Charlie Governali

Charlie is a Yale School of the Environment graduate focused on food & agriculture sustainability, land conservation, and conservation finance.

Before starting at Yale, Charlie built a new carbon credit program for the Seattle metro area that gets climate-conscious companies to invest in local tree canopy and parks. Charlie brought Microsoft on board as a founding buyer for the program, which launched in May 2019. The program helps finance the multi-billion dollar land conservation initiative that Charlie’s team built and launched in 2018. Alongside this work, Charlie supported one of the nation’s leading Transfer of Development Rights programs and a Wetland Mitigation ILF Program in his role as Land Conservation Projects Manager at the King County Department of Natural Resources & Parks.

Prior to this, Charlie was an investment analyst for the timberland and farmland arm of Grantham, Mayo, Van Otterloo & Co. - Renewable Resources (GMORR), a global investment management firm based out of Boston. There, Charlie valued timberland and farmland investments, provided analysis to improve forestry and farming operations, and spearheaded several environmental initiatives, including one focused on improving the water and biodiversity impacts of commercial agriculture.

Charlie’s time in the financial industry was preceded by grant-funded work at the World Resources Institute and Stanford’s Natural Capital Project – focused on the use of natural infrastructure for water, sustainable agriculture, and ecosystem services modeling and valuation for land use decision-making.

Charlie’s early career and education included eight seasons of scientific research from Australia to the Arctic, with work for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the Hubbard Brook Foundation, Australia National University in Tasmania, and Project Puffin (a Cornell-National Audubon partnership). Charlie graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in Ecology & Evolutionary from Dartmouth College.

Charlie’s passions outside of work include ski mountaineering, multi-week wilderness expeditions, and making pizza.