Sr. Director of Business Development

About Catona Climate

Catona Climate is a climate finance company that delivers high-quality carbon solutions to businesses everywhere, helping transform climate pledges into measurable action through rigorously vetted high-impact nature-based carbon projects around the world. Guided by an unwavering commitment to the planet, we exist to combat the climate crisis by driving capital to nature and enabling a fair and equitable transition to a net-zero future. We are a member of the Business Alliance to Scale Climate Solutions, IETA and other critical industry groups dedicated to accelerating climate action. 

 

About the Role 

As a leader on the Business Development team, you will forge deep relationships with global organizations that are looking to secure carbon removals from highly impactful nature-based projects. You will craft and deliver carbon offtake agreements with enterprises that derisk and serve as catalysts to unlock capital for projects that effectively remove carbon at scale but also directly benefit the ecosystems and communities most impacted by climate change. You will work with companies across sectors and regions, focusing on those that have (or are establishing) ambitious decarbonization goals and leverage high-quality carbon credits to address hard-to-abate greenhouse gas emissions. The role involves cross-functional collaboration with Catona teams – Origination, Monitoring & Engagement, Investments, Marketing, Finance and Legal – but it is primarily partner-facing. You will be spending most of your time engaging with partners, creating tailored offtake proposals, negotiating and closing deals, and growing partnerships with an eye on maximizing planet impact and profits which, for Catona, go hand-in-hand.   

 

What You’ll Do

• Manage and grow existing relationships with global Fortune 100 enterprises who are sourcing high-impact nature-based removals from Catona’s portfolio. These are deep, integrated partnerships in which clients leverage Catona’s technical project due diligence expertise, origination artifacts, and MRV (Measurement, Reporting & Verification) capabilities in order to source credits issuing 2024-2040 from projects that remove carbon while delivering a multitude of critical environmental and social benefits.       
• Source and develop relationships with new enterprises across regions and sectors that are leveraging the voluntary carbon market to address hard-to-abate emissions in parallel to decarbonization efforts. Partner with the Carbon team to identify projects that meet partner needs and close mutually beneficial deals where the partner, Catona, and the planet win.      
• Support conversations and negotiations with 3rd party capital partners that are keen to invest in Catona-sourced projects, especially those with contracted forward offtake from enterprises like Microsoft – projects such as our UN-recognized agroforestry project in Kenya in collaboration with our long-standing nonprofit partner, Trees for the Future. 
• Report directly to the CEO and collaborate with the leadership team to continually optimize our go-to-market approach and identify new opportunities to harness global carbon markets to deliver greater impact.  

 

What You’ll Bring

• 10+ years of experience including 2+ years in Sustainability/Climate. 
• Partner-facing experience with a knack for crafting custom proposals and building long term partnerships.
• Ability to turn proposals into deal terms and negotiate commercials through to execution autonomously. 
• A pulse on (or desire to dive headfirst into) the carbon market including supply/demand dynamics, emerging technologies, and organizations that heavily influence the voluntary carbon market and enterprise climate action (e.g. SBTi, VCMI, ICVCM).
• Curiosity, tenacity, flexibility, entrepreneurial spirit, and a desire to build a business in a rapidly evolving market.
• Strong leadership skills, a highly collaborative spirit, and experience working cross-functionally.  
• Belief that the voluntary carbon market – alongside decarbonization efforts – is a powerful and critical tool that we have to address the climate crisis.  
• Desire to work for a purpose-driven company that values people and planet impact alongside profits.