Climate Advisory Expert

• Reports To: Senior Director, Climate Resilience
• Job Type: Full-time
• Region:
  • Global
• Start Date: Immediately
• Contact: Please apply using the form below

Agriculture is the key to unlocking a better future for billions of people. But while rural families sustain the world, they struggle to sustain themselves. At the same time, they face increasingly urgent challenges, from volatile crop prices to extreme weather.

Root Capital is a social impact investor that provides financing and training to agricultural enterprises so that they can transform rural communities. We work with enterprises in the “missing middle” of agricultural finance: those whose credit needs are too big for microfinance and too small or risky for commercial banks.

Since 1999, we have loaned over $2B to more than 800 businesses and we have trained more than 1,800—improving the lives of 10 million people. As these agricultural businesses succeed and scale, they become engines of impact for their local communities, raising incomes, creating jobs, uplifting women and young people, preserving vulnerable ecosystems, and building rural prosperity.

Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Root Capital has more than 180 employees operating in more than a dozen countries in Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia, and has associated offices in Costa Rica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Colombia, Peru, Ghana, and Kenya.

The Climate Advisory Expert designs and oversights Root Capital’s climate advisory programs under Root Capital’s Climate Resilience Roadmap, our strategy to build farmer resilience in partnership with local agricultural businesses. The Climate Advisory Expert will join Root Capital at an important moment of evolution, as we launch our next strategy focused on growing smallholder prosperity, inclusion, and climate resilience through regenerative agriculture.

Specifically, the Climate Advisory Expert will drive program innovation by leading cross‑functional design processes on topics including regenerative agriculture, zero‑deforestation supply chains, and effective digital advisory services. The Climate Advisory Expert will also serve as the technical manager for a global team providing climate advisory services to our clients, ensuring the strategic alignment and technical excellence of programming. This new role will shape the direction of our next strategy in collaboration with colleagues across our global team and with external partners.

The role reports to the Senior Director of Climate Resilience within our Programs Department and will ideally work from one of Root Capital’s offices in Africa or Latin America.

Purpose

Provide technical guidance for global climate advisory services (30%)

• Serve as the technical manager of Root Capital’s global climate advisory service, managing and, as needed, adapting or developing program design frameworks, global methodologies, and quality assurance and impact monitoring tools; and supporting knowledge management across regional teams.
• Create, organize, and maintain a global climate advisory curriculum for agricultural businesses, identifying priorities for new curriculum development, based on business needs and in close coordination with regional climate advisory teams.

Design new climate services and products (30%)

• Design new services or products that advance Root Capital’s climate strategy by facilitating and contributing to global, multi‑functional design and pilot teams; ensure regional teams’ input is incorporated into the design and revision of programs.
• Create and maintain internal technical guidelines, knowledge management and opportunity scoping tools, and other resources to support the implementation of new climate services and products.

Engagement

Advise internal stakeholders on climate strategy and programs (20%)

• Serve as the technical manager of regional climate advisory coordinators, in close coordination with regional people managers (Root Capital operates within a matrix management structure, where coordinators have both a people manager and a technical manager); build and manage internal knowledge‑sharing mechanisms across our climate advisory team…