Philippe Cousteau Jr. is an Emmy-nominated ocean storyteller, author, entrepreneur, and environmental advocate. Inspired by the legacy of his grandfather, Jacques Cousteau, and his father, Philippe Cousteau Sr., he has built a career combining media, education, and large-scale restoration to advance solutions for ocean health.

As a storyteller, Philippe is host and executive producer of the multi-Emmy-nominated series Awesome Planet and has hosted programming for CNN, BBC, Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, and Travel Channel. He is author or co-author of several books on oceans and environmental stewardship, including Follow the Moon Home, Going Blue, Make a Splash, and the Endangereds series.

In 2005, Philippe founded EarthEcho International, which has engaged more than two million young people across 146 countries in ocean conservation and environmental education. As CEO of Voyacy Regen, he is working to bring coral-restoration technology to commercial scale.

Isak Pretorius is Group CEO of ForAfrika, an African-founded and led humanitarian and development organization reaching more than 6.3 million people annually across eight countries. He began his career as a driver at Joint Aid Management (JAM) in 1996 — the organization his parents, Peter and Ann Pretorius, founded in 1984 — and rose through the ranks to become CEO before leading its evolution into ForAfrika.

Isak holds a Bachelor of Commerce in Accounting, Economics, and Financial Management from the University of South Africa. He has also led Afriscope Holdings, providing business solutions for companies entering Sub-Saharan Africa, and Gatestreet Africa, a capital-raising and financial intelligence firm focused on African markets. With more than 20 years of experience across the continent, Isak advises governments, investors, and NGOs on sustainable, locally led development models that bridge humanitarian relief and commercial enterprise.

A YPO member since 2009, Isak currently serves as Chair of YPO's Global Deal Network and as YPO Africa Regional Chair Meritus.

Tim is an innovator of financial instruments and a field builder for the impact investing industry. Over the last 29 years, he served 12 years at Calvert Investments and Calvert Impact Capital, helping to build the Calvert Community Investment Note, through which more than $4 billion has been cumulatively invested in hundreds of nonprofits and for-profit organizations globally.

While there, he launched ImpactAssets as an impact investment firm and donor-advised fund that was spun out in 2010 and now has more than $5 billion in total assets under management. After more than 10 years as CEO, he now serves as Executive Director, Strategic Development.

Additionally, Tim co-founded the venture fund and investment holding company Good Capital, as well as the SOCAP Conference and CataCap, a radically democratizing impact investing platform for donor-advised funds.

He received a BA from Wesleyan University with a major in Film, an Executive MBA from the University of San Francisco, and lives in the Boston, USA.

Dara Parker is a social impact executive and CEO of Toniic, a global community of private asset owners using their capital to help build a more thriving and equitable world. With 25 years of experience across philanthropy, impact investing, community development, and systems change, Dara has built her career around mobilizing people, organizations, and capital toward effective, root-cause solutions.

Previously, Dara served as Vice-President of Grants and Community Initiatives at Vancouver Foundation, Canada's largest community foundation, and as Executive Director of Social Venture Partners Vancouver.

Benoit Fontaine is Executive Director of Myriad Canada, a member of the Myriad Alliance for Borderless Giving, helping Canadian individuals, families, and foundations direct philanthropic capital to vetted projects around the world. In 2025, Myriad Canada received $26.1 million CAD in donations and supported 102 projects across 43 countries.

Benoit spent 17 years at the King Baudouin Foundation (1999–2016), including as Head of Venture Philanthropy, Deputy Director, and Program Advisor, where he launched the Philanthropy Venture Fund. He moved to Canada from Belgium in 2017 to found what is now Myriad Canada, bringing three decades of leadership in philanthropy and the nonprofit sector.

Tim Kelly is Executive Director of Earth HQ, the media arm of the Global Commons Alliance, a partnership of more than 50 organizations across science, philanthropy, and advocacy. He previously spent nearly three decades at National Geographic, serving as President of the National Geographic Society, President and CEO of National Geographic Ventures, and President of National Geographic Television.

