Manager, Operations, Global Solutions

About Rare

Rare inspires change so people and nature thrive. For 50 years, across 60 countries, we have inspired and empowered millions of people and their communities to shift their behaviors and practices to protect our shared planet. We are a global leader in driving social change for people and nature and believe that the cumulative power of individual and community action is a vital pathway to safeguarding and restoring our shared waters, lands, and climate. Rare’s organizational culture is results-oriented, and entrepreneurial, and our global programs cover the thematic areas of climate change, fisheries and marine conservation, sustainable agriculture food security, and Green Recovery.

About the Position

The Global Solutions team design, tests, and replicates innovative approaches that unlock community-led conservation and climate outcomes, bringing together Rare’s Center for Behavior & the Environment (BE.Center), Entertainment Lab, and our global solution development teams.

We are seeking an adaptive, highly organized, and solutions-oriented Manager, Operations to strengthen and lead operational excellence across the Global Solutions portfolio. This role is ideal for someone energized by building systems, driving efficiency, shepherding teams through change, and creating the operational conditions that allow creative, scientific, and field-facing teams to thrive.

Reporting to the Senior Vice President, Global Solutions, and working closely with multiple team leads and enterprise operations partners, the Manager will oversee day-to-day business operations; support planning, budgeting, and reporting processes; and play a central role in the successful adoption of new enterprise-wide technologies—including Microsoft 365, new HRIS systems, and future platform transitions. This role will help modernize tools, simplify workflows, improve team coordination, ensure financial responsibility, and elevate operational performance across a diverse and expanding team.

Core Responsibilities

Planning, Budgeting & Financial Management

• Partner with the SVP, budget owners, and Finance team to lead annual budget development, reconciliation, and monitoring across Global Solutions teams (currently two budgets)
• Advise team leads on budget needs, reallocations, and financial decision-making
• Lead and/or support grant budget development and financial reporting
• Support pipeline tracking for fundraising, fee-for-service, and earned revenue streams in partnership with Development and team leads
• Manage non-grant revenue pipeline data in Salesforce, support overall pipeline management in Salesforce, and coordinate with Rare’s Salesforce administration team
• Identify and lead/support opportunities to strengthen financial processes, reporting, and team-wide budget literacy

Enterprise Operations, Systems & Tools

• Serve as Global Solutions’ point person for Rare’s enterprise-wide systems transitions, including:
• Migration to Microsoft 365 collaboration and productivity tools, and wind-down of Egnyte file management platform
• Adoption and rollout of a new HRIS platform
• Future finance, CRM, or technology system upgrades
• Represent Global Solutions team by actively guiding policy development through RareUP committees
• Coordinate change-management activities, including team training, resource development, and troubleshooting
• Identify, assess, and implement tools that strengthen project management, collaboration, and information flow across Global Solutions
• Maintain team-level licenses, subscriptions, and software access
• Develop and document SOPs to ensure consistency, quality, compliance, and effective onboarding

Business Operations & Compliance

• Manage the development, execution, and tracking of contracts, consultant agreements, and invoices
• Process team-level expenses as needed
• Oversee time accounting processes, lead monthly timesheet guidance/reviews/approvals, and maintain guidance documents
• Ensure team compliance with organizational finance, HR, and operations policies, processes and timelines
• Support donor, partner, and client reporting, including coordinating inputs across Global Solutions team

Team Coordination, Logistics & Internal Communication

• Lead scheduling, planning, and facilitation of:
• Monthly or bi-monthly Global Solutions all-team meetings
• Monthly Global Solutions leadership team meetings
• Ad-hoc working sessions
• Annual/biannual work planning retreats (in-person or virtual)
• Maintain, promote and support use of shared communication channels
• Serve as the operational point person, primary knowledge base and first line of contact supporting troubleshooting on operations (finance, accounting, technology, HR)

Internal & External Correspondence

• Manage general Global Solutions correspondence (shared inboxes, submissions, inquiries) and triage across teams
• Coordinate with partner/client business managers on invoicing and accounts payable processes
• Support SVP and team leads with correspondence, documentation, and communication needs as required

Skills, Preferences & Experience

The ideal candidate will:

• Bring strong, demonstrated experience in project and business operations, ideally in a cross-functional or matrixed environment. This experience can be gained through a combination of work and study, but should include a minimum of 5 years in a related professional role
• Demonstrate excellent organizational skills, attention to detail, and comfort managing multiple parallel workstreams
• Be excited by optimizing systems, facilitating team efficiency, and leading operational change
• Have experience supporting adoption and use of enterprise platforms (experience with Microsoft365 and/or Salesforce a plus, but not required assuming an eagerness and ability to learn quickly)
• Be an effective communicator and relationship builder, capable of supporting teams across disciplines, seniority levels, and geographies
• Show initiative, curiosity, and a solutions-driven mindset with the ability to work independently and collaboratively
• Enjoy solving problems and finding resolution to complex challenges
• Be comfortable operating in an international organizational environment, working across time zones and occasionally outside standard business hours when needed
• Possess excellent verbal and written communication skills in English; additional languages (eg Spanish, Portuguese) welcome but not required

Commitments

• To Rare's mission and values
• To address important environmental issues such as climate change, overfishing, sustainable agriculture, etc. is required. Experience working on these issues is not required (in fact, sometimes experience working outside of these issues drives the sort of innovation the team most needs);
• To the success of a team, to both teach and learn from others, and toggle comfortably between directing and supportive roles as needed

Rare is an equal-opportunity employer that is committed to diversity and inclusion in the workplace. We prohibit discrimination and harassment of any kind based on race, color, gender, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, genetic information, pregnancy, or any other protected characteristic.