Chief Executive Officer

The Land Trust Alliance (“the Alliance”), a national leader and voice for private land conservation, seeks a new Chief Executive Officer (CEO).

With over four decades of leadership in conservation, the Alliance supports a membership base of nearly 1,000 independent and community-based land trusts with over six million collective supporters. Together, they have protected over 61 million acres of land across the United States. Whether through private conservation, like natural land or agricultural easements, or by purchasing land, land trusts provide places that provide clean water and air, habitat for wildlife, food and fiber, climate resilience, and places to connect with nature and our cultural heritage.

Land conservation remains a unifying priority and of growing interest, underscoring the enduring relevance of the Alliance’s mission to save the places people need and love. The Alliance accomplishes this by empowering and mobilizing land trusts in communities across America to conserve land — and connect people to the land — for the benefit of all. The Alliance’s work is rooted in the belief that real change is made by people.

The Alliance seeks a bold, visionary leader to articulate an ambitious strategy to empower land trusts to accelerate the protection of the nation’s vital lands. To do so, the Alliance must help defend the progress already made, strengthen member land trusts, and engage new and underrepresented communities in the conservation movement.

As the leader of a nonpartisan organization with considerable influence on federal conservation policy and funding, the CEO will also have an unparalleled opportunity to mobilize the Alliance’s grassroots constituency to advocate for land protection and accelerate private land conservation. With most of the land in the U.S. in private hands, private land conservation presents a significant opportunity to address pressing challenges, including loss of biodiversity, fragmentation, maintaining resiliency, loss of livelihoods, and access to nature.

Reporting to a 20-member Board of Directors, the CEO will manage approximately ninety staff nationwide and oversee an annual operating budget of nearly $25 million. The successful candidate will be a dedicated, results-oriented leader and spokesperson with consummate skills in fundraising, partnership development, and organizational management. This leader will bring a passion for conservation and the ability to galvanize and expand a constituency of partners and supporters to secure a permanent legacy of protected lands for future generations.

A six-member board/staff search committee has been appointed to conduct this search. All inquiries, nominations, and applications should be directed in confidence electronically below.

Andy Lee is leading this search with Damla Williams.