Dr. Andrey Kushlin

Dr. Andrey Kushlin is an international development professional with over 20 years of leadership experience in Forestry, Biodiversity, Natural Resources and Landscape Management and Governance. Andrey has led multinational, multisectoral teams to design, implement and evaluate large country-led public investment projects and policy support programs in forestry and biodiversity, financed by the World Bank and the Global Environment Facility (GEF) in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

He has developed and managed corporate flagship programs at a senior executive level at the World Bank (such as the Global Tiger Initiative and the Global Snow Leopard and Ecosystem Protection Program collectively led by 20 countries of Central, South and East Asia). Andrey has led preparation of technical and policy papers on forest law enforcement, governance and trade (FLEGT), forest fire and landscape management, smart green infrastructure, in addition to his coordinating role in the preparation of the 2018 State of the World's Forests report.

As Deputy Director for Forestry Policy and Resources at the UN-FAO andrey managed four technical teams, coordinated the organization's global forestry technical network of over 300 professionals and oversaw the departmental GEF portfolio, among his other roles there. As an independent consultant andrey provides advisory services in strategic planning, organizational development, delivery management and impact evaluations in the environment and natural resources sector. Andrey has lived and worked internationally and has an equal affinity for field project implementation and for intricate intergovernmental policy processes.

In 2020, he co-founded EndPandemics (now – EarthTeam), a global action alliance of frontline organizations that aim to reduce the risks of future pandemics by addressing their root causes through nature-based solutions. He has a PhD in Environmental Geography from the Lomonosov Moscow State University in Russia, studied forestry at Yale University in the U.S. and is an Honorary Member of the Global Tiger Forum in New Delhi, India.