Dr. Parramon Gurney has 11 years’ experience in the private sector (as environmental lawyer and sustainability consultant) and 6 years working for NGOs. Dr. Parramon Gurney has 15 years’ extensive experience in project management (involved in the design, development, staffing, implementation, financing, monitoring and evaluation of about 40 projects), including managing large (multi partners and multi countries) programmes (E.g. USAID and EU funded). She has developed the required skills to support: sustainability strategy/vision development and implementation; multi countries projects/initiatives design, implementation and evaluation; resource mobilisation; team coaching and mentoring; organisational improvement for sustainability; performance management, including review and audit; capacity building internally and externally; partnerships development and nurturing; stakeholder’ engagement; research; marketing, branding and communication; financial management and planning.

She has spent the last 15 years focusing her energy in promoting “nature-based solutions” to address key socio-economic challenges (using a systems and integrated approach). Most of her work involved making the business case for investment in “nature-based solutions” and/or “investment in green infrastructures” to address key social economic issues. She has promoted, developed and implemented projects related to ecosystem restoration, ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction, ecosystem-based adaptation, ecosystem-based mitigation, integrated coastal zone management, integrated water resources management, Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR), and integrated oceans management. She has also worked extensively to support the mainstreaming of sustainability, especially biodiversity, into business and public development plan. She has also worked on key initiatives aimed at implementing green and inclusive growth on the ground. She also has more than 10 years’ experience in climate change mitigation and adaptation, from policy development to implementation. She has extensive experience in green and inclusive growth in Africa, from co-creating vision with a wide spectrum of stakeholders to implementation on the ground.

She has a passion to rally people around a vision, working together to achieve it. She has a natural ability to connect people, taking them on a shared journey, inspiring and motivating them to work together to reach a common goal. She is able to do so at a team, company, sectoral, landscape, national or regional level. She is not a “business as usual” person, she tends to push boundaries to always do better. She is motivated by innovation and setting new benchmarks of practice, to show the world that it can be done if you really are committed to it. She is passionate about shifting culture, trends and practices to support a more conscious, harmonious and sustainable world.