Chief Operating Officer / Operations Lead
DETAILS
(m/v/x)
Organisation: Elzéard Foundation
Location: Cross-border region.
Belgium, the Netherlands and GermanyEmployment: Full-time position
Salary: Competitive salary, depending on experience
Start: To be discussed
You lay the operational groundwork that enables to carry our mission of protection, restoration and living continuity: the team, processes, planning, decision-making, and day-to-day follow-up.
You carry the day-to-day operations that enable Elzéard to fulfil its mission of protection, restoration and living continuity: the team, processes, planning, decision-making and daily follow-up.
You ensure that teams, projects and processes are aligned, and that strategic choices are effectively translated into action.
At the same time, you help build a system and network that are still evolving, bringing the necessary structure and clarity of responsibility so that Elzéard can reliably carry its mission without losing its ecological integrity, collaborative culture or deeper purpose.
You relieve the core team of a significant part of the operational burden, allowing the founders and strategic leadership to focus more fully on long-term vision, ecological direction, innovation and generative development.
Context
Elzéard is a mission-driven initiative and movement dedicated to the restoration of living systems and ecological connections at landscape scale. Within a cross-border landscape mosaic rooted in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, we are building, from a clear ecological compass, an ecological corridor understood as a living, relational system in which natural processes, biodiversity and regenerative land use function together.
Since 2016, we have been working to reverse species loss and restore connected ecosystems in which natural processes can once again unfold. We approach ecological restoration and regenerative land use as inseparable practices within one coherent system, connecting nature-producing agriculture, botanical restoration, food practices, local collaboration and new forms of shared stewardship.
More than an organisation, Elzéard functions as a prototype for systemic transformation: demonstrating how ecological restoration, regenerative land use, shared stewardship and commons-based responsibility can reinforce one another in practice.
Now that the restoration system and landscape-based work are taking shape, and as partnerships and activities increase in scope and complexity, Elzéard is entering a new phase of development. This includes a gradual transition from a founder-led organisation towards a more broadly carried, team-led organisation. To support this next stage, the operational organisation and governance are being strengthened without losing Elzéard’s entrepreneurial spirit, ecological integrity and collaborative culture.
To help shape this transition, we are looking for a Chief Operating Officer (COO) who can carry and further develop the operational dimension of Elzéard. As part of the multidisciplinary core team, the COO has a specific operational mandate: to organise and coordinate the day-to-day operations, align teams, projects and supporting functions, and translate strategic choices into clear priorities and effective execution.
In doing so, you relieve the founders, strategic leadership and wider core team of a significant part of daily operational follow-up, allowing them to focus more fully on long-term vision, ecological direction, innovation, partnerships and international collaboration. At the same time, you help build the operational backbone needed to carry Elzéard’s next phases of development in a sustainable way.
Role Purpose
As Chief Operating Officer (COO), you act as Elzéard’s operational integrator: ensuring that the organisation functions in a coherent, reliable and effective way on a daily basis.
You bring teams, projects and processes into alignment and ensure that strategic choices are effectively implemented.
You become the operational heart of Elzéard - not by by centralising all decisions, but by creating clarity, strong relationships and shared ownership. In this way, you enable the team and the wider movement to act independently and coherently. You help develop forms of shared responsibility and stewardship that can gradually reach beyond the organisation itself. In doing so, you ensure that operational choices remain aligned with Elzéard’s ecological principles and long-term responsibility.
This is not a conventional COO role within a finished organisation. As a member of the core team, you help shape the way Elzéard organises, decides and collaborates. From your specific operational responsibility, you ensure that the broader strategic and substantive ambitions of the core team can be translated into a coherent daily practice.
Organisational effectiveness is never an end in itself. Elzéard exists in service of the living system. Structures, processes and priorities must contribute to protection, restoration, ecological continuity and long-term stewardship.
You will have the mandate to define operational priorities, clarify roles and responsibilities, and make day-to-day organisational decisions within the agreed strategic direction, governance framework and ecological principles.
Gradually, you will take on full responsibility for the day-to-day operations. This creates a clear and sustainable division of roles: the COO carries operational leadership, while the strategic leadership gains more space for long-term vision, innovation and further development.
What you will do
Your role is structured around four core tasks:
1. Operational Leadership & Coordination
Take ownership of the daily functioning of the organization.
Coordinate activities across domains of work (restoration, agriculture, construction, administration, permits, supporting processes, etc.)
Ensure clarity in priorities, planning and follow-up.
Act as the primary point of contact for the team in the day-to-day work.
2. Team development & organisation
Build a coherent operational team with the people responsible for the main domains of work.
Clarify roles, responsibilities, reporting lines and decision-making authority within this team.
Ensure good collaboration and information flow between teams, projects and supporting functions.
