Rosalind Helfand, MPhil, Founder

Rosalind Helfand is an environmental and social policies and programs expert with extensive experience leading multi-stakeholder coalitions, facilitating strategic pathways and engagement, and uniting action and actors across the local, subnational, national, and global levels.

As a United Nations consultant, Rosalind was Thematic Lead of the Feminist Action for Climate Justice Action Coalition under UN Women, where she convened hundreds of organizations including national governments, grassroots and youth leaders, Indigenous leaders, businesses, NGOs, philanthropies and other UN agencies under a set of goals aimed at enabling a feminist green economic transition. Rosalind also supported advancement of gender-responsive synergies across the Rio Conventions, including bringing the Rio Convention Secretariats together for a workshop on this topic, co-leading capacity development for Gender and Climate National Focal Points to the UNFCCC in East and Southern Africa and supporting dialogues on protecting civic space and women human rights defenders. Rosalind joined the UN Women negotiations teams at the CBD, UNCCD and UNFCCC COPs and also led collaborative stakeholder engagement in the COPs, Commission on the Status of Women and other global forums.

In 2020, Rosalind Co-founded the California Global Biodiversity Alliance (CalGBA), originally a California statewide multi-stakeholder coalition that has since expanded with members and partners across the US and globally. CalGBA advocates for uniting local and global biodiversity action through participation in the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) COPs and localizing the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) targets at every level. CalGBA unites policymakers, government staff, NGOs, academics and researchers and community advocates to push for ambitious, mainstreamed environmental policies. CalGBA recently co-hosted a National Biodiversity Dialogue with IUCN, ICLEI USA, Global Youth Biodiversity Network USA, National Caucus of Environmental Legislators and California Environmental Voters and is preparing for a “super delegation” presence at the CBD COP17 in Yerevan, Armenia in October 2026.

A member of the University of Cambridge Conservation Leadership Alumni Network (UCCLAN), a global group of biodiversity experts, Rosalind has Co-chaired UCCLAN delegations to IPBES negotiations and co-led global UCCLAN projects like the Global Green Recovery Collaborative. Rosalind has served as an expert reviewer for the IPBES Transformative Change and Nexus Assessments, as well as the Business and Biodiversity Assessment, and for the IPCC 6th Assessment Report and the IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Cities. In 2020, Rosalind conducted research with Jacaranda School in Malawi on their approach to local environmental leadership. Also a local environmental leader, Rosalind serves on the City of Los Angeles’s Biodiversity Expert Council, contributes to Los Angeles Neighborhood Council Sustainability Alliance dialogues, and is Director of the Omega Sci-Fi Project, which works with teens across Los Angeles County to explore environmental and social justice themes and solutions through science fiction writing. 

Rosalind is based in Los Angeles, California where she has long led on both social and environmental justice, as well as educational and cultural initiatives. As a teen activist, she campaigned for Mojave Desert protections and led US national campaigns to raise awareness of lead contamination in urban environments. She later joined the City of West Hollywood team, where she led regional programs such as the Human Rights Speakers Series, directed programming for the Women’s Leadership Conference, developed reproductive justice advocacy projects and spearheaded award-winning regional literary endeavors. Rosalind is frequently asked to speak and moderate in global forums and at conferences and other events.

In addition to her Conservation Leadership Masters from the University of Cambridge, Rosalind holds a BA in Environmental Studies from UC Santa Cruz.

View her LinkedIn Profile HERE.