Tim led the National Geographic Channel's launch and oversaw a television production unit that won more than 138 Emmy Awards. He also created National Geographic Films, whose slate included the Academy Award-winning March of the Penguins. He currently serves on the boards of IUCN (US), Great Plains Conservation Trust, Mongabay, and American Prairie Reserve, and co-founded the climate EdTech platform Planet3.

Ori Shaashua co founded Gigablue with a clear ambition to make a lasting impact on ocean health and long term climate resilience. He set out to harness the power of photosynthesis, the world’s largest energy process, inspired by the way nature has balanced the planet for over 3.5 billion years.

With an aspirational yet pragmatic approach, he has put Gigablue on a path to become the world’s leading marine carbon dioxide removal company. Through years of focused research and execution, Gigablue developed MCFS, an affordable and scalable CDR pathway designed to responsibly scale to a gigaton through a controlled and verifiable system that excels in environmental integrity.

Ori is at the helm of a commercial effort that has already secured over 300 kilotons in signed offtake agreements and is scaling toward the removal of a gigaton of CO₂ by 2035, delivering financially accessible decarbonization for the hardest to abate sectors including data centers, energy, shipping, mining, and oil and gas.

With a background as an entrepreneur and investor across AI, health, energy, and cybersecurity, Ori brings sharp commercial judgment and operational discipline to Gigablue’s growth, consistently turning vision into revenue and innovation into market credibility, and helping define what scaled, science backed carbon removal looks like in practice.

Lisa Wolverton is President of Forward Global, a community of 300+ wealth holders who collectively deploy $1 billion annually toward climate, democracy, the new economy, and social and gender justice. She also directs the Wolverton Foundation, her family's Vancouver-based foundation, which has provided a long-term home for the Sarah McLachlan School of Music.

Lisa currently serves on the Council of Advocates for the Freedom Fund and previously served six years on the Board of Directors of UNICEF Canada. She is a former member of the President's Council of the International Crisis Group.

Prior to founding the digital network WaterBear, Ellen Windemuth was the sole owner and CEO of Off the Fence BV, which she founded in Amsterdam in 1994. Under her leadership, Off the Fence acquired, produced and co-produced over 6,000 hours of content, winning more than 200 international awards. A seasoned executive producer and distributor, Ellen has personally produced over 500 hours of content, including My Octopus Teacher, which won a BAFTA and an Oscar in 2021. She sold Off the Fence to ZDF Studios in 2019.

Ellen served as Treasurer and Chair of the Jackson Wild Festival Board over 14 years. She was Honorary President of the Sunnyside Doc 2019 festival in La Rochelle and now serves on its advisory board. In 2025, she joined the advisory board of the Swiss think tank The Klosters Forum to provide guidance on impact media.

In 2018, Ellen became the first woman to receive Wildscreen's Christopher Parsons Outstanding Achievement Award, previously awarded to David Attenborough, Prince Philip and Sir Peter Scott.

She continues to work as an executive producer of impact feature documentaries and designs jewelry incorporating ancient talismanic objects through Ancient Awe. Ellen lives on Deer Isle, Maine, with her husband, artist Erik Meijer, and has three grown children, two dogs and three cats.

Eric Campbell is CEO of the Clean Economy Fund (CEF), where he connects Canada's philanthropic community with high-impact climate solutions across policy, finance, and culture. Under his leadership, CEF has helped coordinate more than $481 million in new climate philanthropy pledges from Canadian family foundations since 2024 — including the country's largest-ever climate philanthropy commitment — through its Climate Champions platform. He has also helped incubate initiatives including the Housing & Climate Initiative, the Indigenous Electrification Strategy, the Task Force for a Resilient Recovery, and New Economy Canada.