Organise operational decisions as clearly and as close to implementation as possible, with alignment within the core team whenever the strategic direction, ecological principles or larger commitments of Elzéard are affected.
3. Developing systems & processes
Introduce lightweight but effective working structures, including:
Planning and follow-up;
Decision-making flows;
Basic reporting and progress monitoring.
Bring structure and overview into a rapidly evolving organisation, without over-formalising.
Ensure that essential operational processes — such as administration, permits, project follow-up and other supporting functions - run reliably
4. Helping the organisation develop further
Take on a key role in the transition towards a broadly supported and professionally organised way of working.
Gradually take over selected operational responsibilities
Safeguard continuity while Elzéard’s landscape-based work, responsibilities and partnerships continue to develop.
Contribute to translating strategic direction into practical implementation
Your role within the transition
You will be joining Elzéard at an important turning point in its development.
During the first phase, you will be given the time and support needed to get to know the organisation thoroughly: its people, projects, rhythms and underlying logic.
From there, you will gradually help build a more stable operational structure: clearer roles, simple and effective processes, better follow-up, and a daily working rhythm that brings more calm, coherence and capacity for execution into the organisation.
As this structure takes shape, you will become the team’s permanent operational point of contact. You will progressively take on day-to-day leadership — not by drawing everything towards yourself, but by organising responsibility, alignment and decision-making in a clear and reliable way.
Where useful, external support may remain available as a strategic sounding board. The intention, however, is that you gradually take full ownership of this role within Elzéard: as an internal, autonomous and reliable point of contact for the organisation’s day-to-day operations.
Profile
We are looking for someone who combines operational leadership with organisational insight, people-oriented leadership and the ability to bring structure into an organisation that is still fully developing. More specifically:
You bring strong experience in operational leadership, with the ability to create clarity, alignment, and continuity
You are able to introduce structure without rigidifying - shaping processes that support rather than constrain
You build workable structures and processes without making the organisation unnecessarily bureaucratic or rigid.
You have a pragmatic, hands-on mentality and move easily between strategic thinking and operational execution.
You feel at home in complex, dynamic environments where not everything has yet been fully worked out.
You have strong communication and interpersonal skills and radiate a natural form of leadership that encourages collaboration, trust and ownership.
You take responsibility, dare to make decisions and know how to move things forward.
You are fluent in Dutch and English. Knowledge of French or other languages is a significant asset.
You do not necessarily need to be a specialist in ecology or nature conservation, nor a classic corporate manager. Above all, we are looking for someone who can oversee complexity, create clarity and carry the operational development of Elzéard, with respect for the mission, values and underlying philosophy of the organisation.
What succes looks like — after 6-12 months
The day-to-day operations of the organisation is stable, structured and reliable.
Operational choices, planning and priorities are demonstrably aligned with protection, restoration, ecological continuity and stewardship.
Daily operational coordination and follow-up are carried by the COO and are sustainably embedded in the organisation, giving the core team more space for strategy, substantive development, scaling and international work.
A small core operational team is in place and functioning as a coherent middle layer
The team works from clear roles, responsibilities and priorities, with less dependence on ad hoc alignment.
Important operational domains - such as administration, land management, construction projects and permits - function smoothly and are proactively managed.
Simple but effective structures for planning, decision-making and follow-up are sustainably embedded in the daily work.
The organisation has evolved from a reactive way of working towards a culture of calm, coherence, ownership and purposeful forward-moving.
What we offer
A key role as operational lead within a broad and multidisciplinary core team, with direct influence on the further development of Elzéard.
The opportunity to help shape the operational organisation, so that Elzéard can reliably carry its mission of protection, restoration and living continuity without losing sight of its ecological integrity, culture and deeper purpose..
The opportunity to contribute to a landscape-wide system of protection and restoration, in which ecological restoration, regenerative land use, commons and new forms of stewardship are connected.
A working environment in which strategic thinking and daily practice are continuously connected.
Close collaboration with the founders, strategic leadership and other members of the core team, with gradually increasing autonomy and responsibility within your operational mandate.
Working in a small and committed team, where collaboration is direct, informal and based on shared intention.
The opportunity to become part of an international movement around large-scale restoration and land protection, rewilding, deep ecology and regenerative commons.
A context in which initiative, clarity, ownership and responsibility are valued, and in which your contribution has a visible and lasting impact on the work and on the mission of protection, restoration and living continuity.
The possibility to explore accommodation within the project area or the surrounding cross-border region - Aachen, Maastricht and Liège - depending on availability and mutual agreement.
The position centres around the tri- border region and requires regular presence in the field and at the different project locations. Practical arrangements regarding start date, contract type and place of work will be agreed mutually.
Applying?
If you feel addressed by the intention of this project and the nature of the role, we warmly invite you to apply.
