Product Specialist II, Outcome-based Finance, Global Restoration Initiative

The World Resources Institute is seeking a Product Specialist II for its Global Restoration Initiative in Washington, DC. This hybrid role requires 8 days in-office monthly and focuses on defining and scaling finance for restoration outcomes. The position involves significant research and product management related to outcome-based finance, with a strong emphasis on data analysis and software solutions to support local restoration projects across various regions.
This is a hybrid position that requires 8 days per month in the office. You can be based in our office in Washington DC. Existing work authorization is required at the time of application submission as WRI is unable to sponsor any visa work sponsorship for this position. To be eligible for this position, you must be a resident of DC, Maryland or Virginia at the start of employment.


About the Program:
WRI's Global Restoration Initiative informs in people restoring degraded land, with its flagship TerraFund program supporting over 200 enterprises and community nonprofits across Africa, Latin America, and South Asia.


The Restore
Local initiative advances this work through a $60M+ portfolio of locally led projects across priority landscapes in Africa, Brazil, and India. Built through the TerraMatch platform, the portfolio spans grant funding, and debt and equity investments in SMEs and blended finance structures. In its next phase, WRI's Restoration team is leveraging technology. The team is also leveraging its growing network of local partners. This collaboration will develop scalable finance solutions. These solutions will mobilize greater public and private capital, delivering measurable outcomes for people, nature, and climate.


Job Highlight:
WRI's Global Restoration Initiative is at an exciting moment in our strategy. Your team will focus on defining, measuring, and scaling finance for restoration outcomes. We are making investment in our software products and analytical services to support our dramatically increase (from millions to billions of dollars) our ability to bring money to the ground for local restoration.


This is an exciting opportunity for someone passionate about applying data improvement and software solutions to mobilize finance for nature-positive solutions and sustainable economic development.


Our team's focus on outcome-based finance necessitates a dedicated Product Specialist to translate outcome data analyses to product requirements for delivery. You'll spend your first months building deep domain expertise in outcome-based finance economics, which positions you to lead the product requirements and feature delivery for OBF tools starting in 2027. The first 18 months will look like this:


Phase 1 (2026): ~70% restoration finance research & analysis, ~30% product analytics foundation-building. You will contribute to data-driven economic analyses and develop evidence-based economic cases that demonstrate the value of restoration and inform the design of outcome-based finance models linking ecological outcomes to financial performance. You will also support the product team in analytics systems and research work. Phase 2 (2027 onward): ~30% ongoing analytical support and ad hoc research projects as interest and time allows, ~70% product management of OBF features. Your focus will shift to operationalizing these models in software, building your expertise in the product development cycle to deliver analytics and interfaces to investors, champions, and project managers on the ground. You will continue to provide analytical support to the economics team, but your primary accountability will be product delivery. The Restoration Invest Team and Product Team will support you. You will report to the Senior Investment Manager for Blended and Outcome Finance in 2026, and the Senior Product Manager in 2027. You will also work with the Head of Restoration Economics.
What you will do:
Research and Analysis (50% time)


[These analytical tasks build the domain expertise required to define OBF product features. Analytical findings will directly inform product feature prioritization and the OBF module roadmap.]


Collect, clean, and analyze economic, financial, and environmental datasets to assess the costs, benefits, risks, and investment performance of forest and landscape restoration initiatives. Develop analytical models, statistical analyses, and visualizations to support economic assessments, data backed economic cases, investment strategies, and outcome-based finance design. Contribute analytical inputs to the design and evaluation of outcome-based finance models. These models link ecological outcomes and ecosystem service improvements to financial performance and investment structures. Additionally, deepen understanding of the data needs of potential outcome payers. Product Development & Ownership (50%)
It is expected that in 2026, the Product focus of the role will primarily be in the Product Analytics & User Research Foundation bucket. In 2027, it will transition to Product Management & Delivery bucket. The role will involve building scripts, workflows, and t