Previously, Eric served as Communications Director to Canada's Minister of Environment and Climate Change, working with the Minister and the Prime Minister's Office on policies including carbon pricing and the Low Carbon Economy Fund. His broader career spans more than 15 years across government, philanthropy, and clean-energy coalition building, including with Smart Prosperity Institute and QUEST.

Gil Cassar is a senior financial executive, technologist, entrepreneur, and investor with extensive experience across private banking, wealth management, financial services, technology, and economic development. Based in The Bahamas, he currently serves as Chairman of The Bahamas Development Bank and CEO of Equity Group Business Development Ltd. at Equity Bank Bahamas Limited.

At Equity, Gil's work spans private banking, asset management, investment fund administration, trusts, foundations, fintech, and corporate services. He is also active in the international private-wealth community, contributing to conversations around wealth structuring, asset protection, succession planning, family-office solutions, and cross-border financial services. His leadership at The Bahamas Development Bank places him at the forefront of efforts to support enterprise and sustainable economic development in The Bahamas.

Carmel Rafaeli supports early-stage climate ventures as an angel investor, advisor, and Venture Partner at Conduit Connect. She is Founding Partner at The Table, an evergreen philanthropic vehicle funding women (co-)led climate ventures through recoverable grants - a new capital model that unlocks bold, early-stage innovation. No equity, no debt.

Before investing, Carmel spent 15+ years building businesses across brick-and-mortar fashion, eCommerce, hospitality tech, and IP tech, spending the better part of a decade building platforms that drive collaboration between different stakeholders to enhance outcomes. She now backs founders at the earliest stages, working to close the funding gap for women and scale climate innovation through collaboration and innovative financing.

David Hughes is the President and CEO of Generate Canada, a not-for-profit platform of multi-stakeholder initiatives that are “harnessing the power of collaboration to generate solutions for a strong and sustainable economy.”

Under David’s leadership, the organization has experienced seven-fold growth, forged an expansive partnership base of leading public and private sector organizations, and scaled impact through a distributed network of new “Solution Spaces.” These pre-competitive systems-change labs now include CANZA (the Canadian Alliance for Net-Zero Agri-food), the Canada Plastics Pact, Circular Construction Canada, the Energy Futures Lab, the Nature Investment Hub, and a soon-to-be-launched sustainable oceans investment platform.

David previously served as President and CEO of Habitat for Humanity Canada and Pathways to Education Canada during periods of unprecedented growth and impact. Prior to that, he spent 10 years working for the Secretary-General of SOS Children’s Villages International, including senior postings in Africa, Asia, Europe, the USA, and at the United Nations in New York and Vienna.

David is a Senior Fellow of the Smart Prosperity Institute and has previously served on the boards of the Canadian Stem Cell Foundation, AIESEC Canada, and the Canadian branch of Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project.

He holds a degree in economics from the University of Western Ontario, a postgraduate degree in social policy and not-for-profit management from the London School of Economics (LSE), and an executive leadership certificate from Harvard University. He has also been recognized as a Clean50 Honouree for his outstanding contribution to clean capitalism.

A double Fulbright Scholar and Fellow, Pauline is an impact investor dedicated to transforming Africa’s future through a systemic investing approach focused on the intersection of gender and climate. She invests in innovative and scalable businesses that are positioned for strong financial returns and act as catalysts for measurable social and environmental impact.

Through ShEquity, Pauline prioritizes tech-enabled, gender-smart businesses that drive Africa’s green economy and accelerate the continent’s journey toward a climate-resilient, gender-inclusive future. She believes that investing in gender-smart, climate-focused businesses in Africa is essential to achieving global climate targets, including carbon reduction, net-zero, and nature-positive goals.

With over 20 years of expertise across international affairs, venture philanthropy, ecosystem building, and gender-lens investing, Pauline is recognized as a leader in fostering innovation and economically empowering women entrepreneurs across Africa. Her commitment to inclusive growth and sustainable development lies at the heart of her work.

