Head of People & Organizational Development

Location: Remote, within 6 hours of US Eastern Time

About SPUN

SPUN (Society for the Protection of Underground Networks) is a startup NGO with a mission to map and protect the mycorrhizal fungal networks that regulate Earth’s climate and ecosystems. These fungi draw down approximately 13 billion tons of CO2 each year, yet they have been largely overlooked by science, policy, and practice.

Since our founding in 2021, we’ve built a global data platform to make these invisible networks measurable. Through our Underground Explorers program and network of over 700 Science Associates across more than 80 countries, with the majority in the Global South, we generate high-resolution biodiversity maps and ML-powered tools that integrate mycorrhizal data into climate, conservation, restoration, and land management decisions.

Our work spans laboratory research, data science, and robotics through to locally led field applications, and we’ve begun working with policymakers and restoration practitioners to apply our findings on the ground. With strong backing from leading foundations and growing momentum in international policy circles, we’re now at an inflection point: scaling these efforts across more landscapes, institutions, and countries over the long term.

That next phase calls for new capabilities. We’re strengthening our data science and impact strategy capabilities alongside our research, and have recently brought in leaders in global policy and impact, partnerships and adoption, and restoration science. Over the next two to three years, we expect to add people at every level, from directors to managers and coordinators. Doing this efficiently, across new disciplines and with a team spread across many countries, is a real organizational challenge.

The Opportunity

We’re looking for a Head of People & Organizational Development to shape how SPUN works as it grows. This is not a traditional HR role. Day-to-day HR administration will sit with a dedicated Operations Manager. Your focus is the organization itself: how our people collaborate, make decisions, develop, and use the tools available to them to do their best work.

You will work closely with senior leadership across three connected areas:

Ways of working. Design the structures, rhythms, and practices that keep a distributed, multidisciplinary team aligned and moving quickly. That covers how decisions get made and how knowledge gets shared. It also covers how scientists, data scientists, policy specialists, and partnership leads work together toward shared goals.

Tools and technology. Shape the tools we rely on so they actually serve the work. This includes AI, which we believe can help expand what a small, distributed organization can accomplish in research, operations, and partnerships, but caution is also needed. The goal is not simply rolling out new tools—it is building the skills, judgment, and confidence to use them well without compromising scientific integrity.

Culture and leadership. Help our culture scale as new teams and leaders join. That means developing managers, building feedback and growth practices, and making sure people from very different disciplines and places feel part of one organization.

Key Responsibilities

Organizational Design & Growth

• Design and evolve SPUN’s organizational structure as we grow, so that teams, roles, reporting lines, and leadership responsibilities support our strategy.
• Partner with senior leadership to anticipate the capabilities SPUN will need as we expand into new disciplines, and shape a thoughtful approach to hiring across levels.
• Assess organizational health regularly, using clear indicators to identify where structure, capacity, or ways of working are creating friction or limiting impact.
• Work with the Operations Manager to ensure people policies and processes reflect SPUN’s values and work well across the countries where we operate.

Ways of Working

• Design the operating rhythms, decision-making processes, and planning practices that keep a distributed team aligned and moving quickly.
• Strengthen how knowledge is captured and shared across the organization, so that work doesn’t depend on a single person, meeting, or time zone.
• Improve how scientists, data scientists, policy specialists, and partnership leads collaborate toward shared goals, including the handoffs between research and applied work.

Tools & AI Adoption

• Shape SPUN’s core tools and how we use them, making sure they benefit the research, our people, the organization, and our interactions with partners and the public.
• Partner with senior leadership to develop SPUN’s approach to AI. Identify where it can meaningfully increase our impact and capacity, while weighing the implications for our mission and people.
• Work with team leads to identify high-value AI use cases and the workflows, roles, and skills needed to make the most of them.
• Build AI fluency across the organization through training, peer learning, experimentation, and practical resources tailored to different roles and levels of technical expertise.
• Create ways for teams to share experiments, emerging practices, and lessons learned, so that adoption becomes a collective capability rather than a collection of individual efforts.

Culture & Connection

• Create the conditions for a healthy, ambitious, and inclusive culture across a globally distributed organization, including practical approaches to team health, feedback, conflict resolution, and trust-building.
• Build intentional opportunities for connection across time zones, disciplines, and teams, recognizing that many colleagues rarely work together in person.
• Design and facilitate retreats, team sessions, and leadership gatherings that strengthen relationships and improve how we work together.
• Design onboarding that brings new team members into SPUN’s culture and ways of working, not just its systems.
• Develop a thoughtful approach to recognizing team and individual achievements.

Leadership, Performance & Development

• Partner with senior leaders and managers to strengthen their ability to lead people as SPUN grows, with clear expectations for management and leadership.
• Establish effective practices for feedback, goal-setting, development conversations, and performance reviews, so people understand what success looks like in their roles and how they can grow.
• Develop progression pathways, including support for people moving from individual contributor roles into management.
• Identify opportunities for learning and professional development across the organization.

Required Qualifications

Organizational builder. You have 7+ years of experience helping organizations scale and build culture, trust, connection, and accountability, ideally where people work remotely across time zones.

Strategist who builds. You can shape the strategy and then roll up your sleeves to build the processes, frameworks, and systems yourself.

Deeply curious about people. You want to understand what motivates people, how teams function, and what gets in the way of people doing their best work. You listen carefully and get to the real problem quickly.

Trusted leadership partner. You are comfortable advising senior leaders and challenging their thinking when necessary, while building strong relationships and credibility. You handle sensitive information and complex interpersonal situations with maturity and care.

Experienced in changing how people work. You have led the adoption of new tools, technologies, or ways of working, including AI. You know that lasting change depends on training, change management, and building confidence, not just rollout.

Excellent communicator. You communicate equally well with scientists, data scientists, policy and partnership specialists, and senior leadership, adapting your approach to different audiences.

Mission-driven. You are excited by SPUN’s mission and motivated to build the organizational conditions that allow a pioneering environmental NGO to have greater impact.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in a science, research, environmental, or impact-driven organization.
• Experience in a globally distributed organization operating across multiple countries and employment jurisdictions.
• Experience working with multidisciplinary teams that span science, policy, partnerships, and operations.
• Experience building career frameworks, performance systems, or development programs from scratch.
• Hands-on experience with AI tools and a genuine interest in how they will change the way organizations work.

Why Join SPUN

At SPUN, we know that taking care of our team means empowering people to do their best work. Our benefits support health, well-being, growth, and balance. They are tailored to local laws so that everyone across our globally distributed team receives the same high standard of support.

We believe work should be both impactful and sustainable, and our benefits are designed to help you thrive in your role and beyond.

At SPUN, we embrace diversity as a fundamental pillar of our mission to protect underground ecosystems. Our commitment to decolonizing science depends on the diversity of knowledge and experience on our team and among our partners across the globe. We are committed to creating an inclusive environment where all individuals, regardless of their race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability, or background, feel valued, respected, and empowered to bring their authentic selves to work. We highly encourage individuals from traditionally underrepresented or marginalized groups, including but not limited to women, LGBTQIA+ people, individuals from the Global South, and individuals with Indigenous heritage, to apply to join our team at SPUN.

To learn more about our organization and culture, please visit our website www.spun.earth.