Project Director, Keta Blue, Ghana

Job description

**Job Mission** The Project Director will lead the successful turnaround and implementation of the Keta Blue mangrove restoration project through adaptive management, strong partnership governance, and disciplined execution. As the primary accountability for its successful implementation, they will create the conditions for Terraformation, ReDAW, technical experts, communities, and other stakeholders to operate as a high-functioning project team with clear roles, decision rights, accountability, and trust. The Project Director will integrate technical, operational, social, commercial, carbon, and governance considerations; make sound decisions with incomplete information; and establish structured processes for hypothesis testing, intervention design, learning, and decision gates. They will be accountable for translating emerging evidence into clear recommendations and timely adjustments while ensuring that the project meets Terraformation’s commitments to communities, partners, investors, and carbon stakeholders. **Location:** Based in TF Accra Office with at least 50% of working time spent in the Keta Lagoon area. Maintaining a consistent field presence will be a core performance expectation for this role. **Competitive Salary** ### Responsibilities - Own the turnaround and successful delivery of Keta Blue, with accountability for integrated project performance across technical, operational, community, financial, carbon, commercial, and governance dimensions. - Establish and lead an adaptive-management system based on clear hypotheses, targeted interventions, measurable indicators, structured learning cycles, and evidence-based decision gates. - Lead project governance with ReDAW and other key partners by defining roles, decision rights, communication and reporting cadences, escalation pathways, and mutual accountability. - Build a high-functioning partnership grounded in trust, transparency, constructive challenge, and consistent follow-through on commitments. - Maintain a strong field presence, spending at least 50% of working time in the Keta Lagoon area to understand implementation realities, strengthen relationships, and ensure that decisions are grounded in field evidence. - Apply systems thinking to identify how technical, ecological, operational, social, commercial, carbon, and governance issues interact and affect overall project performance. - Set clear expectations and hold implementing partners accountable for project milestones, quality, reporting, safeguards, and contractual obligations while maintaining strong working relationships. - Exercise sound judgment to resolve operational challenges locally whenever appropriate while escalating strategic, legal, financial, or commercial issues with clear recommendations and supporting analysis. - Maintain an integrated project plan, budget, risk register, decision log, and performance dashboard that provide leadership and investors with a clear view of project status and required decisions. - Lead regular project reviews to capture lessons learned, address recurring issues, and strengthen project execution across Ghana. - Communicate project performance, uncertainty, trade-offs, and recommendations transparently to Terraformation leadership, investors, auditors, and governance bodies. - Travel up to 50% of the time to partner offices, restoration sites, nurseries, community meetings, and government engagements across Ghana, including Keta Lagoon, and future project sites. ### Minimum Qualifications - 15+ years leading complex large-scale, internationally funded programs or projects in restoration, conservation, climate, infrastructure, rural development, or another relevant field. - Experience leading internationally funded conservation, restoration, climate, or development programs with multiple implementing partners. - Demonstrated success stabilizing, turning around, or significantly improving a complex project operating under uncertainty. - Strong experience in adaptive management, including hypothesis development, intervention design, structured learning, scenario planning, and evidence-based decision-making. - Demonstrated success building trusted relationships and influencing executive leadership within NGOs, government agencies, donor organizations, or private-sector partners. - Strong systems-thinking capability and experience integrating technical, operational, social, financial, commercial, and governance considerations. - Sound commercial and financial judgment, including the ability to evaluate trade-offs, manage budgets, understand contractual incentives, and protect long-term project viability. - Experience engaging respectfully with local communities while balancing restoration objectives, partner relationships, and social safeguards. - Track record of proactively identifying project risks and implementing corrective actions. - Experience leading multidisciplinary teams across technical, community, finance, and operations functions. - Significant field-based leadership experience in emerging-market, rural, or community-based contexts. - Experience presenting project updates and recommendations to senior leaders, funders, auditors, and other executive stakeholders. - Fluent in English. Professional proficiency in Ewe is strongly preferred.