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Co-Director

Jim Leape

William and Eva Price Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment

Jim Leape serves as co-director of the Center for Ocean Solutions and is the William and Eva Price Senior Fellow in the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. Through research, writing, and direct engagement with private and public sector leaders, Jim looks at how to drive large-scale systemic shifts to sustainability, with particular interest in expanding private sector leadership on sustainability globally.

Jim has more than three decades of conservation experience, spanning a broad range of conservation issues on every continent. From 2005 to 2014, he served as Director General of WWF International and leader of the global WWF Network, which is one of the world’s largest conservation organizations, active in more than 100 countries. In that capacity, he worked with government, business and civil society leaders on a wide range of issues, including climate change, marine conservation, forest protection, water resources management, and sustainability in global commodity markets. Before going to WWF International, Jim directed the conservation and science initiatives of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, a leading philanthropy in the U.S. Previously, he served as executive vice president of WWF-US in Washington, D.C.; as a lawyer for the United Nations Environment Programme in Nairobi, Kenya; as a law professor; and as a litigator for the National Audubon Society and for the U.S. Department of Justice.

Jim serves on the boards of the Marine Stewardship Council, Mission 2020 and the Luc Hoffmann Institute, and on the Global Future Council for the Food Security and the Environmental Stewards Board of the World Economic Forum. From 2007 to 2017, he was a member of the China Council for International Cooperation in Environment and Development, which advises the Premier of China. He is also a Distinguished Fellow at the ClimateWorks Foundation.

Leape received an A.B. with honors from Harvard College and a J.D. with honors from Harvard Law School.

Related Initiatives

  • Oceans & Food

    Building a community of researchers investigating the many connections between oceans and the global food system.
  • aquaculture pens

    Sustainable Ocean Economies

    Developing approaches and tools to support the small island developing states of the Pacific in their efforts to integrate development and conservation.
  • ocean ice

    Managing Ocean Risk

    Fostering collaboration between top researchers, conservationists, and entrepreneurs committed to solving ocean health challenges.
  • small scale fishing

    Small-Scale Fisheries & Tech

    Working to use human-centered design approaches to identify new technologies that can help fishing communities manage their resources

Publications