Who we are

Our team

Jeff Bezos

Executive Chair

Lauren Sánchez

Vice Chair

Amanda Eichel

Fellow, Cities

Amanda Eichel is the Bezos Earth Fund’s Cities Fellow. She has championed the cause of urban climate action over the past two decades, working for two of the world’s leading cities on sustainability, first in Seattle and then in New York City. She pioneered efforts to develop city networks to rapidly scale climate change solutions, most recently as Executive Director of the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy.

She founded, built, or led some of the world’s most impactful initiatives to deliver city action on climate change, including the Compact of Mayors, the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, and the Urban Sustainability Directors Network.

Amanda was a senior advisor to Mike Bloomberg as the Special Envoy on Climate Action to the Secretary General of the U.N. and has spearheaded numerous collaborations and innovations to drive climate action at the local level.

Amen Ra Mashariki

Fellow, Data and Social Justice

Amen Ra Mashariki is a Fellow at the Bezos Earth Fund, where he works to identify strategies and solutions that will help environmental justice organizations use data to solve complex issues. Dr. Mashariki was previously the Global Director of the AI Lab at the World Resources Institute. He has also served as Head of Machine Learning at Urbint, adjunct faculty at NYU’s Center for Urban Science and Progress (CUSP), and Fellow at the Harvard Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation.

Dr. Mashariki served as the first Chief Analytics Officer for the City of New York under the de Blasio administration and the Director of the Mayor’s Office of Data Analytics. He was appointed to be a White House Fellow and the Chief Technology Officer for the Office of Personnel Management of the United States in the Obama Administration. Amen earned a Doctorate in Engineering from Morgan State University and a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from Howard and Lincoln University, respectively.

Andrew Steer

President & CEO

Dr. Andrew Steer is the President and CEO of the Bezos Earth Fund. Andrew joined the Earth Fund from the World Resources Institute, where he served as President & CEO for over eight years. Prior to this, Andrew served as the World Bank’s Special Envoy for Climate Change, Director General at the UK Department of International Development, and Head of the World Bank in Vietnam and Indonesia. Dr. Steer is a Global Agenda Trustee for the World Economic Forum, a Commissioner of the Energy Transitions Commission, a member of the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED), co-chair of the Greening the Belt and Road Coalition, and member of the Advisory Committees of the Asian Development Bank and Bank of America. Andrew was educated at St. Andrews University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Cambridge University. He has a PhD in international economics and finance.

Arun Majumdar

Fellow, Energy Technology

Dr. Arun Majumdar is the Jay Precourt Provostial Chair Professor at Stanford University and Senior Fellow and former Director of the Precourt Institute for Energy. He served in the Obama administration as the Founding Director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E) and as the Acting Under Secretary of Energy. He served as a Science Envoy for the US Department of State and currently serves as the Chair of the US Secretary of Energy Advisory Board.

Dr. Majumdar was also the Vice President for Energy at Google and advises numerous businesses in the energy innovation ecosystem. He is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, US National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received his bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay in 1985 and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1989.

Brian Cimagala

Senior Producer, Film 45

Brian Cimagala is a Senior Producer at Film45, working closely with the Bezos Earth Fund to tell important, character-driven stories around climate and nature. A voracious consumer of stories for as long as he can remember, Brian Cimagala has enjoyed working as a professional storyteller for 15+ years. As a producer/director of non-fiction and documentary content, he has worked on a wide range of projects, including international travel series, CGI-heavy specials on Roman gladiators, and verité-driven sports documentaries. He’s had the privilege of documenting the rebuilding of New York City’s World Trade Center and has filmed on all seven continents, with work taking him to the top of Tower One, the Antarctic ice shelf, and Point Nemo (the pole of inaccessibility).

Cecilia Martinez

Advisor for Resilience and Communities

Dr. Cecilia Martinez is the Principal Advisor for Resilience and Communities. Cecilia joined the Earth Fund after serving as the Senior Director for Environmental Justice at the White House Council on Environmental Quality in the Biden Administration. In this role, she helped to establish a whole of government approach to equitable climate and environmental policy. Before this, Cecilia served as the Executive Director of the Center for Earth, Energy and Democracy where she helped launch the Equitable and Just Climate Forum. She has directed numerous projects at the local, state, and national levels. She received her B.S. from Stanford University, MPA from New Mexico State University, and Ph.D. from the University of Delaware.

