John-Rob is the Senior Manager for UrbanShift in the WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities. He is also the Senior Manager for Nature-Positive Urban Development, supporting WRI’s efforts to integrate nature and biodiversity into urban development projects.

UrbanShift – funded by the Global Environment Facility, and delivered in collaboration with ICLEI, C40 Cities and the UN Environment Programme – supports cities around the world to adopt integrated approaches to urban development, in an effort to build an equitable, zero-carbon future where both people and the planet thrive. The program brings together 23 participating cities on a wide range of urban sustainability issues including nature-based solutions, urban biodiversity, climate finance, climate action planning and strategic urban planning. In his role, John-Rob leads WRI’s UrbanShift team and manages WRI’s contributions to UrbanShift by overseeing the day-to-day management of the project. He leads on strategy, M&E and donor reporting, and partner engagement. He also develops and delivers technical content on nature-based solutions, urban biodiversity and urban climate finance for capacity-building activities such as City Academies, Geospatial Planning Labs and Peer Exchanges. John-Rob is a published and recognized expert on urban nature-based solutions. He has authored and contributed to topical research, been invited to speak at multiple global conferences and events, and been cited in numerous media articles.

Prior to UrbanShift, John-Rob was the Global Implementation Manager for Cities4Forests, an initiative that cultivates awareness and catalyzes action on the part of urban residents and city governments to conserve, manage, and restore trees, forests and other nature-based solutions (NBS) inside and outside city boundaries, and to harness the previously untapped voices of mayors in support of global forest conservation. John-Rob helped to start the initiative in 2018 and then managed project delivery with WRI’s international office teams in Brazil, Central Africa, Colombia, Ethiopia, Kenya, India, Indonesia, Madagascar and Mexico. He led on strategy, engagement with partners and donors, and fundraising. He was the focal point for many member cities in Africa, Latin America and Europe and contributed to cutting-edge research on NBS and climate adaptation, a new methodology for cities to inventory GHG emissions and removals by trees and forests, and an evaluation of the benefits of forests for cities and their residents.

John-Rob holds a Master of Science in Environmental Policy from the University of Oxford, where he was a student of St Edmund Hall. He also holds a Bachelor of Science (Honors) in Biodiversity and Conservation and a Bachelor of Science in Zoology and Environmental Science, both from Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa. John-Rob is originally from Botswana and is a dual national of South Africa and the United Kingdom. He speaks fluent Setswana and Sotho and conversational Afrikaans and French, and enjoys being outdoors and in nature.