Jon Hutton is executive director of Global Conservation Impact at WWF. He led the project Biodiversity Revisited: Sparking a New Approach to Research for the Biosphere.

An ecologist who trained for a first degree at the University of Cambridge (UK) in 1978, Hutton received a scholarship to study for a doctorate in African wildlife management at the University of Zimbabwe in Harare. He went on to work in southern Africa in a range of science leadership positions directly linked to nature, natural resources and rural development in government, NGOs and the private sector. Hutton’s years in Africa have provided him with unique insights into the complex interplay between politics, economics and environmental policy. In 1999, he moved to Europe where he facilitated an innovative partnership between Zimbabwe-based Resource Africa and Cambridge-based Fauna & Flora International, which he then ran for several years. