Mark J. Spalding

Mark J. Spalding is an expert on international ocean policy and law, blue economy finance and investment, and coastal and marine philanthropy. He has been the President of The Ocean Foundation since 2003. Under his leadership, it has grown exponentially from a $200,000/year to a $15 million/year budget, as he prioritized steering the human relationship with the sea to a brighter future through diverse, carefully chosen strategies and projects. Mark also serves on the Sargasso Sea Commission. He is a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Blue Economy at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies and an Advisor to the High-Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy. In addition, he serves as the advisor to the Rockefeller Climate Solutions Fund, the Rockefeller Global Innovation Strategy, and the UBS Rockefeller and Kraneshares Rockefeller Ocean Engagement Funds (unprecedented ocean-centric investment funds). Mark is a member of the UNEP Guidance Working Group for its Sustainable Blue Economy Finance Initiative. He is an Advisory Council Member for the African Marine Environment Sustainability Initiative. Mark is a co-author of the “Transatlantic Blue Economy Initiative,” a joint project of the Wilson Center and Konrad Adenauer Stiftung. Mark designed the first-ever blue carbon offset program, SeaGrass Grow. He was recently appointed by the
White House (CEQ) to the Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Sequestration (CCUS) Permitting Task Force for Federal Lands and Outer Continental Shelf.

From 1994 to 2003, Mark was the Environmental Law and Civil Society Program Director and Editor of the Journal of Environment and Development at UCSD’s Graduate School of International Relations & Pacific Studies (IR/PS). He was a research fellow at UCSD’s Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, a Sustainability Institute – Donella Meadows Leadership Fellow, and a SeaWeb Senior Fellow. From 2018 to 2023, he served as a member of the Ocean Studies Board and the U.S. National Committee for the Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, both of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (USA). He holds a B.A. in history with Honors from Claremont McKenna College, a J.D. from Loyola Law School, a Master in Pacific International Affairs (MPIA) from IR/PS, and a Wines of the World Certification from Cornell University. He graduated from the British School of Motor Racing and the Porsche Track Experience Precision Course. Mark’s deep connection with the ocean began as a young boy growing up in the Central Valley of California; each time he crested the coastal range and the Pacific came into view, it was like a breath of fresh air.