Protecting Nature: The Challenges and Opportunities in the Next Decade

About

John Sawhill is President and Chief Executive Officer of The Nature Conservancy, an international conservation organization with over a million members committeed to the preservation of threatened ecosystems and wildlife habitat. Since its founding in 1951, the Conservancy has protected over 11 million acres in the United States and helped protect over 59 million acres in Latin America, the Caribbean, Canada, Asia and the Pacific. The Conservancy, which is the fifteenth largest nonprofit in the United States, owns and manages the largest private system of nature preserves in the world.Mr. Sawhill serves on the Environment and Natural Resources Program Steering Committee at the Kennedy School of Government. He holds responsible positions in a number of nonprofit organizations. He is chairman of the board of the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment. He serves as a member of the President's Council on Sustainable Development and the Environment for the Americas Board, the group that oversees debt-for-nature swaps and the establishment of conservation trust funds in several Latin American countries. In addition, he served on the Commission on the Future of the Smithsonian and chaired the task force on governance, management and financial resources. In September 1997, Mr. Sawhill became Senior Lecturer of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School where he teaches and conducts research on not-for-profit institutions. His course, Effective Leadership of Social Enterprises, is offered in the Spring term to second year students.