Leadership

Our Leadership

Bringing together experience and passion to create a better future for women and girls across the world.

Nathalie Weier Johnson – President and Executive Chairperson

Nathalie Johnson has spent over 30 years working to support people in developing countries to care for their environments and improve their livelihoods. Nathalie began her work as a wildlife biologist working in the forests of Uganda to habituate the first groups of mountain gorillas to humans in order to build safe and sustainable ways to finance and improve the country’s national parks. There she experienced firsthand the beauty of the biodiversity of the East African forests as well as the deep poverty faced by communities living on the borders of the national parks and throughout the region. In the early 1990s, Nathalie joined the World Bank where she worked in Eastern and Southern Africa and later in Eastern Europe and Central and South Asia. Over the years, the application of Nathalie’s work in innovative financing, from establishing conservation endowment funds to integrating carbon finance into environment projects, along with her conservation experience, has enabled vulnerable communities to develop sustainable livelihoods while protecting the environments and ecosystems crucial for biodiversity and climate resilience. Nathalie is an avid backpacker who loves spending time in the mountains. She brings her passion and love of the natural world together with her experience to support For Women in its mission to empower women who, in turn, help empower their communities and countries in the face of climate change.

Ellen Tynan – Executive Director

Ellen has over 25 years of experience working with governments and communities in developing countries to support their local, national and global objectives with regard to sustainable economic development and management of their environment and natural resources. As a Senior Environment and Natural Resources Specialist at the World Bank, Ellen worked in Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and Asia to develop and support a range of initiatives focused on natural resource management, climate, and pollution, focusing on such issues as enhancing the resilience to climate change through sustainable forest management, establishing systems to control electronic waste and plastics pollution and implementing alternative and sustainable livelihood initiatives. For the past 10 years, Ellen has consulted and advised, on these and other issues, for a range of clients including the World Bank, the Bhutan Trust Fund for Environmental Conservation and C-Quest Capital, LLC. She has a master’s degree from Yale University in International Development, an AB in Anthropology from Vassar College, and a certificate in Integrated Marine Conservation from Duke University.