Strategic Positioning
Clarifying how an opportunity should be framed, where it sits within the capital landscape, and how its commercial and impact value will be understood by investors, institutions, and strategic partners.
PRIVATE ADVISORY · CAPITAL ·
IMPACT · GLOBAL RELATIONSHIPS
Connecting Strategy,
Capital, and Global
Relationships.
For more than two decades, I have built companies, led global institutions, and advised leaders at the intersection of finance, sustainability, and impact. From pioneering carbon markets to serving as CEO of the Global Reporting Initiative and Chair of UKSIF, my work has included engagement with the White House, the United Nations, the World Economic Forum, and investors, philanthropists, family offices, and institutions around the world.
Today, I maintain a small private advisory practice and selectively take on new mandates where my experience, perspective, and relationships can make a meaningful difference.
Leadership, Board, and
Institutional Experience
My perspective has been shaped through leadership, board, advisory, and convening roles across finance, sustainability, investment, and international institutions.
Leadership
- Global Reporting Initiative
- Former CEO
- UKSIF
- Former Chair
- Forum for Impact
- Founder and CEO
Board Institutional roles
IISD
Board Member
Natural Capital Coalition
Former Vice Chair
Institutional roles
Carbonetworks
Founder and CEO
Selected international engagement
United NationsWhite HouseWorld Economic Forum
Selected organizations and forums with which Michael has engaged, worked, or participated.
A Trusted Perspective When
the Path Is Not Obvious.
The most consequential opportunities rarely arrive with a clear path forward—particularly where capital, sustainability, and public purpose intersect.
My experience inside the institutions and markets that have shaped impact, sustainable investment, and responsible finance has given me a direct understanding of how investors, governments, companies, and institutions evaluate opportunities—and how those expectations are now changing.
Today, established ESG narratives are being reconsidered, capital priorities are shifting, and organizations are under greater pressure to demonstrate both commercial value and credible impact. The right institutional partners may not yet be clear. A strong proposition may not be expressed in language that investors or decision-makers recognize. An international opportunity may require a deeper understanding of the people, priorities, and relationships shaping the market.
These are the circumstances in which I am often asked to become involved.
I work privately with principals, CEOs, boards, investors, and institutional leaders as they consider significant questions involving strategy, capital, sustainability, impact, partnerships, and international opportunity.
Impact and Sustainable Investment
Drawing on more than two decades of leadership in impact, sustainable investment, and responsible finance to interpret changing expectations and develop approaches grounded in both financial reality and credible outcomes.
International Relationships
Identifying relevant investors, institutions, companies, governments, and partners—and developing the trusted relationships required to move an international opportunity forward.
Confidential Convening
Bringing investors, family offices, institutions, policymakers, and business leaders into private, carefully structured conversations around a defined question or opportunity.
Selected Advisory Mandates
Repositioning Impact for a Changing Capital Market
Advising funds, companies, and institutions on how to reposition impact and sustainability priorities as ESG language, government policy, investor expectations, and global capital markets continue to change.
Blended Finance for Large-Scale Challenges
Developing approaches that bring together private investment, public capital, philanthropy, and institutional partners to address significant sustainability challenges, including climate, energy, oceans, nature, and economic development.
Family Offices, Next-Generation Leadership, and Impact
Working privately with family-office principals and next-generation family members as they define their approach to impact, connect investment and philanthropic priorities, and determine how capital can express both family values and long-term ambition.
Much of my advisory work is confidential.
Mandates typically arise where established approaches to impact and sustainable investment are being reconsidered—and where investors, family offices, philanthropists, governments, and institutions need new ways to work together.
Representative mandates include:
Developing New Capital Corridors
Working with investors, institutions, and governments to establish impact and sustainability as strategic pillars within emerging capital corridors—connecting investment priorities across countries, regions, and institutional networks.
Cross-Border Philanthropy and Partnership
Advising philanthropists, foundations, family offices, and institutions on cross-border initiatives that require alignment between local priorities, international capital, public institutions, and credible implementation partners.
Trade, Investment, and a Changing Global Order
Advising leaders on how shifts in trade, industrial policy, geopolitical alignment, and sovereign priorities are changing international investment—and what those changes mean for partnerships, capital strategy, and sustainable development.
Representative Current Work
Much of my work is confidential. The following examples illustrate the kinds of questions currently informing my advisory practice.
- Advising an international institution on how impact can become a strategic pillar within an emerging capital corridor.
- Working with a family office on the relationship between next-generation leadership, investment, philanthropy, and long-term family purpose.
- Developing a blended-finance approach connecting private investment, philanthropy, and public institutions around a significant sustainability challenge.
- Advising an initiative on how changing trade, industrial policy, and international relationships affect its capital and partnership strategy.
PRIVATE ADVISORYSelective by Design.
Selective by Design.
Confidential by Default.
