While project teams will be chosen to fit the requirements, each will also be led by our core team, providing our clients with a transparent working relationship and access to our respected consultants throughout the length of the engagement. Their expertise in recognising opportunities on the ground, and experience negotiating the complexities of different working environments and industry cultures, is crucial to our ongoing success, and that of our clients.

Specialism Areas: International Development, Capacity Building & Policy and Strategy

Mark King is the CEO at Earth Active, bringing vast experience as a global advisor on ESG issues specialising in project assessment and management, policy, training and capacity building. He has 35 years of international experience working with; financial institutions, inter-governmental agencies, borrowers, NGOs, consultancies and clients on the full range of ESG issues. These include issues such as; human rights, labour issues, indigenous peoples, cultural and other social issues, health and safety and environmental issues. His experience includes innumerable projects using the IFC performance standards, and he has played a leading role in the development and approval of the WB environmental, health and safety guidelines.

Specialism Areas: Sustainability, Project Due Diligence and Capacity Building

Rob is a recognised ESG specialist with over 25 years of experience supporting financial institutions around the world. Having been the former head of PwC Indonesia’s sustainability and climate change team, Rob has designed and delivered major Environmental, Sustainability and Climate change programmes and projects. Locations include countries such as; Tanzania, Egypt, Djibouti, Nigeria, Panama, Russia and Uzbekistan. Rob has worked extensively with development and commercial banks and has led internal capacity building initiatives for both the World Bank and the Equator Principles Association.

Specialism Areas: Geology, Project Due Diligence and New Business Development

Guy has over 25 years expertise in delivering solutions for Environmental, Social, Governance and Sustainability challenges around the world.  Having trained as an Earth Scientist in both the UK and New York, Guy has successfully designed, coordinated and led international project teamwork in over 60 countries – delivering successful outcomes on Environmental Due Diligence, as well as capital delivery assignments for Private Equity, IFI, Commercial, Industrial and Agribusiness clients.

Specialism Areas: Ecology, Data Science, Machine Learning, Process Innovation

Jacob joined the team to support the technological development of Earth Active. Having studied Zoology at the University of Nottingham, Jacob has a comprehensive grounding in Ecology and the importance of mitigating the impacts of human development on the natural world. Jacob then went on to study Computational Biology at Imperial College London, successfully automating the detection of illegal hunting in protected Costa Rican rainforest using machine learning techniques on acoustic data. Jacob has a passion for technology and innovation and hopes to build his career around both improving and designing new processes.

Specialism Areas: Biodiversity, Project Oversight & Direction, Operational Design, Governance

Tom is an accomplished environmental consultant whose career has evolved from biodiversity assessment and management to major project oversight and direction. As a manager or director of challenging projects he brings organisational structure and consistency, with an emphasis on programme and delivery. He has held senior management and environmental roles in the delivery of Nationally significant infrastructure projects in the UK, including HS2 and Crossrail 2, and more recently across Africa, Asia and Europe. His experience includes rail, power and utilities, construction and professional services. With his technical background he always takes a keen interest in conservation, ecosystem services and bio-finance. As a former Executive Director and business lead of The Ecology Consultancy, Tom also brings invaluable experience of operational design and governance, and enjoys motivating teams and leading them to success.

Specialism Areas: Social Development, Business Development and Environmental & Social Aid

Wessel has over 8 years of experience in business development and project management in international development across sectors such as Infrastructure, Agriculture and Water & Sanitation and technical areas including engineering, inclusive growth, private sector development, and monitoring & evaluation. His academic background is in Anthropology, Environment and Development Studies and he applied this knowledge in many projects involving Social and Environmental technical inputs. Wessel’s in-country experience includes; Ghana, Namibia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Uganda – in addition to this he has strong language skills in Portuguese and French.

Specialism Areas: Environmental and Social Management Systems, Capacity Building and Systems Thinking

Vanessa has international experience of leadership development and change management working with executive and senior level teams of multinational corporations. Having worked in collaboration with the government and NGOs historically, Vanessa’s focus is on issue management across engagement and innovation, building partnerships for change and ecological restoration. Vanessa’s assists in facilitating multi-stakeholder engagement and designing innovative frameworks that manage complexity. Since joining the Earth Active team, Vanessa has been working in both Nepal and Montenegro on Environmental and Social Management Systems.

Specialism Areas: Environmental Due Diligence, Social Due Diligence and Sustainable Livelihoods and Conservation

Jason’s currently has significant experience with dealing with international NGOs. His career to date includes grant management and project coordination, providing a combination of administrative and technical support on market-based solutions for sustainable livelihood development. He has supported enterprise development, participatory market systems development, impact investment and REDD+ approaches, across a range of geographies including Liberia and Indonesia. Jason’s interest is driven through building more sustainable, responsible and inclusive economies, which include integrated principles of social responsibility and environmental sustainability.

Specialism Areas: Ecology, Biodiversity Assessments and Ecosystems Thinking

Adam joined the team as an Ecologist, to support on critical habitats assessments and environmental impact mitigation. Having studied at Oxford University and carrying out a research project in Kenya, Adam understands the importance of using impact assessment methodologies to achieve real-life biodiversity outcomes. Adam hopes to build his career through experience in; sustainable development, environmental and social management systems and biodiversity monitoring plans.

Specialism Areas: Executive coaching, management systems and management development and capacity building  for sustainability, environment and health & safety

Michael has over 25 years expertise in OHS and Environmental management, group dynamics and teams, leadership and empowerment, organisational growth and transformation. Contexts include business strategy and development; HSSE due diligence, assurance and management, project development and execution to IFC/EBRD standards; governance, sustainability and corporate reporting; asset management, corporate and social responsibility, green buildings and renewables. Having trained as a Mechanical Engineer and with a Doctorate of Business Administration (DBA) he has worked within corporate, consultancy and NGO roles. Michael has also been awarded Fellow status of IEMA and IIRSM plus is a Chartered Environmentalist. He is member of IOSH and registered on the UK Occupational Health and Safety Register. He is a certified Executive Coach with a proven track record of developing leaders and scaling teams to match aggressive expansion and project targets.

Michael is multi-cultural, having worked for several years in each of Southern Africa, the UK and the Middle East. Sectors include power and renewable energy, construction, built environmental and real estate, transport and professional services.

Specialism Areas: Environmental Law, Project Development, ESIA

Clair has over 25 years broad consultancy and research experience encompassing ESIA, ESMS, assessment and modelling of pollutants and management of major research projects. Originally trained as a Zoologist, she also has an MSc in Environmental Protection, has undertaken postgraduate research in Marine Biology and has an LLM in Environmental Law.   She has a strong background in project development, particularly in the renewable energy sector, providing strategic advice on the legislative and policy landscape from inception to implementation as well as acting as Consents Director on numerous complex projects and programmes.

Specialism Areas: Business Management Systems, Project Finance and New Business Development

Alex originally joined the ESG industry through recognising that improving people’s environment through strategic and sustainable investment is the key to making a difference. Since then Alex has worked both domestically and internationally advising on Environmental and Social best practice for both private and public finance clients. Alex’s focus is to ensure clients are satisfied with Earth Active’s innovative and informative advisory services, through focusing on our technical systems and processes to streamline the teams operations.

Paul Shapiro joined the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in 1994 in Privatisation and Restructuring and Early Stage Equity where he worked on the highly successful Regional Venture  Funds and Special Restructuring Programmes surveying and investing in small and medium sized enterprises across all sectors before moving to Natural Resources in 2000, where he led numerous debt and equity financings/projects in upstream, midstream and downstream oil and gas sectors. Paul has been a regular participant in multilateral energy security and policy initiatives such as the EU-Russia Energy Dialog, the EU INOGATE programme, and the multilateral working committee on Ukrainian Gas Sector Reform and led the finance of USD 500m in related projects instrumental to the multilateral Ukraine/international financial institutions dialog on gas sector reform and transit to Europe.

Paul holds a BA and MA from Boston University in International Politics and Economics and a MALD in International Business from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in conjunction with Harvard Business School, grounding his development banking experience in his academic training.

We are actively seeking to expand our network of experienced, committed ESG consultants and analysts. We work with freelancers and partner firms that share our values.

If you’re interested in finding out more, please email enquiries@earth-active.com