Director, North America Greenprint Programs

Job Description

Job Description

ABOUT ULI

The Urban Land Institute is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit research and education organization supported by its members. Founded in 1936, the Institute has more than 48,000 members worldwide representing the full spectrum of land use and real estate development disciplines across private enterprise and public service. ULI's mission is to shape the future of the built environment for transformative impact in communities worldwide.

ABOUT THE IMPACT LAB

The ULI Impact Lab is the philanthropically funded, systems-change arm of ULI. It aligns and amplifies ULI's flagship Centers and Initiatives: the Randall Lewis Center for Sustainability in Real Estate, the Terwilliger Center for Housing, and ULI's Initiative on Real Estate Economics and Capital Markets. The Impact Lab also houses ULI's Advisory Services and Technical Assistance capability and UrbanPlan, bringing multidisciplinary market expertise, stakeholder engagement, experiential learning, and implementable recommendations into community-centered development. Together, these programs share one goal: transforming real estate markets toward decarbonization, resilience, health, and housing affordability at scale.

ABOUT GREENPRINT

Greenprint is a worldwide alliance of about 120 real estate developers, owners, and managers with a shared commitment to investing in decarbonization and resilience, accelerating the journey to net zero while mitigating risk and adding value in their portfolios. 

Greenprint members provide a critical market interface for the Impact Lab's work, from surfacing and validating emerging opportunities, to piloting new solutions and sharing lessons learned, to contributing to ULI research and technical assistance, to scaling solutions through their own communications channels and portfolios. Members advance their decarbonization and resilience goals by sharing knowledge and best practices, benchmarking progress, and co-funding resources and tools that address their collective barriers to decarbonization.

THE ROLE

Think of Greenprint as an evolving ecosystem that harnesses members' collective expertise to accelerate sustainability progress across real estate. In North America alone, the community hosts dozens of virtual discussions a year: a monthly full-membership discussion, subgroups spanning resilience, regulations, and renewables, and webinars where outside experts deliver members-only briefings. Every one of these conversations is generative. A member might surface an emerging industry need that the Impact Lab can address through additional research or a pilot project, an outside expert might walk the group through the U.S. regulatory landscape, or members might engage directly with a standards body to help shape requirements that are actually achievable in a real estate portfolio. Sensing which threads matter, and knowing when to pull them, is the craft at the center of this job.

The Director will lead the North America community, working in close partnership with the Vice President, ULI Greenprint, and alongside regional counterparts in Asia Pacific and Europe to align priorities, facilitate knowledge sharing, and deliver data-driven insights and programming that advance decarbonization and resilience across the real estate market. This is a role built around relationships: you will own member relationships end to end, from the first outreach call through renewal, and co-create the future of Greenprint alongside members. Importantly, you will also spot patterns across membership and help translate those signals into an agenda for market transformation.

WHAT YOU WILL DO

Program Strategy & Member Leadership

• Set and refine program strategy and goals for North America in coordination with the Vice President and regional Greenprint leads; curate and evolve the program's offerings and focus to meet member needs.
• Serve as the face of Greenprint in North America, building trusted relationships with members, prospective recruits, industry organizations, and partners.
• Listen closely to member needs to identify shared barriers, emerging opportunities, and areas where ULI can uniquely add value.
• Represent the program at major industry events and ULI conferences, and host member events as appropriate.

Community Facilitation & Programming

• Lead recurring member discussions on decarbonization and resilience topics ranging from renewable energy to building sector regulations to market-scale resilience.
• Plan and manage members-only webinars, including opportunities for members to provide direct input into voluntary frameworks and standards.

