Secretariat
Team

Marco Lambertini, Convener, Nature Positive Initiative

Marco is the Convenor of the Nature Positive Initiative. He moves from WWF International where he held the role of Director General 2014-2022, and Special Envoy in 2023. Before joining WWF he was Global Director of Network and Programme and subsequently CEO of BirdLIfe International.

Marco’s experience and career ranges from ecological field research to high level advocacy and international policy, nature reserve management, integrated conservation and development projects, environmental education, NGO development, communications and campaigning, in many countries all over the world.

Marco is a member of the China Council (CCICED) and of the Board of Directors for the Fondation Prince Albert III de Monaco, former co-chair and now Board member of the Belt and Road Initiative Greening Coalition, a founding member of the Nature Action Agenda and the Friends of Ocean Action at WEF, outgoing co-chair of the Global Commons Alliance and member of the UN Global Compact Board.

Gavin Edwards, Executive Director, Nature Positive Initiative Secretariat

Gavin has been the Director of the Nature Positive Initiative in WWF International for 5 years, joining from WWF Hong Kong where he was the Conservation Director. He previously served as the Head of Forest Campaign then Head of Climate & Energy Campaign at Greenpeace International.

Gavin brings a wealth of conservation knowledge and expertise, helping secure important breakthrough successes such as conserving the Great Bear Rainforest in Canada working alongside First Nations peoples, an Amazon soy moratorium, a Hong-Kong ivory sales ban and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. His experience in business engagement in Asia includes collaborating with the shipping industry on the carriage of threatened wildlife products, founding a sustainable finance programme, and partnering with businesses to ensure sustainable seafood in their supply chains, all of which leveraged his Executive MBA and private sector networks.

Jane Cotton-Hall, Senior Executive Assistant, Nature Positive Initiative Secretariat

Jane is a seasoned Executive Assistant with over 35 years of experience working with senior international CEOs. Prior to joining the Nature Positive Initiative, Jane worked with WWF International as Executive Assistant to the Director General. She held similar positions at IUCN from 1996 – 2007 where she also served as the IUCN Congress Officer for the 2000 and 2004 World Conservation Congresses. Jane also previously worked with the United Nations Volunteer Programme as a recruitment/administration coordinator.

Emily McCoy, Senior Technical Communications Lead, Nature Positive Initiative Secretariat

With over ten years of experience in the charity sector in environmental and development organisations including at the Fairtrade Foundation, WWF and the UK’s biggest organic certification body the Soil Association, Emily has worked with a variety of communications techniques, from PR and media to digital, social media and brand, and brings a range of skills to the Secretariat communications team. At WWF, Emily worked with colleagues from around the world to help advocate for an ambitious Global Biodiversity Framework and now continues with the same ambition to ensure the global goal for a nature-positive world is reached by 2030.

Nicolette Craven, Admin and Special Projects Coordinator, Nature Positive Initiative Secretariat

Nikki joins the NPI as Special Projects Coordinator to support the Nature Positive Initiative team on key workstreams such as developing a metrics process. She is passionate about the recovery of our planet and has a passion for data monitoring in an environmental context. Nikki’s experience has been built through previous work with the Conservation Collective as well as previous employment internationally across different sectors. She has an MSc in Environmental Science from Southampton University, is originally from Ecuador and speaks three languages.

Anna-Julia McVeigh, Head of Strategic Engagement, Nature Positive Initiative Secretariat

Anna-Julia is a passionate advocate for climate and nature within business and NGO settings. Her mixed heritage and education from Brazil and the UK are ever present in her interactions, both personal and professional.

She brings 15+ years of consulting experience, most recently leading a practice in Accenture Development Partnerships on Climate & Environment, championing their expansion into Nature & Biodiversity topics with clients in the environmental NGO sector. She has expertise in organisational strategy and visioning as well as designing transformational change journeys. She participated in Accenture’s collaboration with DEFRA and the UK Council for Sustainable Business to help big business understand their impacts on nature, building a campaign to Get Nature Positive ahead of COP26, Glasgow, 2021, which inspired her shift to wanting to elevate nature to the same level of urgency as that of the climate emergency.

Previously Anna-Julia worked with Finance Services organisations in both Assurance and Advisory roles, and is a member of the ICAEW. Her academic background includes completing a BSc Economy History from LSE, an MBA from IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland and more recently an Executive MSc in International Strategy and Diplomacy from LSE.

Emma Marsden, Technical Manager, Nature Positive Initiative Secretariat

Emma brings experience from the NGO, business and consulting and assurance sectors to her role as Technical Manager at the Nature Positive Initiative. She has worked with companies across the globe on developing sustainability strategies, science-based targets and sustainability metrics and disclosures. In her previous role at ICMM, Emma helped lead the development of the first sector-wide commitments on contributing to a nature-positive future and the development of the Taskforce for Nature-Related Financial Disclosures metrics for the Mining and Metals Sector. She has also worked with the Science-Based Targets Network as the interface between the technical development and corporate engagement teams, and in-house as Sustainable Business Manager for a multinational beverage company. Emma is a passionate conservationist and in her free time works on the ground with a small community forest restoration charity in Sri Lanka.

Emma holds a BA MA in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge, an MSc in Environmental Technology from Imperial College London and recently completed a certificate in the Conservation, Restoration and Sustainable Use of Tropical Forests from the Yale School of Environment.

Rachel Martin, Technical Manager, Nature Positive Initiative Secretariat

Rachel is a passionate conservationist dedicated to tackling complex conservation challenges through in-depth research and technical analysis. Currently pursuing a DPhil at the University of Oxford, she focuses on measuring and achieving nature-positive outcomes across sectors. Before joining the Nature Positive Initiative, Rachel led the Extinction Solutions Index at Conservation X Labs to evaluate solutions to global biodiversity loss. Her past research spans diverse topics, including conservation technology and innovation, coastal climate adaptation, technology-driven water quality solutions, marine ecosystem indicators with NOAA, harbor seal cognition in Germany, endangered plant recovery in the US, and species distribution models for climate change impacts on lizards in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park.