Heather McGray

Bio

Heather McGray has spent 20+ years in the non-profit sector, working from local to global levels on climate change, community development, environmental governance, and education. She has served as the Director of the Climate Justice Resilience Fund since its inception in 2016. In this capacity, she oversees all aspects of a $22m global grantmaking initiative that supports climate action by women, youth, and Indigenous Peoples.

Heather previously served as the Director of the Climate Resilience Practice at the World Resources Institute. Under her leadership, Climate Resilience at WRI grew from a one-person project in 2007 to a cross-cutting practice with ten teammates across India, the US, and Brazil. Heather also worked for two years with The Access Initiative to ensure that citizens have the right and ability to influence decisions about natural resources. Earlier professional experience includes research on environmental management in China; research and advocacy on ISO 14000 environmental standards; coordination of an urban education and development network in New Haven, CT; and management of educational exchange programs for the Yale-China Association.

Heather holds a Master's of Environmental Management from Yale University and a BA from Oberlin College. She studied and taught at Yunnan University and Shanxi Agricultural University. She lives on traditional Piscataway and Nacotchtank land in Washington, DC.

COP27 speaker topic: New ways to deal with this global challenge
How development and humanitarian actors need to adapt and transform their ways of working to deal with the scale of challenge before us – some lessons and highlights from CJRF’s approach. Heather McGray has spent 20+ years in the non-profit sector, working from local to global levels on climate change, community development, environmental governance, and education. She has served as the Director of the Climate Justice Resilience Fund since its inception in 2016. In this capacity, she oversees all aspects of a $22m global grantmaking initiative that supports climate action by women, youth, and Indigenous Peoples.