Process Excellence and Implementation Lead (Consultant)

About Verra.Verra is a global leader helping to tackle the world’s most intractable environmental and social challenges. As a mission-driven non-profit organization, Verra is committed to helping reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve livelihoods and protect natural resources across the private and public sectors. We support climate action and sustainable development with standards, tools and programs that credibly, transparently and robustly assess environmental and social impacts and enable funding for sustaining and scaling up projects that verifiably deliver these benefits. We work in any arena where we see a need for clear standards, a role for market-based mechanisms, and an opportunity to generate significant environmental and social value.Verra manages a portfolio of standards, including the: Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) -- the world’s leading carbon crediting program, with more than 2000 registered projects in 80 countries, and accounting for two-thirds of all voluntary carbon market transaction volume.Sustainable Development Verified Impact Standard (SD VISta) -- a flexible framework for assessing and reporting on the sustainable development benefits of project-based activities.Climate, Community & Biodiversity (CCB) Standards -- to identify projects that simultaneously address climate change, support local communities and smallholders, and conserve biodiversity.Plastic Waste Reduction Program -- to enable robust impact assessment of new or scaled-up waste recovery and recycling projects around the globe.Title: Process Excellence and Implementation Lead (Consultant)Location: Remote – US BasedReports to: Chief Executive OfficerDuration: 6-12month contract role with potential to extendConsultant Opportunity. Verra is a global leader in the development and management of high-integrity, high-impact programs for climate, sustainable development, and environmental projects. We have a long legacy of managing programs spanning standard-setting, validation/verification body management, project review, credit issuance, and registry operations. As project volumes and methodological complexity increase, we are seeking to improve cycle time, consistency, and reviewer efficiency while maintaining environmental integrity and governance rigor in our review process.We are transforming how we operate our programs by modernizing the end-to-end project review ecosystem, linking upstream readiness, digital submission and triage, and internal review execution. This role will lead operational transformation through process audits, implementing clear ownership and controls, and practical governance that reduces cycle time while protecting quality and integrity.You will convene and align cross-functional partners (including Verra’s Registry, Certification, Audit & Accreditation, Technology Solutions, Program Development, and Market & Client Relations teams) to identify and resolve friction points, bottlenecks, standardize ways of working, and ensure changes translate into measurable improvements in review times, throughput, transparency, and stakeholder experience.The Role.Deliver transformation of the project review and associated Verra processes and tools, in collaboration with staff, to significantly reduce project review duration while maintaining the integrity and quality of decisions.Process mapping and intervention: Identify and manage the implementation of high-impact interventions that reduce review times, including:Synthesize and validate review process mapping exercises already undertaken, and translate findings into an implementable improvement backlogImplement improved role clarity, handoffs, automation, and decision points to increase throughput and reduce wait statesRecalibrate the interface between Verra reviews and independent audits performed by validation/verification bodies to reduce duplicative effort and reworkEliminate sources of rework, delay, and manual overhead to sustainably improve cycle timeDigital review process improvement: Evaluate and enhance Verra’s digital tools for usability and customer experience; implement improvements that raise project submission quality, streamline reviewer task execution and decision support, reduce preventable errors, and embed guardrails, guidance, and structured workflows. (Verra’s Project Hub is our primary platform for digital project submission and reviews; it connects to our registry and several other internal databases.) Deliver a more resilient system that appropriately shifts accountability from individuals to the platform, recognizing this will require sustained dialogue, alignment, and change adoption.Automation & AI opportunities: Partner with tech services and project reviewers to identify, size, and implement high-value automation and AI use cases (e.g., completeness checks, requirement alignment and risk flagging, reviewer decision support, comparison to precedent, and structured comment/response management) that reduce manual effort and impro