Director of People Ops / Full-Time / Baltimore, MR, Washington

At Cambium, we say that complex problems require holistic solutions. This role will be at the heart of enabling our team to do exceptional work. We’re not interested in jumping one level up in terms of execution and organization. We’re interested in jumping several levels. If you’re excited by joining a low-ego, high-performing team committed to seeking truth and solving real problems that tangibly move the needle to address Climate Change, then this could be the place for you. 

Cambium Carbon is a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC) backed by former Mayor of Washington, DC, Adrian Fenty (MaC Capital), former CEO of AOL, Steve Case (Revolution’s Rise of the Rest), Co-founder of Alibaba, Joe Tsai, and others!

About Us

Cambium Carbon, a circular economy innovator, tackles key environmental challenges in supply chains. Utilizing our Traece® technology, we salvage fallen lumber and transform it into Carbon Smart Wood™, a carbon negative building material. Our partnerships with cities enable us to salvage fallen trees from landfills, repurpose them, and reinvest in local tree planting efforts. This approach not only supports environmental sustainability but also stimulates job creation and strengthens local economies, underscoring our commitment to combating climate change at scale.

Cambium is at a pivotal growth stage. With $10M in funding over the past 3 years, we are on the cusp of defining a new market for truly sustainable materials. The reality is that it is hard to disrupt one of the oldest active industries (lumber) and bring it into the 21st century. We do not have time to waste, and we need someone to come in and level up our team–enabling a 5th generation impact in all we do.

What You’ll Do

We do not need someone to come in and simply build a new system to organize our work. Instead, we need someone who has a proven track record of co-creating holistic approaches to establishing, tracking, and accomplishing ambitious goals.

This role will work closely with the department leaders to enhance accountability, efficiency, and prioritization. You will develop performance management processes to ensure employees at all levels continuously understand their own performance and career growth opportunities within Cambium. As the first People Ops hire, there will also be a prioritization process of what needs attention now vs later.

Develop & Implement the Cambium Operating System Framework (50%)

• Create simple, easy-to-use systems to track team and individual goals, milestones, and projects over time

• Ability to update and assess the progress or success of those goals

• Easily utilize this data for team retrospectives and individual performance reviews

• Have candid conversations with the team to ensure accountability, alignment, and effectiveness

• Develop a real-time performance management process that ensures top-down, peer-to-peer and bottoms-up feedback is incorporated and continuously reviewed

Distill core objectives and support operationalization across verticals (30%)

• Work with Executive team to outline 12 month company plan to execute core goals 

• Outline 6-month and quarterly targets for VP/Vertical leads to own and solve for

• Frameworks for judging “Good VS Great” outcomes to get there

• Identify cross-functional requirements, including ways to anticipate coordination between budget(s)

• Steering strategic business initiatives from genesis to fruition.

• Pinpointing and addressing core issues within business processes and creating solutions to fix them “once and for all.”

Level up the Cambium Team (20%)

• Once the team wide system is set up, work with various departments to develop team-specific accountability tools/systems

• Ensure accountability across verticals and training our team to focus on the most important things while ignoring “noise”

• Enable the reporting and accountability across verticals

About You: Required

• You are a phenomenal communicator–you sift through noise, ask pointed questions and are not afraid to press and hold people accountable.

• You are unbiased in your pursuit of truth and excellence

• You can digest large amounts of information. Our work covers many arenas. When they fit together, they create a flywheel that propels our business forward. You must digest this info and keep it top of mind as we move forward on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. 

• You know what excellent operations look and feel like (the hard and soft side of them). 

• You are comfortable working behind the scenes and not necessarily owning the direct completion of projects

• You see accountability in black and white. Either people are hitting their metrics or they aren’t, and you aren’t afraid to call them out. 

• You understand people, how they communicate, how to produce their best work, and how to enable teams to work effectively together.  

Preferred Qualifications

• You have worked at growth- and scale-stage (Series A+) start ups–understanding the balance between process and freedom, the need to move fast & prioritize, and the importance of letting certain fires burn.

• You have experience with hard tech companies. We don’t just write code. We are in the business of tangible climate solutions that move the needle. Lumber is big and it takes time. 

• You have experience working with Executive teams & departments to align objectives and enable effective communication. 

The Details

This role will report to: CEO
When: We’re looking to fill this role immediately
Where: Baltimore, Maryland/Washington, DC area preferred, but open to remote positions 
Salary Range: $80-120k or commensurate with experience

Perks & Benefits

• Equity options package

• Flexible schedule

• Unlimited PTO 

• Retirement plan and 401k matching

• Comprehensive medical, dental & vision insurance

• Regular team events

• Volunteer tree planting events

• Work with an incredibly smart, diverse, climate mission-driven team

• An opportunity to play a core role in defining our fast-growing company 

Diversity, Equity and Inclusiveness 

Cambium Carbon is committed to building an inclusive organization that reflects the diverse communities our team works to serve. We believe that diversity in all its forms (gender, race, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, religion, veteran's status, disability and more) is essential to imagining and actively building a more just and sustainable future for all. We also actively promote diversity outside our organization, through the partnerships we enter into and the business decisions we make.

Learn more about our culture and values here.