Julia Marton-Lefèvre

Chair of the Board, Villars Institute

Julia Marton-Lefèvre is an independent adviser on sustainability. She was Director General of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) from 2007 to 2015. Prior positions included Rector of the UN-affiliated University for Peace; Director of Leadership for Environment and Development (LEAD) International and Director of the International Council of Scientific Unions. She currently serves as chair of the Villars Institute Foundation: the Board Trustees of the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT; the Donor Council of the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund and the Strategic Advisory Council to the French think tank, IDDR. She is a member of the Board of Directors of Veolia Environment; a member of the Board of Livelihoods Ventures, and of the Advisory Board to the Hoffmann Center for Global Sustainability (Graduate Institute, Geneva). She lectures regularly on environment & sustainable development topics including Yale University where she was the Edward P. Bass Distinguished Visiting Scholar in the Environment.

Julia has received numerous awards, including from the AAAS for International Cooperation in Science; from France as Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur and Officier dans l’Ordre National de Mérite; from Monaco as Chevalier and Officier, l’Ordre de Saint-Charles; from Hungary the ProNatura Award, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Global Council for Science and the Environment.