Leadership Team
Gwen Bridge
Gwen is a member of the Saddle Lake Cree Nation in Alberta and is an Indigenous advisor to governments and NGOs on relationships with Indigenous Peoples, reconciliation, Ethical Space, UNDRIP implementation policy development, facilitation and engagement strategy. Indigenous nations call upon Gwen to build strategies and programs for Indigenous rights assertion in Canada and the US.
Gwen has provided Ethical Space capacity development to many levels of government including; BC Ministry of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation, BC Ministry of Forests, BC Ministry of Environment, BC Water Land and Resource Stewardship, Parks Canada, Minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada’s Chief of Staff office, Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, City of Nelson, Association of Kootenay Boundary Local Governments, District of Mission, US National Parks Service, NASA, and many others. Gwen was invited as an Indigenous biodiversity expert at the February 2024 meeting between Canada’s Chief Science Advisors Office and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy on how to consider Indigenous knowledge in biodiversity related policy and science. Gwen has a Master of Science from the University of Alberta in Renewable Resources, and teaches courses in Ethical Space and Indigenous Leadership at University nuhelot’ine thaiyots’i nistameyimâkanak Blue Quills and is an Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Forestry at the University of British Columbia. Gwen is chair of the Ecological Society of America Traditional Ecological Knowledge section.
Gwen is co-founder of the IEI and is a thought leader, leading thinker on Indigenous Economics at the Investing Summit. FOR systemic reform.. Highly investing summit, as a leading think on.
James Rattling Leaf, Sr.
Mr. Rattling Leaf is a citizen of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, developing programs that utilize the interface between Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and Western science. He applies his expertise in Earth observation technology to convey how TEK can be used with Western science to address the impacts of climate change.
He also teaches Cultural Intelligence methods, supports Indigenous engagement strategies, and serves Indigenous nations’ efforts through effective and respectful data application.
He holds leadership roles with the University of Colorado-Boulder, North Central Climate Adaptation Center, Rosebud Sioux Tribe, Group on Earth Observations Indigenous Alliance, and the Ecological Society of America.
Heather Tallis
As an interdisciplinary scientist, Heather Tallis works to bridge nature, the economy, and people’s lives. Dr. Tallis served as President Biden’s policy advisor on nature in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, where she drove cross-agency action on nature-based solutions, advanced efforts to account for nature in benefit-cost analysis, and with the US Global Change Research Program, created the National Nature Assessment.
Through previous work with The Nature Conservancy and the Natural Capital Project, she has used the tools of science, human-centered design, and innovation to infuse nature into decisions with local communities, governments, and the private sector around the globe. She is currently a Senior Fellow with the Center for Coastal Climate Resilience at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and holds several other roles as an independent advisor, including with conservation organizations and private engineering and technology companies.
Advisory Council
Steven Nitah
Steven Nitah is the Managing Director for Canada at Nature for Justice, and a specialist in Aboriginal and Treaty Constitutional Rights, Negotiations, and Relationship Building with Indigenous Peoples.
Steven is a member and former tribal chief of the Łutsël K’é Dene First Nation, and served as the Nations’ lead negotiator in the creation of the Thaidene Nëné Indigenous Protected Area—“The Land of the Ancestors”.
He was also a core member of the Indigenous Circle of Experts, contributing to the historic report, “We Rise Together”, which presents a pathway for achieving Canada’s conservation targets through “the creation of Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas in the spirit and practice of reconciliation”.
Dominic Hofsetter
Dominic Hofstetter is the Executive Director of the TransCap Initiative, whose mission is to build the field of systemic investing, a new investment logic for funding systems transformation.
He initiated and incubated the TransCap Initiative when he was the Director of Capital and Investments at Climate KIC, Europe’s largest climate innovation initiative, where he was responsible for building the organization’s nascent investment function.
Before joining Climate KIC in 2015, Dominic had worked as an entrepreneur at the renewable energy start-up Electrochaea, as a private equity investor at Hudson Clean Energy Partners, and as a finance professional in the institutional asset management division of Credit Suisse. He holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and an MSc from the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford.
Phil Two Eagle
Philimon Two Eagle is Executive Director of the Sicangu Lakota Treaty Council in Rosebud, South Dakota. Mr. Two Eagle was born and raised on the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation in South Central, South Dakota.
Mr. Two Eagle has served in the US Army from 1982 to 1986 and has been working for the Rosebud Sioux tribe in various capacities. He has been working on preserving the inherent rights and treaty rights of the Sicangu Lakota Oyate (Rosebud Sioux Tribe).
Mr. Two Eagle believes in preserving his Lakota language as he recognizes Language as the source of Inherent Sovereignty and a connection to the ancestors. Mr. Two Eagle works with the elders and Spiritual leaders, Traditional knowledge, treaty rights, Lakota language, Climate Crisis and the Environment with the Oceti Sakowin Oyate (the Seven Council Fires) of the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota people to have the US Federal Government to honor the Fort Laramie treaties that they signed with the Lakota people. He believes the Tiwahe (the family unit) as the very first form of Lakota traditional government and that life teachings begins in the Tiwahe. The Tiwahe is the also the very first line of education for the children. Mr. Two Eagle wants the Oyate to return to Tiwahe and to begin the process of healing, his work lead’s him to build an indigenous economy together return to the circle.
