Job Description
About Cultivo
Cultivo is a leading platform for developing and operating natural assets. Our mission is to accelerate investment into natural assets at scale to build healthy and resilient landscapes. We partner with institutional investors and multinational corporations who view nature as essential infrastructure. Our model generates financial returns through payments for services, primarily carbon removal, unlocked by land regeneration activities.
Cultivo’s technology and data-driven approach streamlines the entire project lifecycle, from origination to management and monitoring, ensuring trust and integrity at every step. As a Public Benefit Corporation, we are committed to regenerating natural landscapes in partnership with land stewards to safeguard critical natural infrastructure and services.
We are a diverse, international team that moves fast, holds a high bar for rigor, and believes deeply that how we work matters as much as what we achieve. For more information, visit cultivo.land.
Compensation: $120,000–$130,000 base salary, depending on background and experience, plus equity options and annual bonus
About the role
We’re hiring a Senior Program Manager to lead the execution of Cultivo’s most complex and high-profile natural capital programs, including corporate scope 3 programs. This is a senior individual contributor role that sits at the intersection of program delivery, client partnership, and cross-functional coordination – and it’s critical to how we deliver on our commitments to the world’s leading corporations, NGOs, and government partners.
Your initial focus will be leading Cultivo’s role in a flagship, multi-million-dollar grassland resilience program. This program spans technology platform delivery, carbon MRV (measurement, reporting, and verification), rancher engagement, operations and payments, protocol development, and scientific partnerships – with a diverse group of stakeholders that includes mulit-national corporations, environmental NGOs, government agencies, research institutions, and hundreds of ranchers across the United States.
That said, as Cultivo’s portfolio of managed programs grows, you’ll be expected to take on additional natural capital programs and help define what excellent program management looks like at the company. You’ll shape how we plan, resource, and deliver across multiple concurrent engagements – building the operational muscle that lets us scale.
This role requires genuine program management expertise, not just project management background. You need to be someone who can hold the full picture of a complex, multi-workstream program: managing interdependencies across technology, science, finance, legal, and field operations; maintaining alignment with external partners who have different incentives and timelines; and making tradeoff decisions that keep the overall program on track even when individual workstreams hit obstacles. Similarly, this role combines program management with hands-on partner support– you won’t just track delivery, you’ll develop practical resources that help partners to effectively engage with ranchers
You’ll work closely with senior leadership, including our co-founders and commercial leads, and will need to operate with a high degree of autonomy, judgment, and executive-level communication skills. This is a role for someone who thrives in ambiguity, moves fast without sacrificing rigor, and takes deep personal ownership of outcomes – staying true to the overall ambition to deliver impact and regenerate land..
This role reports to our Senior Manager of Project Success based out of San Francisco.
What you’ll do
Program leadership & delivery
- Serve as the central point of coordination for Cultivo’s role in assigned programs – owning overall program delivery, timeline management, risk identification, and cross-workstream alignment
- Manage program-level planning across multiple concurrent workstreams (e.g., platform delivery, MRV/protocol, scientific partnerships, rancher operations, financial administration) and ensure interdependencies are tracked and resolved
- Drive the program rhythm: set and run internal and external cadences, prepare for and lead stakeholder meetings, maintain program documentation, and ensure decisions are captured and followed through
- Proactively identify risks, blockers, and resource gaps; develop mitigation plans and escalate with clear recommendations when needed
- Own program budgets and ensure Cultivo’s deliverables are executed within financial and contractual commitments
Client & stakeholder partnership
- Act as Cultivo’s primary program-level interface with external partners, including corporate clients, NGOs, government agencies, research institutions, and others
- Build and maintain trusted relationships with senior stakeholders across partner organizations – navigating competing priorities, different organizational cultures, and complex governance structures
- Represent Cultivo with credibility and poise in external meetings, steering committees, and working groups
- Translate between external partner needs and internal execution capacity; manage expectations proactively and ensure Cultivo is always a step ahead
- Develop practical resources and support systems for external program partners – including onboarding materials, training guides, and operational playbooks – so partners can execute effectively and independently.
- Provide ongoing support and coaching to program partners, iterating on materials based on feedback and field learnings
Cross-functional coordination
- Coordinate across Cultivo’s functional teams — product & technology, research & compliance, finance, legal, growth, project operations, etc. — to ensure aligned execution and clear accountability
- Work closely with product leads to ensure technology deliverables are scoped, prioritized, and delivered in line with program commitments
- Partner with science and carbon teams to align protocol development, modeling, and monitoring activities with program timelines and partner expectations
- Collaborate with commercial and finance leads on invoicing, revenue tracking, and contract management for your programs
Operational excellence & scaling
- Help define, develop, and refine Cultivo’s program management frameworks, tools, and best practices – building repeatable systems that can scale across multiple programs
- Contribute to company-wide operational planning, including resource allocation, capacity management, and quarterly planning processes.
- As the program portfolio grows, help onboard and mentor more junior project and program managers
Experience & track record
- 7+ years of experience in program management, with meaningful time spent managing large, complex, multi-stakeholder programs – ideally in environments involving multi-national corporate clients, government partners, and/or NGOs
- Track record of owning end-to-end delivery of programs with budgets in the tens of millions of dollars or more, with multiple concurrent workstreams and diverse external partners
- Demonstrated experience managing programs that span technology delivery, field/operational execution, and scientific or technical components – you don’t need to be an expert in each, but you need to be able to hold the full picture and drive integration
- Experience working directly with senior client stakeholders (C-suite, VP-level) and representing your organization in high-stakes external settings
- Proven ability to bring structure and momentum to inherited or in-flight programs – including programs where the scope, roles, or deliverables are still being defined
- Experience in one or more of the following is strongly preferred: Scope 3 insetting programs, agricultural supply chains, carbon markets, sustainability/ESG programs, land management, conservation, or natural resource management
Skills & capabilities
- Exceptional at managing complexity – you can track dozens of moving parts across multiple workstreams without losing the thread, and you know when to zoom in versus zoom out
- Outstanding communication skills, both written and verbal – you can run a crisp executive meeting, write a clear status update, and have a candid conversation with a frustrated partner, all in a couple consecutive hours
- Flexibility and openness to lean in to work that needs to get done, even if outside direct area of responsibility
- Strong judgment and decision-making under ambiguity – you don’t need a fully defined playbook to make progress, and you’re comfortable making tradeoff calls and adjusting course
- High agency and ownership – you operate with minimal oversight, creatively problem solve, anticipate what needs to happen next, and drive things forward without waiting for permission or consensus
- Ability to build trust and influence across diverse stakeholder groups – corporate partners, scientists, ranchers, engineers, and executives alike
Education & credentials
Bachelor’s degree required
- Graduate degree in a relevant field (MBA, environmental science, public policy, engineering) is a plus
PMP, PgMP, or equivalent program management certification preferred but not required if experience speaks for itself
Other
- Willingness and enthusiasm for occasional travel for program needs and partner meetings
- Based in the United States, with a preference for candidates near our Berkeley or New York City hubs
What we offer
- Competitive compensation package, including equity options and annual bonus
- Access to health insurance and retirement plan
- Remote working with access to co-working spaces in specific geographies
- Flexible work hours with emphasis on results
- Six months paid parental leave
- Unlimited paid vacation
- Opportunities for personal and professional growth in an innovative and supportive environment
Cultivo is an equal opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, cognitive diversity, national origin, family or parental status, veteran or disability status. Please contact [email protected] if you need special assistance during the recruiting process due to a disability.
