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Open Innovation Program Associate
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Posted on Jul 25, 2026
Conservation X Labs Inc Open Innovation Program Associate Remote · Full time Company website
Conservation X Labs (CXL) is hiring an Open Innovation Program Associate to support the Accelerated Restoration Grand Challenge, a three-year open-innovation program inside the South America Fire Fund (SAFF) focused on post-fire forest restoration across the Amazon, Chiquitania, and Pantanal. This is a coordination and operations role. You keep the challenge moving day to day, make sure the trains run on time, and keep the many partners and workstreams in sync so the Challenge Manager and the rest of the team can focus on the work. You will not own the program; you will make it run smoothly.
About Conservation X Labs Inc
Our mission is to prevent an impending sixth mass extinction – the first in Earth’s history driven by the actions of a single species: ours. Unlike traditional conservation efforts, Conservation X Labs focuses on leveraging the best technology, the newest innovation, interdisciplinary genius, and the power of the marketplace to boldly confront the biggest problems facing the planet. Though humans have driven this sixth extinction, we know humans have the power to reverse it.
Description
About Conservation X Labs
Our mission is to prevent an impending sixth mass extinction, the first in Earth’s history driven by the actions of a single species: ours.
Unlike traditional conservation efforts, Conservation X Labs focuses on leveraging the best technology, the newest innovation, interdisciplinary genius, and the power of the marketplace to boldly confront the biggest problems facing the planet. Though humans have driven this sixth extinction, we know humans have the power to reverse it.
Description
Who we are
The South America Fire Fund (SAFF) seeks to tackle fire, the leading cause of tropical primary forest loss, in three globally significant ecoregions including the Amazon, Chiquitania, and Pantanal. It is an experiment at the size of the Amazon Basin to prevent the Amazon from tipping. The Fund unites partners to build and test integrated prevention and response systems, learn quickly, and scale what works. It focuses on the underlying conditions that drive destructive fire and combines community-led stewardship, cutting-edge innovation and technology, and data-driven decision systems.
The Accelerated Restoration Grand Challenge is a three-year prize challenge nested within the SAFF. Its premise is that the bottleneck in post-fire restoration is no longer whether to restore but how to do it at the speed and scale the crisis demands, and that the answers will come from advances the field has not yet put to work at scale. It runs an open call for restoration innovations, selects a cohort of winners, and field-tests their solutions with regional partners across six Landscape Innovation Field-Testing (LIFT) sites in Brazil, Bolivia, and Peru. It has a lot of moving parts, a lot of partners, and hard deadlines. The Program Associate is the person who keeps all of it coordinated and on schedule, working under the Challenge Manager and alongside the wider CXL Open Innovation team.
Who you are
• You are the person who keeps things on track. You like owning the checklist, the calendar, and the follow-ups, and you get satisfaction from a project that runs on time.
• You are highly organized and detail-oriented, and you can hold several workstreams, partners, and deadlines in your head at once without dropping anything.
• You are a strong coordinator and communicator who is comfortable chasing people politely, keeping partners in the loop, and flagging problems early rather than late.
• You are comfortable in a support seat. You make other people’s work easier and you do not need to be the one in charge.
• You work well across time zones and cultures, including with partners in Latin America.
• You are energized by the CXL mission to end extinction, and you want to spend this part of your career on a hard problem that matters.
How you will support CXL
• Keep the challenge on schedule. Hold the master timeline and the Gantt that goes with it, track deadlines and milestones across every workstream, and flag slippage and roadblocks early so the Challenge team can act on them.
• Coordinate the partners. Be the reliable point of contact who keeps LIFT hosts, restoration groups, research and seed networks, innovators, and contractors in sync, schedules and follows up on calls, and makes sure nothing falls between the cracks.
• Support the open application period. Help run the submission platform and applicant tracking, keep the webinar rhythm on the calendar, and answer routine applicant questions, escalating the rest.
• Support the evaluation process alongside the Challenge Manager and Technical Expert: coordinate evaluator agreements and conflict-of-interest paperwork, keep scoring on schedule, and help with the logistics of shaping the cohort.
• Support field-testing alongside the Accelerator Program Manager and the LIFT partners, tracking onboarding, reporting milestones, grant payment timing, and coordination with the innovators.
• Keep the records straight. Maintain the partner and MOU tracking in Airtable, feed the M&E data collection, and keep grant reporting and paperwork current with the Finance Lead.
• Help with launch and events. Support the launch, the CoLab kick-off, and the closing awards event, including coordinating with event-logistics contractors.
Qualifications
Required
• Two or more years of experience in program coordination, project support, operations, or a similar role, ideally on something with many partners and moving parts.
• Strong organizational and coordination skills, with real attention to detail and the ability to keep multiple workstreams and deadlines on track at once.
• Clear, reliable written and verbal communication, and comfort keeping distributed partners and contractors coordinated, including in Latin America.
• Working English and Spanish.
• Ability to travel to field sites in South America.
Desired
• Portuguese.
• Background in restoration, fire, conservation, or environmental innovation.
• Experience supporting grant or prize programs, subcontracts, or cross-border payments.
• Familiarity with Airtable and submission platforms such as Submittable.
Application Instructions
Please apply with a cover letter that explains why you fit what we are looking for, along with your resume.
About Conservation X Labs and Our Culture
Conservation X Labs (CXL) seeks to solve the world’s greatest conservation problems by supporting innovative solutions that address the underlying drivers of extinction. We create solutions to prevent the extinction crisis by developing new technology in our labs, leading innovation competitions, and empowering talented innovators across disciplines to create transformative products that serve people and our planet. CXL operates as both a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and a related B-corporation.
We are building an organization of problem solvers who are personable, highly motivated, and passionate about our mission. We want people who want to disrupt conservation in order to radically improve it. We are looking for those who have dared mighty things by trying a path others have not chosen, who have failed and learned from it, and who like to experiment, make things, hack things, test things, and break things, particularly dogmatic approaches to conservation or technology. Finally, we want kind, hardworking people who will devote their intellectual and creative energy to our mission, enjoy working on a team, and are driven by their passion.
CXL is committed to creating and cultivating a diverse workforce and an inclusive environment where every employee and contractor can work free from all forms of unlawful or intentional discrimination. We hire, promote, transfer, terminate, and make all employment-related decisions without regard to race, creed, ethnicity, religion, national origin, sex, gender, or sexual orientation. To learn more about our programs and mission, please visit www.conservationxlabs.com.
Terms
This is a full-time role of three years, paid from the program budget and reporting to the Challenge Manager and the Open Innovation Director. Location is flexible, with a base in Latin America strongly preferred. Pay will be based on location and experience levels.