Melissa Nelson
Melissa K. Nelson, Ph.D. is a professor of Indigenous Sustainability in the School of Sustainability, College of Global Futures. Dr. Nelson is an Indigenous ecologist, writer, editor, media-maker and award-winning scholar-activist.
Before joining the School of Sustainability, ASU in 2020, she served as a professor of American Indian Studies at San Francisco State University (2002 – 2020), specializing in Indigenous Environmental and Native California Indian Studies.
Dr. Nelson also served as founding executive director and CEO of The Cultural Conservancy, an Indigenous-led nonprofit organization from 1993 – 2021. Dr. Nelson is a transdisciplinary and community-based scholar dedicated to Indigenous rights and sustainability, biocultural heritage and environmental justice, intercultural solidarity, and the renewal and celebration of community health and cultural arts. She actively advocates for Indigenous Peoples rights and sustainable lifeways in higher education, nonprofits, and philanthropy, and is particularly passionate about elevating Indigenous sciences and Indigenous food sovereignty at local, regional and global levels. Dr. Nelson has led numerous community-based projects through her work at The Cultural Conservancy. She is Anishinaabe, Cree, Métis, and Norwegian (an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians).
Johan Lopez
Johan Lopez is the CBD Financial Sector Engagement Lead, coordinating the Finance Day at the Biodiversity COP16. With over ten years of experience in sustainability, Johan also leads the IFC and IDB-Invest Amazon Finance Network.
Previously, he directed partnerships and capacity-building programs at the Institute for Sustainable Investing at Morgan Stanley and advanced sustainable finance initiatives as UNEP FI’s Regional Coordinator for the Americas.
Johan holds a Master’s in Climate and Society from Columbia University, where he also served as an Associate Instructor.
Darcy Ridell
Dr. Darcy Riddell has worked to change systems as a strategist, campaigner, facilitator and movement capacity-builder, and played leadership roles in North American and global philanthropy in systems change, transformative learning and scaling innovation.
As Director of Strategy and Partnerships with RAD Network (Restore, Assert, Defend), Darcy works to build just, regenerative economies through Indigenous-led nature and climate solutions.
She is an author on the IPBES Transformative Change Assessment. Previous roles include BC Program Director at Makeway and Director of Strategic Learning with McConnell Foundation. She has co-designed and taught dozens of social change cohort programs including Rockefeller’s Global Fellowship in Social Innovation and Resilience and a Learning Community on systems change for funders. Her work is inspired by early involvement in ground-breaking campaigns and multi-stakeholder Great Bear Rainforest Agreements, which enshrined First Nations governance, protected areas and ecosystem-based management in 6.4 million hectares of the Pacific coast. She holds an MA in Philosophy, Cosmology and Consciousness (CIIS) and a PhD in Social-Ecological Systems, focused on the scaling impact and transformative dynamics in the Great Bear Rainforest model (University of Waterloo). Darcy lives in Tsleil-Waututh, Musqueam and Squamish territories (Vancouver) with her two children.
Jane (Carter) Ingram
Carter has over 15 years of experience at the forefront of integrating nature into sustainable development across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the United States.
She currently serves as Managing Director of Pollination, a specialist climate change investment and advisory firm. She previously was a Senior Manager in EY’s Climate Change and Sustainability Services practice where she advised food/agriculture, real estate, infrastructure and tourism businesses in designing and implementing ESG goals and strategies, programs and impact measurement, with a focus on natural capital.
Carter’s previous experiences include launching and leading the Ecosystem Services program and the Science for Nature and People Partnership (SNAPP) for the Wildlife Conservation Society, where she worked with governments, multi-lateral institutions, NGOs and businesses to conduct scientific analyses, develop new collaborations and implement initiatives to advance conservation and sustainable development globally. Carter completed a Post-doctoral fellowship at the Earth Institute of Columbia University and has a M.Sc. and D.Phil. from the School of Geography and the Environment of Oxford University. She has co-edited two books and written over 60 articles, reports and publications on biodiversity and ecosystem services, climate change, poverty reduction and economic development. Carter is currently an Adjunct Associated Professor in the School for Foreign Service at Georgetown University and serves on the SNAPP Science Advisory Council, the Technical Advisory Council for the UNDP Equator Initiative, the International Working Group for the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures and has been co-leading a USG working group on Natural Capital Accounting in the United States.
Hari Balasubramanian
Hari Balasubramanian is a proven sustainability expert who is driven by the belief that all types of capital can be deployed to achieve impact.
Hari started off in tropical marine conservation and then traded in his SCUBA gear for a suit when he founded EcoAdvisors, a Certified B Corporation® and EcoInvestors Capital, which together advise and invest for sustainability at scale.
His latest venture is building a credible conduit for institutional capital to reach nature-positive solutions using the lens of food systems, landscapes and oceans. He has worked alongside over 300 projects in 5 languages and 60+ countries and influenced over U$5B in sustainability-oriented financing – helping protect threatened species, forests, oceans, and the people who depend upon them, with a specific focus on learning from and supporting Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities. Previously, Hari led impact due diligence, measurement, and reporting at Conservation International. He currently serves as a Director for several environmental charities and funds, a mentor to start-ups, and an advisor to investors, corporates, and governments on the value of nature and the future of sustainability. Hari is an IMAGINE Leader and has been recognized by Clean Leaders as Canada’s top impact consultant/enabler. He holds a BSc in Biology from McGill University and an MSc in Geography (Distinction) from Oxford University.
