World Wildlife Fund

Carter Roberts, President and CEO

Carter Roberts is President and CEO of World Wildlife Fund–United States (WWF-U.S.). WWF’s mission is to advance solutions that conserve the diversity of life on Earth while meeting the needs of people. WWF, the world’s largest network of international conservation organizations, works across 100 countries and enjoys the support of 5 million members worldwide, 1.2 million of which are in the U.S. Since joining WWF-U.S. in 2004, Roberts has built a new strategy that relies on global teams to integrate policy, markets and field conservation initiatives to deliver conservation at scale in the 20 most important ecosystems around the world. Under his leadership, WWF has forged partnerships with institutions like The Coca-Cola Company, Walmart, Mars and CARE. Prior to joining WWF, Roberts worked for 15 years at The Nature Conservancy, first running their Massachusetts chapter and then opening their programs in Central America. Roberts serves on the boards of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change, a collaboration between Imperial College and the London School of Economics; InterAction, a consortium of development and environmental NGOs seeking a holistic approach to foreign assistance; and the Nicholas Institute at Duke University. He holds an M.B.A. from Harvard University and a B.A. from Princeton University.

Marcia Marsh, Chief Operating Officer

Marcia Marsh is the Chief Operating Officer for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). At WWF, Marcia is responsible for the execution of the organization’s strategy. She also serves as our lead change manager helping to align all of our people, processes and technology with our ambitious new strategy.

Prior to joining WWF, Marcia served in a number of important leadership roles from Vice President of Government Transformation at the Partnership for Public Service, Practice Leader for Integrated Solutions and International Consulting for Watson Wyatt Worldwide and partner with Price Waterhouse’s Global Human Resource Solutions business. She has 26 years of general business and human capital consulting experience focusing on helping complex organizations achieve their business strategies. In the private sector, her clients have included PepsiCo, Viacom, General Electric, Westinghouse, Corning, Phillips Petroleum, Rockwell, and Goldman Sachs.

In the public sector, Marcia worked with Agencies such as the Departments of Defense, Education, Interior, HHS, Energy, etc. Her efforts included building creative partnerships between private sector executives, government leaders, good government organizations and academics to provide innovative solutions to critical government management challenges.

Margaret Ackerley, Senior Vice President and General Counsel

Margaret Ackerley, WWF’s general counsel since June 2000, handles general corporate legal matters for WWF including contracts, tax, corporate governance, intellectual property, employment, litigation, technology, estates, fundraising, charitable giving, and various regulatory compliance issues. Prior to joining WWF as assistant general counsel in January 1999, Ms. Ackerley practiced law at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering in Washington, D.C. While in private practice, Ms. Ackerley provided counsel to numerous Fortune 500 as well as non-profit clients, and was recognized with the firm’s first pro bono publico services award. Earlier in her career, she was a public finance analyst for the First Boston Corporation. She graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College and received her law degree from Yale Law School, where she currently serves on the executive committee of the alumni association.

Ginette Hemley, Senior Vice President Conservation Strategy and Sciences

Ginette Hemley is WWF's Senior Vice President for Conservation Strategy and Science. She oversees development and execution of the WWF conservation strategy and jointly manages the organization’s $100 million conservation budget. She works with WWF’s conservation teams to facilitate the integration of field-based conservation efforts with global market, policy and partnership initiatives, to advance the organization’s work in 19 priority places around the world and track the effectiveness of the WWF’s programs. Previously, as WWF's Managing Vice President for Conservation, she was responsible for the day-to-day operations of WWF’s conservation program. As an authority on endangered species, Hemley founded WWF’s Species Conservation Program and launched successful global recovery strategies for critically endangered species while serving as Vice President for Species Conservation. Prior to that, she directed WWF’s International Wildlife Policy Program and wildlife trade program, TRAFFIC. A biologist with over 20 years of international conservation experience, she received a BS in biology from the College of William and Mary, studied history and philosophy at Oxford University, and is an ELIAS Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Jason Clay, Senior Vice President Market Transformations

