Kathy Baughman McLeod

Director and Senior Vice President at Adrienne Arsht–Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center, Atlantic Council

I am a high-energy leader in the business of building innovative, risk-informed strategies for financing mechanisms and smart policy solutions for climate change and its many impacts on people, communities and economies. Working on climate and related, urgent and complex issues, requires a passion for, and sensitivity to, local cultures. I leverage my passion for people to build and lead teams of policy specialists, humanitarians, marketing and technology experts, and financiers across the world.

Expertise: Broad and deep expertise in global climate change, field-level, national, and global mitigation, adaptation and resilience science, innovative finance, policy, risk and insurance, corporate governance and sustainability & client and stakeholder engagement, public finance, infrastructure, and private investment, public affairs and communications.

Core Competencies: Strategy/Innovation/Climate Change Risk & Opportunity/ESG Policy, Risk & Investing/Fundraising/Corporate Partnerships/Finance/Team Building & Development/Policy Development/Crisis Management/Media Relations/Operations Management/P&L/International Growth & Development/Regulatory Frameworks/Risk Management/Advocacy & Campaigns/Stakeholder Engagement/Applied Science

Notable Achievements:
• Developed, with Swiss Re, a new category of insurance products to reduce climate impacts featured on the front page of The New York Times in December 2020.
• Led and executed Bank of America’s first global climate risk disclosure report according to the recommendations of the Taskforce for Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).
• Led the $30 billion Florida Treasury to be the first US State Treasury to publicly analyze climate risk.
• Operating Committee Member, Insurance Development Forum. a global public-private partnership including 17 companies with more than $435 billion AUM.
• Gubernatorially Appointed Energy & Climate Commissioner, State of Florida.
• Transformed The Nature Conservancy’s approach to managing climate risk by developing new insurance products based on nature’s protective value for economies.
• Award-winning creator and producer of the documentary film series, The Nature of People.
• Led investor relations in turnaround of $25 billion Florida Local Government Pooled Fund in wake of 2008 financial crisis.

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