Cofounder & Chief Investment Officer

Cofounder & Chief Investment Officer

Company: Soundside Collective

Location: Remote / Wilmington, NC

Initial engagement: Part-time consulting arrangement, with a pathway to full-time executive leadership

Compensation: Modest monthly consulting retainer plus contractual eligibility for milestone-based equity awards, subject to definitive agreements.

About Soundside Collective

Soundside Collective is a coastal conservation company built around a simple belief: When you love something, you protect it.

We believe our coasts are more than beautiful places to visit. They’re home to vibrant communities, unique ecosystems, and cultures worth preserving. As our world changes, protecting these places requires new approaches that bring together people, businesses, and capital around a shared commitment to their future.

We’re working toward that mission through two complementary businesses.

Our consumer business creates coastal-inspired apparel and lifestyle products that celebrate the places we love while directing a portion of sales toward research institutions and nonprofit organizations working to protect and restore coastal ecosystems and communities.

Our enterprise business develops innovative financial products designed to rethink traditional approaches to risk transfer and attract more private investment into coastal resilience. We’re exploring new ways to connect financial markets, conservation, and measurable risk reduction to help coastal communities adapt, thrive, and endure in a changing world.

Together, these efforts reflect our belief that coastal conservation should be both a shared responsibility and an opportunity to create lasting value.

We’re now looking for an entrepreneurial financial partner to help develop, finance, and implement innovative investment strategies that mobilize private capital for coastal resilience.

The opportunity

As our prospective Cofounder and Chief Investment Officer, you’ll work directly alongside Soundside’s founder to develop innovative financial products, secure investment capital, and build the partnerships necessary to bring new financing mechanisms to market.

Our work focuses on exploring new approaches to connecting insurance and reinsurance markets, private investment, and coastal resilience. We believe financial innovation can play a meaningful role in expanding the capital available for coastal resilience while creating sustainable economic opportunities for investors and other stakeholders.

We’re seeking someone who understands traditional insurance-linked securities, structured finance, and reinsurance transactions, but who is equally interested in challenging conventional approaches and developing new ones.

This is not a traditional portfolio-management or corporate finance position. It’s an opportunity to help conceive, structure, finance, and implement new financial products from the ground up.

Key responsibilities

Financial product development and strategy

* Collaborate with the founder to develop and refine Soundside’s emerging financial products and investment strategies.

* Analyze catastrophe bonds, insurance-linked securities, reinsurance structures, and alternative risk-transfer mechanisms to identify opportunities for financial innovation.

* Explore new approaches to connecting catastrophe risk management, private capital, and investments in coastal resilience.

* Develop investment structures, blended-capital arrangements, transaction economics, and financial models.

* Evaluate investor returns, capital requirements, transaction feasibility, and potential implementation challenges.

* Identify and address structural, financial, regulatory, and operational considerations associated with developing new financial products.

Capital formation and fundraising

* Develop and execute Soundside’s initial seed fundraising strategy.

* Build relationships with foundations, family offices, philanthropic investors, impact investors, and institutional capital providers.

* Identify opportunities to combine concessional and commercial capital in innovative financing structures.

* Prepare financial models, investment proposals, fundraising materials, and investor presentations.

* Work alongside the founder to secure the capital necessary to continue financial product development, establish operations, and advance initial pilot opportunities.

* Develop longer-term capital formation strategies to support Soundside’s growth.

Transaction development and implementation

* Establish relationships with reinsurers, insurance-linked securities investors, actuarial firms, financial intermediaries, and other institutional partners.

* Help identify prospective coastal beneficiaries, conservation partners, and opportunities for pilot transactions.

* Coordinate with legal, actuarial, financial, and technical advisers to translate emerging financial concepts into executable agreements.

* Lead financial structuring efforts for initial pilot transactions.

* Develop frameworks for evaluating financial performance, investment outcomes, and risk-reduction benefits.

* Build repeatable processes for originating, structuring, financing, and implementing future transactions.

Ideal background

* 5–10 years of experience in insurance-linked securities, reinsurance, catastrophe bonds, structured finance, alternative investments, or related financial markets.

* Strong understanding of how catastrophe risk is modeled, priced, transferred, and financed.

* Experience developing financial products, structuring transactions, or evaluating investment opportunities.

* Demonstrated experience raising capital, engaging sophisticated investors, or developing institutional funding relationships.

* Strong financial modeling, analytical, and strategic problem-solving capabilities.

* An entrepreneurial mindset, intellectual curiosity, and willingness to explore unconventional financial structures.

* Genuine interest in coastal conservation and using financial innovation to address environmental challenges.

Experience at organizations involved in reinsurance, ILS, catastrophe risk modeling, structured finance, or innovative environmental investment would be particularly relevant.

We value demonstrated expertise, creativity, and entrepreneurial ambition over conventional executive titles.

Cofounder opportunity and compensation

This is an early-stage founding opportunity rather than a conventional salaried executive position.

The initial engagement is intended to be a part-time consulting relationship supported by a modest monthly retainer. We intend to offer a contractually defined right to future equity, with Class B non-voting share awards earned progressively through agreed business milestones.

The initial equity issuance and transition into full-time salaried employment are intended to follow the successful closing of a qualifying seed investment round sufficient to support Soundside’s continued financial product development and company operations.

Additional Class B equity may be earned as the company achieves subsequent milestones, including financial product development, pilot financing, successful transaction execution, and business growth.

Exceptional long-term contributions may also create opportunities to earn Class A voting equity.

All compensation, equity entitlements, and transition terms will be subject to mutually agreed definitive documentation.

We’re looking for a genuine partner who shares our belief that financial markets can do more than manage environmental risk—they can help finance a more resilient future for our coasts.