Mark Tercek

Mark Tercek is a global conservation leader with expertise in conservation finance, corporate sustainability and cross-sector collaboration. He is a champion of the idea of natural capital—valuing nature for its own sake as well as for the services it provides for people, such as clean air and water, productive soils and a stable climate.

Mark advises companies, start-ups, institutional investors and NGOs on environmental and organizational strategies as well as opportunities in impact investing. From 2008 to 2019, Mark served as CEO of The Nature Conservancy (TNC), the world’s largest global conservation organization, which operates in all 50 states and 72 countries. Under Mark’s leadership, the organization expanded its reach by doubling down on science, working across political and industry lines, and investing in systems to optimize performance among global staff. Mark also led the creation of NatureVest (TNC’s impact capital initiative), drove a $7 billion capital fundraising campaign, and established a permanent department focused on gender, diversity, equity and inclusion (GDEI).

From 1984-2008 Mark was a managing director and partner at Goldman Sachs where he led several of the firm’s key units, including Corporate Finance, Real Estate Investment Banking, Equity Capital Markets and Pine Street, the firm’s leadership development program. In 2005 Mark was tapped to develop the firm’s environmental strategy and to lead its Environmental Markets Group.

Mark has served on boards and councils for a number of global organizations, including: Resources for the Future’s President’s Council; the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions; Harvard Business School’s Social Enterprise Initiative; the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED); the Rockefeller Foundation Economic Council on Planetary Health; Acumen; and the AXA Stakeholders Advisory Panel. Mark currently serves on the Williams College Board of Trustees and was on the finance faculty of New York University’s Stern School of Business until 2008.

Mark is a regular public speaker on environmental topics and has addressed business leaders, investors, academics, students and innovators at events around the world, including the World Economic Forum (WEF); TED; Summit; Aspen Ideas Festival; and Bloomberg Sustainability Summits.

Mark is the author of the Washington Post and Publisher’s Weekly bestselling book Nature’s Fortune: How Business and Society Thrive by Investing in Nature. His leadership of TNC has been profiled in The New Yorker, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, the Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Delta’s Sky Magazine, Mindful, and Nantucket Magazine. He has written columns and blogs for Forbes, Huffington Post, TNC, as well as other media outlets. His articles and speeches are available at marktercek.org.

Mark earned an M.B.A. from Harvard in 1984 and a B.A. from Williams College in 1979.

Mark and his wife Amy live in Washington, D.C. with their dog Taz. He continues to explore nature with his children, Ali, Margo, Luke, and Rex.