Pauline is passionate about driving systemic investing that benefits people, the planet, and society. Her mission extends to empowering youth and women and advocating for sustainable, inclusive growth. In 2022, she was honored as one of the 100 Leaders building “Meaningful Business,” combining profit and purpose to advance the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Having lived, studied, and worked across Africa, Europe, and North America, Pauline is strategically positioned to serve as a bridge between the Global South and the Global North, advancing initiatives that align capital with impactful, home-grown innovations.

She welcomes public speaking and engagement opportunities focused on innovation, impact investing, and gender-lens and climate-focused investing.

Richard Muller is Founder and Board Chair of Impact United Academy, a community of active and aspiring impact investors and asset owners across Canada focused on mobilizing capital for systemic change through peer learning, research, and collaborative action. Impact United Academy operates as a strategic initiative of SVX.

Richard has spent twelve years in the impact investing space, including six years on the management team at Toniic, the global network of impact investors. His “encore” career follows a thirty-year career as an entrepreneur and marketing executive at a global advertising firm.

Shally Shanker is Founder and Managing Partner of AiiM Partners, a Palo Alto-based investment firm focused on scaling companies that address major sustainability and resource-efficiency challenges. Her investment approach sits at the intersection of digitalization, supply chains, energy, and climate innovation.

Under Shally's leadership, AiiM has built a long-term track record investing in sustainability-focused companies, including as an early investor in Lyten's lithium-sulfur battery technology since 2019. She also serves on the boards of GWT Group and MyForest Foods, and has previously held board positions with SupplyShift and Ecologic Brands.

Jeraldine Marshall is the Director of Finance with the Nuu-chah-nulth Economic Development Corporation (NEDC), where she is committed to advancing Indigenous economic development and sound financial stewardship.

A member of the Haítzaqv First Nation, Jeraldine has extensive experience in the nonprofit sector through both her professional career and board service.

Guided by both professional expertise and lived experience, she advocates for economic resilience, sustainable growth, and opportunities that support Indigenous communities.

Cordell Jacks co-founded Regenerative Capital Group (RCG) in 2022 to evolve Canada's economy through the “Silver Tsunami” of SME business successions. RCG applies regenerative investing principles to the growth of Canada's SME businesses, aligning capital with life by acquiring succession-stage businesses and evolving them into enterprises that serve people, place, and planet.

Cordell's career spans impact investing, cleantech, circular economy ventures, and international development. He previously led a Canadian impact fund, helmed circular economy businesses, and co-founded a global water and sanitation initiative supported by the World Bank and Gates Foundation. He is a Practitioner Fellow at the University of Victoria's Center for Regenerative Futures and a mentor with Unreasonable.

Jeff Hammer is Founder and CEO of Forte Impact Advisors, where he helps families, business owners, entrepreneurs, nonprofits, and intellectual property creators build financial strategies designed to create lasting, generational impact. A Forbes-recognized Top Financial Security Professional, Jeff brings together financial planning, wealth strategy, philanthropy, and business planning to help clients align their resources with their values and long-term legacy.

Before founding Forte Impact Advisors, Jeff built a career spanning wealth management, financial services, and enterprise leadership, including more than 13 years with Northwestern Mutual and prior senior roles at Capital One and the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency.

Andy Harris is a sustainability and business strategy advisor working at the intersection of impact finance, ocean innovation, circularity, clean technology, and regenerative business. He advises Forum for Impact, Sierra Spinning, and AmericaMade, helping organizations evolve toward business models that create value beyond profit.

At Forum for Impact, Andy supports the Sustainable Oceans Initiative, helping advance the thinking, collaboration, and financial structures needed to deploy more impact capital toward ocean solutions. He also serves on the Board of Advisors of the Centre for Ocean Applied Sustainable Technologies (COAST) and mentors entrepreneurs through Creative Destruction Lab.