Dr. Jason Clay is Senior Vice President and Managing Director, Markets, World Wildlife Fund. He leads WWF-US’ work on forests, fisheries, agriculture, aquaculture, and finance. He is lead in the WWF Network on aquaculture and agriculture, as well as supply chain management. Clay studied at Harvard and the London School of Economics before receiving his Ph.D. at Cornell University in 1979 in anthropology and international agriculture. Over the course of his career he has worked on a family farm, taught at Harvard and Yale, worked in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and spent more than twenty-five years working with human rights and environmental organizations. In 1988, Clay invented Rainforest Marketing, one of the first fair-trade ecolabels in the United States and was responsible for co-creating Rainforest Crunch and more than 200 other products with combined sales of $100 million.

From 1999-2003, Clay co-directed a consortium with WWF, World Bank, UN Food and Agriculture Organization, and National Aquaculture Centres of Asia/Pacific to identify and analyze better management practices that address the most significant environmental and social impacts of shrimp aquaculture. Since then he has co-convened (with the IFC and others) multi-stakeholder roundtables of investors, buyers, producers, researchers and NGOs to identify and reduce the social and environmental impacts of such products as salmon, soy, sugarcane, cotton, and palm oil. Clay leads WWF’s efforts to work with private sector companies to improve their supply chain management, particularly with regard to ingredient sourcing and carbon and water neutrality, and with industries to transform entire sectors by improving their overall performance.

Clay is the author of 15 books, more than 250 articles and 500 invited presentations. His most recent books are World Aquaculture and the Environment (in press, 2008), Exploring the Links between International Business and Poverty Reduction: A Case Study of Unilever in Indonesia (2005) and World Agriculture and the Environment (2004).

Tom Dillon, Senior Vice President Field Programs

Tom Dillon is Senior Vice President, Field Programs. Tom directs WWF-US's efforts to conserve the 19 priority places at the center of our 2015 strategy. This includes responsibility for the marine and terrestrial portfolios, the Latin America Secretariat, and the cross-cutting units within Global Support (species, TRAFFIC, people and conservation, freshwater, and humanitarian partnerships). Since joining WWF in 1993 Tom worked in the Asia/Pacific, Forests, Species, and Ecoregional programs; established WWF's Mekong program while living in Vietnam and Laos; and played a leading role in developing some of WWF's most prominent projects, including the Amazon Regional Protected Areas Program (ARPA).

Chris Van Dyke, Senior Vice President of Communications

Chris Van Dyke is Senior Vice President of Communications for World Wildlife Fund. Prior to joining WWF, Chris served as a product creation and marketing professional in two of the most successful sports apparel companies in the world, Nike and Patagonia. He began his career at Nike after eight years of service to the state of Oregon, beginning as an Assistant Attorney General, and concluding in an elected position as the Marion County District Attorney. Chris joined Nike in 1984 as its East Coast Corporate Legal Counsel. He subsequently moved into the Corporate Communications Department, and then into the product marketing side of the company as the Director of Marketing and Product Development for the Apparel Division. By 1995, Chris was Nike’s Asia Pacific Director of Marketing and Brand Development, based in Hong Kong. In this capacity, Chris was responsible for brand strategy development, action planning, and marketing plan execution. He also served as a key member to an 8-person team focused on Nike Global Brand Management. In 1999, Chris accepted a position as the VP of Marketing and Product Development for Patagonia. At Patagonia, Chris was responsible for the management of marketing and branding communications, including advertising, catalog, Website, retail, and PR. His responsibilities also covered management of product creation, including line planning, product design, merchandising, pricing, and product development. Chris co-founded the consulting firm of Van Dyke & Zilligen in 2004 to help corporations become financially stronger by making social and environmental responsibility a core value of their business and a key component of their branding message. Chris was President, CEO and co-founder of Nau, Inc. a social venture apparel company in Portland, Oregon.