Akiva Fishman is the WWF-US Forest team expert on deforestation/conversion-free commodity production, supply chains, and governance. In this capacity, he advises companies on sourcing policies as well as landscape and jurisdictional approaches to address deforestation and land conversion at scale. He also helps shape WWF’s positioning and thought leadership to influence the global discourse around corporate responsibility to conserve forests and other ecosystems.

Akiva convenes a community of practice comprising more than 200 staff from about 50 countries to ensure cross-fertilization and alignment across WWF’s global network on efforts to further the deforestation/conversion-free agenda. He advances these priorities externally by representing WWF on the Steering Group of the Accountability Framework initiative, a global coalition of environmental and social nongovernmental organizations aligned on a set of corporate guidance to address deforestation and conversion.

In addition, Akiva oversees the build-out of a portfolio of critical landscapes and jurisdictions to which WWF-US directs corporate support. This work includes defining landscape “readiness” to determine how to best direct and approach investment in an area, articulating opportunities for corporate engagement to drive nature-positive outcomes, and connecting prospective corporate partners with opportunities that meet shared WWF and corporate goals. Complementing this programmatic oversight role, Akiva manages WWF’s relationships with several companies in the pulp and paper sector to transform sectors and production landscapes through responsible sourcing and investment, supplier engagement, and corporate leadership.

Akiva holds a bachelor of arts in international and global studies from Brandeis University; a master of forestry from Yale University; and a juris doctor from New York University, where he was a Root-Tilden-Kern Scholar.