Amanda Nickeson is Vice President of Major and Planned Giving at Ocean Conservancy, where she leads philanthropic engagement with individuals and families committed to protecting the ocean and strengthening coastal communities. With more than 20 years of nonprofit leadership and fundraising experience, Amanda specializes in major and principal gifts, planned giving, and building sophisticated philanthropic programs.

Before joining Ocean Conservancy, Amanda held senior philanthropic leadership roles at Florida Atlantic University's Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute and The Nature Conservancy. She is also Principal of The Nickeson Group and a founding member of Chief, a private network for senior women leaders.

Adrian Pust is Chief Financial Officer of TrustBridge Global Foundation, where he leads financial strategy, investment management and the development of international philanthropic structures. TrustBridge is the first Swiss-based donor-advised fund built for global giving. Adrian is a Swiss Certified Public Accountant with professional experience spanning Big Four audit and advisory, venture capital, governance and impact investing. He is passionate about combining sound financial stewardship with innovation to make global generosity easier, safer and more impactful.

Beth Borody is a Canadian mining executive, sustainability leader, and entrepreneur who serves as the Co-Founder and CEO of Maven Exploration. Launched in January 2026, Maven Exploration is Canada's first junior mineral exploration company fully founded by women. The firm focuses on introducing radical transparency, accessibility, and unique funding models to the junior mining sector, successfully closing an oversubscribed seed round with a majority (55%) of its funding coming from female investors.

John Hughes has been helping Canadian mid-market, private companies grow internationally and succeed in the global marketplace for over 30 years.

Working with companies in all verticals, including technology, manufacturing and consumer packaged goods, John advises and connects executive teams with MNP Client Service Partners to accelerate international and domestic growth.

John is also the past national leader of Canada's Best Managed Companies program and the private company practice of a large professional service firm — showcasing Canadian innovation in private enterprise and providing a community of mentorship and support. He has been involved with the program since its inception in 1992.

John is the co-author of Building the Best: Inside Canada's Best Managed Companies (2006) and The Power of the Best (2012).

John is a frequently requested speaker on private company businesses and entrepreneurship in Canada and globally. His extensive career has a foundation in strategic planning, corporate and personal taxation, mergers and acquisitions, and transaction due diligence.

Signy is a member of MNP’s Consulting Practice in Toronto, and leads the Firm’s Ontario and Quebec Indigenous Consulting Practice. Drawing on more than a decade of consulting experience helping clients in the Indigenous and public sectors, Signy works closely with her clients to design and support complex change.

Signy has proven experience in strategic and business planning, organization and program reviews, service delivery, program redesign, financial modelling and funding model development, and implementation planning for public sector and publicly funded organizations. She is a systems thinker, with expertise in complex facilitation and integration to support large-scale transformation.

Ayo Sopitan is Founder of Metalex, a company delivering carbon-neutral critical metals from Africa to global markets. Its flagship project is a copper-cobalt mining and processing business in Northern Zambia.

Metalex takes an ecosystem approach, incubating complementary businesses that extend its mission into the communities where it operates. These include Misitu Africa, a developer of large-scale carbon projects; Abule Africa, which builds affordable housing in mining communities; and Vovala, which trains women in mining towns to manufacture personal protective equipment.

Before founding Metalex, Ayo built his career in roles at EY, Bank of America, Accenture, and OpenLink Financial.

Alana Stott, MBE is a certified human trafficking investigator with specialized expertise in grooming, coercive control, sexual exploitation, and open-source intelligence (OSINT). Her mission is to deliver clear, evidence-based insight into patterns of abuse, manipulation, and trafficking to help clients, courts, and counsel make informed, just decisions.

Ms. Stott has advised on numerous high-profile cases, conducted international OSINT investigations, and developed training protocols for law enforcement and judicial professionals. Her background includes over two decades of experience in advocacy, strategic intelligence consulting, and policy development, and she is frequently called upon as an expert witness and advisor in grooming-related litigation.