Business Development & Growth

• Own business development for the region: identifying and recruiting new members, onboarding and invoicing them, and integrating them into the community.
• Coordinate with other parts of the organization, including Corporate Partners and Finance, to ensure a smooth process.
• Identify opportunities for program expansion, new service offerings, and strategic growth.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Position Greenprint as the Impact Lab's real estate “field interface,” creating spaces for sustainability leaders to inform, pilot, and scale ULI's research and tools within the operational and financial realities of a real estate portfolio.
• Surface emerging industry needs from the member community and propose ways the Impact Lab might address them, whether that’s through member programming, research, pilots, tools, technical assistance, industry engagement, or something else.

Communications & Storytelling

• Work with the Vice President and regional Greenprint leads to evolve Greenprint's storytelling across ULI's communications channels.
• Provide input and review for the monthly newsletter and external communications, including Urban Land articles.

Program Administration & Benchmarking

• Contribute to the annual “State of Green” benchmarking exercise: responding to member inquiries, coordinating with ULI's contractor, and reviewing the global report.
• Manage Greenprint's Innovation Partners Program, including recruiting new partners and proposing ways to evolve it alongside the Impact Lab's strategic direction.
• Help set the annual Greenprint budget, monitor and manage expenses with Finance, and refine and improve the program's systems and processes.

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR

Required

• 7–8 years of relevant professional experience in program management or client-facing roles, ideally at the intersection of commercial real estate and sustainability, inclusive of decarbonization and resilience. This experience can come from an in-house sustainability seat or from consulting, but the ideal candidate should genuinely understand Greenprint members' day-to-day priorities.
• Demonstrated ability to build credibility and maintain relationships with sustainability leaders, investors, developers, owners, and industry partners.
• Excellent professional oral and written communication and interpersonal skills, with comfort engaging members and partners at every level of an organization.
• Experience managing contractors to produce high-quality deliverables within budget.
• Comfort facilitating live conversations among senior professionals, including the judgment to know when to take on a member's idea, when to redirect it, and when to bring in an outside partner.
• Bachelor's degree required.
• Willingness to travel periodically; a reasonable expectation is about four trips a year.

Preferred

• A well-networked profile in the real estate sustainability space, spanning private companies as well as the industry organizations and policy environment around them.
• Strategic thinker with strong project management, problem-solving, and organizational skills.
• Comfort working across multiple internal teams, such as Resilience, Research, and Communications, to connect member needs to the Impact Lab's broader work.
• LEED AP, LEED GA, WELL AP, Fitwel, ENV SP, or a similar credential.
• Advanced degree in sustainability, business, real estate, engineering, urban planning, public policy, environmental science, or a related field.

WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE

In your first 90 days, you are building trust and rapport with Greenprint members through the fundamentals: being responsive, adding value, and asking good follow-up questions. Nobody expects you to know everything on day one. You’ll take the time to learn each members’ unique needs, priorities, and strengths. 

Beyond that first quarter, members will start to see you as a go-to thought partner and co-creator, which is the foundation everything else is built on. You’ll leverage your knowledge of members and the industry to bridge between Greenprint and other parts of the Impact Lab – including research, convenings, and technical assistance – so that Greenprint members participate in and influence the Lab’s market transformation agenda. 

COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS

The salary range for this position is $108,000 to $120,000. Actual compensation will be based on experience, education, skills, and other job-related factors. ULI offers a comprehensive benefits package including health, dental, and life insurance; generous vacation leave; and a retirement plan with employer match.

WORKING CONDITIONS

This role is based at ULI's Washington, D.C. headquarters. In alignment with the Board of Directors' strong commitment to in-person collaboration, the role follows ULI's standard expectation of four days per week in the office, reflecting how central relationship-building is to this work.

The Urban Land Institute is committed to shaping the future of the built environment for transformative impact in communities worldwide, and we embrace our core values of integrity, collaboration, inclusion, and excellence in service to our members.

ULI is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion/creed, sex, national origin, disability, genetic information, pregnancy, veteran or active military status, non-citizenship or citizenship status, arrest or conviction record, credit history, caregiver status, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital or partnership status, familial status, unemployment status, or any other status protected by applicable law.