Charlotte Pera

Vice President for Strategy and Programs

Charlotte Pera is Vice President for Strategy and Programs at the Bezos Earth Fund and works closely with President and CEO Andrew Steer to build and lead the growing organization. Before joining the Earth Fund, Charlotte served for more than eight years as President & CEO of the ClimateWorks Foundation, a leading philanthropic organization that works globally to advance climate solutions. Charlotte previously held leadership roles with the Energy Foundation and engineering consulting firm Acurex Environnmental. She serves on a variety of boards and steering committees and holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in mechanical engineering from Stanford University.

Cristián Samper

Principal Advisor for Nature

Cristián Samper is Principal Advisor for Nature at the Bezos Earth Fund and has served as President & Chief Executive Officer of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) since 2012. WCS is one the largest environmental non-profit organizations in the world, established in 1895 to save wildlife and wild places. WCS manages the largest network of urban wildlife parks, hosting four million visitors each year, and carries long-term field research and conservation programs in more than 60 countries.

Prior to joining WCS, Dr. Samper served as Director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and was the founding director of Colombia’s Alexander von Humboldt Institute. He served as Chair of the science advisory body of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and was one of the leaders of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Raised in Colombia, Dr. Samper studied biology at the Universidad de Los Andes and earned his MA and PhD from Harvard University.

Danielle Deane-Ryan

Director of Equitable Climate Solutions

Danielle Deane-Ryan has devoted her career to her passion for advancing strategic, equitable climate crisis solutions. She is the inaugural Director of Equitable Climate Solutions at the Bezos Earth Fund. Prior, Danielle was a senior advisor to foundations including the Libra Foundation, the Donors of Color Network and the Heising-Simons Foundation. Danielle has held executive roles at The Nathan Cummings Foundation; within the Obama Administration at the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy; Green 2.0; the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies; and the Hewlett Foundation.

Danielle is a current member of the National Academies Accelerating Decarbonization Committee. She serves on boards of Resource Media and the Clean Energy States Alliance. Danielle has an M.Sc. from the London School of Economics in Environment and Development, and a B.A. from Williams College in Political Economy with an Environmental Studies Concentration. Danielle was awarded the Williams College Bicentennial Medal in 2019 for her work on Environmental Justice.

Doug Varley

General Counsel

Doug Varley is General Counsel of the Bezos Earth Fund. Before joining the Earth Fund, Doug was a member of the DC-based law firm of Caplin & Drysdale where is served most recently as President and head of the exempt organizations practice. For more than 25 years, he has worked with national and international environmental organizations on a wide range of legal matters and has served on multiple nonprofit boards. He holds B.A. and JD degrees from the University of Virginia and an MA from the University of Chicago.

Eda Lee

Executive Assistant to the President & CEO and Special Projects Coordinator

Eda Lee is Executive Assistant to the President & CEO, and Special Projects Coordinator at the Bezos Earth Fund. She manages all administrative needs of the President & CEO and works closely with the leadership team to ensure smooth operations across the executive office. Before joining the Earth Fund, Eda was Executive Assistant to the President & CEO of the World Resources Institute (WRI), where she worked in the executive office for over four years. Prior to WRI, she worked with Family Planning 2020 as assistant to the Executive Director. Eda holds a B.A. in International Relations from Wellesley College, and an M.A. in Public Management from Johns Hopkins University.

Kelly Levin

Chief of Science, Data and Systems Change

Kelly is Chief of Science, Data and Systems Change for the Bezos Earth Fund. In this role, she brings data, analysis and evidence to inform the Fund’s strategic direction. Kelly is also Co-Director of the Systems Change Lab, which monitors, learns from and accelerates the transformational change required to protect people and the planet.

Before coming to the Earth Fund, Kelly spent 12 years at the World Resources Institute, where she was the Director of Tracking and Strengthening Climate Action in WRI’s global climate program. Kelly holds a PhD and Master of Environmental Management from Yale’s School of Environment and a B.A. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Yale College.

Fiona McRaith

Manager, Engagement and Delivery

Fiona is the Engagement and Delivery Manager for the Bezos Earth Fund. In this role, she works closely with the President & CEO to advance the Fund’s strategic priorities and initiatives. Before joining the Earth Fund, she spent four years at the World Resources Institute curating the research and engagements of the President & CEO.

Fiona has previously held roles with the White House Office of Management and Budget during the Obama Administration, the Alliance for the Great Lakes, and Action for the Climate Emergency. Fiona holds a B.A. in International Development and Environment from McGill University.