I maintain a deliberately small advisory practice, working directly with the principals and senior leaders responsible for making decisions.
Mandates are shaped around the situation rather than selected from a standard menu of services. Some focus on a specific question or opportunity. Others develop into longer-term relationships with a principal, family office, board, fund, company, or institution.
My work frequently sits at the intersection of capital, impact, institutional positioning, international relationships, and long-term strategic change. I become involved where the opportunity is significant, the stakeholders are complex, and an independent perspective can influence the outcome.
Confidentiality is fundamental. Conversations remain private, mandates are not publicized without agreement, and relationships are handled with care.
Experience Across Finance,
Institutions,
and International Markets
My career has included building companies, leading international organizations, chairing industry bodies, serving on boards, and convening investors and institutions around significant financial and sustainability questions.
01Silicon Valley, Founder & CEO
An Early Pioneer in Carbon Markets
As founder and CEO of Carbonetworks, I developed technology and market infrastructure during the formative years of carbon finance. That experience established a lasting interest in how new financial markets are created, governed, and brought to scale.
02GRI, Chief Executive
Leading a Global Sustainability Institution
As CEO of the Global Reporting Initiative, I led the organization responsible for the world's most widely used sustainability reporting standards, working with companies, governments, investors, and institutions across more than 140 countries.
03UKSIF, Chair
Chairing a Major Sustainable-Investment Association
As Chair of the UK Sustainable Investment and Finance Association, I worked with an industry network whose members collectively represented approximately £11 trillion in assets under management. The role provided a direct perspective on institutional investment, public policy, and the evolution of sustainable finance.
04Africa, Senior Strategic Advisor
Engagement Across African Finance and Investment
My work in Africa has included advising, convening, and developing relationships across investment, sustainable development, conservation, and transition finance. This continues to inform my understanding of the opportunities and constraints facing international capital on the continent.
05IISD, Board Member
International Policy and Sustainable Development
I serve on the board of the International Institute for Sustainable Development, contributing to an organization working across international economic policy, sustainability, investment, and development.
06Forum for Impact, Co-founder and Convener
Convening Investors, Family Offices, and Institutions
I co-founded Forum for Impact to create a trusted setting in which family-office principals, investors, philanthropists, companies, and institutions can examine important financial, investment, and impact questions together.
Through private dialogues around the world, Forum for Impact connects people who control, influence, and deploy capital with leaders working on significant sustainability and development challenges. The emphasis is on candid exchange, trusted relationships, and practical collaboration—not transactional networking.
Global relationshipsRelationships Built
Relationships Built
Over Decades
My international relationships have developed through more than two decades of shared work with investors, institutions, companies, governments, philanthropists, family offices, and sustainability leaders.
Forum for Impact has extended that work by creating a trusted setting in which influential investors and decision-makers can explore consequential questions together.
These relationships provide a direct perspective on changing priorities across markets and institutions. They also help me identify the people, organizations, and ideas most relevant to a particular opportunity.
Where a relationship is directly relevant to a mandate, I may facilitate a selective introduction. These introductions are made carefully and only where there is clear alignment and genuine value for everyone involved.
Selected Speaking and Media
Selected mediaConversations and appearances exploring finance, sustainability, impact, and the evolution of global capital.
Before We Begin
A few practical points about the nature of my advisory practice.
Who do you advise?
I work privately with family-office principals, philanthropists, investors, funds, CEOs, boards, governments, and international institutions.
I become involved where the question is consequential, the stakeholders are complex, and my experience in capital, sustainability, impact, and international relationships is directly relevant.
Is your work limited to impact and sustainable investment?
No. Impact, sustainability, and responsible investment are important foundations of my experience, but they are not the limits of my work.
Many of my current mandates concern broader forces reshaping capital: changes in global trade and investment, the growing influence of governments and sovereign institutions, new international partnerships, cross-border philanthropy, and the relationship between private capital and public purpose.
My particular perspective comes from understanding how impact and sustainability fit within these larger financial and institutional shifts.
Do you raise capital or provide investor introductions?
I do not operate as a placement agent or sell access to my network.
I may advise on capital positioning, identify relevant investors or institutional partners, and prepare an opportunity for substantive conversations. Where there is clear alignment, appropriate readiness, and genuine value for both parties, I may also facilitate a selected introduction.
How does a confidential conversation begin?
Send a short note describing what you are considering, the decision or opportunity in front of you, and why you believe my perspective may be relevant.
If there appears to be a strong fit, we can begin with a private conversation. Initial discussions are treated as confidential, and mandates are not publicized without agreement.
A Conversation Is Usually the
Best Place to Begin.
Most of my advisory relationships begin through an existing relationship, a referral, or a conversation about a shared area of interest.
If you are navigating a significant question involving capital, impact, partnerships, philanthropy, or international opportunityand believe my perspective may be relevant—I would be pleased to hear what you are considering.
All initial conversations are treated as confidential.