Chief Operating Officer
Chief Operating Officer (COO)
London or Switzerland | Full time | International travel
About Community Climate Solutions AG
Headquartered in Baar, Switzerland, Community Climate Solutions AG develops high‑integrity, community‑led climate and nature protection projects, with a strong focus on carbon reduction, nature restoration, and positive social impact in developing regions across Africa.
Working in close partnership with local communities in Zambia, we support over 35’000 smallholder farmers to restore nature and reduce emissions on their own land. In doing so, we generate verified carbon credits that enable organizations to offset emissions responsibly while ensuring transparency, traceability, and meaningful benefits for local communities.
We believe the voluntary carbon market represents one of the greatest opportunities to permanently alleviate poverty in rural Sub‑Saharan Africa. With our farmers‑first approach, we aim to set new standards for the market: maximizing social impact while delivering high‑quality, fully traceable carbon credits.
About the role
As Chief Operating Officer (COO), you will play a pivotal role in shaping and scaling our organization. Reporting directly to the Global CEO, you will translate strategy into execution by building high-performing teams, strengthening operational excellence, and driving sustainable growth.
This role drives CCS's evolution into a high-performing, data-driven organization — bridging strategy and execution across operations, digital systems, intervention design, and carbon project delivery as we scale across Sub-Saharan Africa.
Key Responsibilities
- Carbon project rollout & intervention design: Lead the operational design and execution of carbon projects with interventions ranging from fire management, cattle, management, FMNR to agroforestry — including managing continued operations of the existing 2m hectares of Zambian assisted natural regeneration projects.
- Organizational development: Professionalize CCS's management systems, governance structures, operating procedures and accountability mechanisms — removing bottlenecks and building scalable solutions across departments.
- Digital transformation & data: Lead CCS's digital operating environment, including the FieldForce platform. Partner with the IT team to complete the development of the in-house digital operations and MRV platform.
- Voluntary carbon market compliance: Ensure carbon projects meet VCM standards and certification requirements (e.g. Verra VCS, Gold Standard). Execute on intervention and MRV frameworks according to standard and buyer requirements.
- Expansion & new country readiness: Design new carbon projects, operational models and organizational structures for new geographies, ensuring lessons from Zambia inform CCS's next stage of growth across Africa.
About You
- Program & operations leadership: Proven track record managing complex, multi-stakeholder programs in international development, conservation, agriculture or climate.
- Voluntary carbon market expertise: Solid understanding of VCM standards, certification pathways, MRV methodologies and the commercial and regulatory landscape for nature-based carbon credits. Candidates without direct VCM experience but with strong hands-on NGO project development experience in an African context are equally encouraged to apply.
- Carbon project rollout experience: Hands-on experience taking carbon, environmental or social impact projects from design to implementation, including field operations, community engagement and third-party verification.
- Systems-building mindset: Experience designing and improving operational systems, SOPs, KPIs and digital workflows in fast-moving or resource-constrained environments.
- Sub-Saharan Africa experience: Familiarity with operating contexts across the region, with a willingness to travel regularly to Zambia and future expansion countries.
Please submit your application in English including CV, cover letter, references and degree certificates to info@community-climate.com.