Leon Clarke

Director of Decarbonization Pathways

Dr. Leon Clarke is the Director of Decarbonization Pathways at the Bezos Earth Fund. Leon joined the Earth Fund from the University of Maryland (UMD), where he served as the Research Director for the Center for Global Sustainability and Acting Director. He held a joint appointment with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). Before UMD, Dr. Clarke worked for 16 years at the Joint Global Change Research Institute (JGCRI), a collaboration between PNNL and UMD. He led the Integrated Human Earth System Science Group at JGCRI for 10 years. Dr. Clarke has served as an author and coordinating lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the National Climate Assessment, and the National Research Council. Dr. Clarke holds a Ph.D. in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University and a master’s and bachelor’s degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley.

Pamela Matson

Fellow, Future of Food

Pamela Matson is an interdisciplinary sustainability scientist at Stanford University. She is the Goldman Professor in the Department of Earth System Science and the Woods Institute for the Environment and served for 15 years as the dean of Stanford’s School of Earth. Her research addresses a range of environment and sustainability issues, including sources and sinks of greenhouse gases, sustainability of complex social-environmental systems (including agricultural systems), vulnerability and resilience to climate change, and knowledge-action linkages that can contribute to sustainability transformations at scale.

She is co-chair of the World Wildlife Fund-US board of directors and has served on numerous national and international boards, steering committees and commissions. She is an elected member of the US National Academy of Science and American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a MacArthur Award recipient, and has received many other honorary fellowships, doctorates and awards.

Stacie Paxton Cobos

Chief Communications Officer

Stacie Paxton Cobos is the Chief Communications Officer at the Bezos Earth Fund. Most recently she led global communications and marketing at the International Fund for Animal Welfare. Earlier, Stacie was Senior Vice President for Communications and Marketing at The Climate Reality Project, a leading nonprofit organization dedicated to solving the climate crisis founded and chaired by former Vice President Al Gore.

A veteran campaign strategist and spokeswoman, Stacie served as the national press secretary at the Democratic National Committee from 2006 to 2009. She managed communications on three presidential campaigns and spent six years on Capitol Hill as a spokeswoman and senior advisor to members of Congress. Her experience also includes several years at CNN, where she oversaw publicity for the network’s anchors and programming. Stacie graduated from the University of California at Santa Barbara.

Tom Rivett-Carnac

Fellow, International Climate

Tom Rivett-Carnac is a Fellow at the Bezos Earth Fund, focusing on the international politics of both climate change and the conservation and restoration of nature. He is also a Founding Partner at Global Optimism, where he leads work on the Climate Pledge in partnership with Amazon. He is also a Senior Advisor at Macquarie Group and at the Earthshot Prize and sits on the sustainability advisory board of Netflix.

Tom is also the co-author of the international bestseller The Future We Choose and co-host of the award-winning weekly podcast Outrage and Optimism. Tom was Senior Political Adviser to the Executive Secretary of the UN Climate Change Convention from 2013-2016, a position from which he helped co-develop the strategy that led to the landmark Paris Climate Agreement.

Tony Chan

Chief Financial and Operating Officer

Tony Chan is the Chief Financial and Operating Officer at the Bezos Earth Fund overseeing finance, information technology, grants management, facilities and other operational initiatives. Prior to joining the Earth Fund, Tony served as the Deputy Chief Operating Officer at the Ford Foundation, where he managed and coordinated Ford Foundation’s operations in New York and across 10 offices worldwide. Previously, Tony was the Senior Director of Strategy and International Operations for Habitat for Humanity International and the Organizational Development Director for Hands On Atlanta.

Before joining the nonprofit sector, Tony began his career in strategy and operations consulting including positions with Accenture, Arthur Andersen and Intel Corporation. Tony holds an MBA and a Bachelor of Industrial Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Valerie Blain-Smith

Chief People Officer

Valerie Blain-Smith is the Chief People Officer at Bezos Earth Fund. Working closely with the Executive team and leveraging over 20 years of experience in human capital management, she will contribute creative, dynamic, and forward-thinking leadership, promoting the Earth Fund’s vision and mission by developing and leading its human resources function.

Before joining the Earth Fund, Valerie served as the Senior Vice President of Human Resources at World Wildlife Fund (WWF), a leading global conservation organization, where she brought a breadth of experience to key HR areas such as talent acquisition, employee relations, performance management, compensation and benefits design, diversity, equity and inclusion, and training and development. Valerie holds a bachelors’ degree in interdisciplinary studies and a master’s degree in human resources management from the Catholic University of America.

Open Positions

Digital Lead

View Position

Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Lead

View Position

Director, Grants Management

View Position

Director, Information Technology

View Position

Director, Nature Solutions

View Position

Director, Economics of the Future