John Matthews

Executive Director

John has been working at the intersection of water with climate adaptation and resilience since 2007. His work explores how we define, develop, and accelerate the uptake of our emerging set of best practices for climate resilience.

John started and led WWF’s freshwater climate adaptation program in 2007 before co-founding the Alliance for Global Water Adaptation (AGWA) in 2010, where he remains the Executive Director. He has led the development of a variety of climate risk reduction methodologies that have been used in dozens of countries, prepared green bond criteria that have certified more than 15 billion USD in water resilience investments across six continents, and advised well over 100 countries on their national climate commitments.

Current work includes developing a new generation of resilience indicators, leading the development and implementation of a national climate planning tool, working with businesses to incorporate resilience within operations, heading a program to engage macroeconomic planners and central bankers to blend resilience with traditional economic evaluation approaches, and contributing to large-scale technical climate risk assessments.

Beyond AGWA, John is a Senior Water Fellow at Colorado State University and Water Resources Courtesy Faculty at Oregon State University, an advisor to the Shockwave Foundation, and on the board of Living in Kindness. John received a doctorate in ecology, evolution, and behavioral ecology from the University of Texas, Austin, and a Bachelor of Arts in ethnomusicology from the University of Chicago. Before becoming a freshwater ecologist, John worked as a book editor in publishing for 12 years. He lives in Corvallis, Oregon, with his wife and son.