Terra Alpha is pleased to welcome Kathy Baughman McLeod to our Advisory Board. Kathy is a pioneer in the field of climate resilience and adaptation, and blends expertise in science, strategy, and finance with proven leadership skills to deliver groundbreaking climate-risk management solutions. Terra Alpha founder Tim Dunn noted, “We are incredibly honored to have Kathy join our advisory board. She brings deep expertise and a new voice to our firm’s mission of enabling a sustainable planet for all of society.” Kathy joins an advisory board that has expertise in a diverse range of topics including planetary sciences, investments, corporate reporting, governance, and policy. The board’s role is to help inform our investment process and engagement work.
Kathy has been a trusted advisor to corporate leaders across a wide array of industries including Insurance, Financial Services, Engineering, Agriculture, and Tourism. With a unique background that includes leadership positions in the private sector, government, and global NGOs, she brings practical insight and experience to governance issues at the nexus of corporate strategy, risk, and innovation. She is known for her finance and risk acumen, executing big ideas, and inspiring action among diverse stakeholders and decision makers.
With a mission to build individual and community resilience to climate impacts, Kathy currently leads the Arsht-Rock Resilience Center’s (Arsht-Rock) work to reach one billion people worldwide with climate resilience solutions by 2030. She also chairs the Center’s Extreme Heat Resilience Alliance — which is helping to appoint Chief Heat Officers in cities throughout the world, spearheading the global push to name and categorize heat waves, and accelerating urban financing approaches to reducing the effects of extreme heat. Arsht-Rock recently launched the Extreme Heat Income Insurance, an initiative to preemptively replace income for 2.5 million women in the informal sector who are profoundly exposed to climate-driven extreme heat in India.
Previously, Kathy served as Global Executive for Environmental and Social Risk at Bank of America, Managing Director for Climate Resilience at The Nature Conservancy, and was Deputy Chief of Staff to Florida’s elected Chief Financial Officer, where she also served as an appointed member of the Florida Climate and Energy Commission. Kathy is a Policy Fellow of the French Foreign Ministry, a member of the Insurance Development Forum’s Operating Committee, and was appointed to the US Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) National Advisory Council as its first-ever climate specialist in 2021. Kathy also serves as a board director for the Singapore-based AI software company, Climate Alpha, and on the Climate Advisory Council of Pathfinder International. She holds an MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and an MS in Geography from Florida State University.