Jonathan Pershing

Environment Program Director
William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
Menlo Park, CA

Jonathan Pershing is the Environment Program Director at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.He leads a team of grantmakers focused on climate change in the United States, China, India, Europe, and Latin America, and conserving the North American West. Jonathan served as Hewlett’s Environment Program director from 2017 to 2021 and returned to lead the program in 2022. From 2021 to 2022, he supported Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry in advancing various international commitments over the past year. Previously, Jonathan served as Special Envoy for Climate Change at the U.S. Department of State and lead U.S. negotiator to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. His government career also included tours as the Deputy Envoy and as the Science Advisor and Deputy Director of the Office of Global Change at the State Department, as the Senior Climate Advisor to the U.S. Secretary of Energy and both as the Principal Deputy Director of the Office of Energy Policy and the Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Affairs and Policy at the Department of Energy. In addition to his US government service, he spent six years as the director of the Climate, Energy and Pollution Program at the World Resources Institute; five years as the Head of the Environment Division at the International Energy Agency in Paris; and academic posts at the University of Minnesota and American University. He holds a Ph.D. in geology and geophysics and among other roles, served as a lead author, review editor and contributor for reports of the Nobel- prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.