, and performance reviews.
- Demonstrated financial management experience, including the preparation and management of budgets and contracts, and the management of banking activities and relationships including the adherence to procurement procedures.
- Experience leading and managing a multidisciplinary team, including managing senior level leaders and multiple functional teams and specialists.
- Builds trusting relationships across all levels within the organization
- Experience in fundraising, including cultivation of new donors and contributing technical content to proposals.
- Demonstrate integrity and accountability at all times.
- Proven experience in networking, public relations, communications, advocacy and new business development.
- Fluency in English and Tagalog or Cebuano required.
