Heather Thompson

Chief Executive Officer

Heather Thompson (she/her/hers pronouns) has been involved with ITDP for more than a dozen years, including serving on ITDP’s Board of Directors with two years as Chair.

Throughout her career, Ms. Thompson has worked with the environmental non-profit sector to design and carry out strategies with large-scale impact. She has advised clients, including the Asian Development Bank, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and Environmental Defense Fund, on finding ways to help our cities and natural systems increase resilience in the face of climate change, population growth, and other development pressures.

Previously, Ms. Thompson was co-founder and Vice President of Programs for ClimateWorks, a network of teams which promote sectoral policies to mitigate climate change, and a Principal at CEA, where she led the firm’s work in philanthropic strategy, covering energy and climate change, marine resource management, biodiversity protection, and land conservation.

Ms. Thompson has lived and worked abroad in China, the U.K., and Denmark. She holds an MSc in environmental economics from the University of York, U.K. and a B.S. in biological sciences from the University of California, San Diego.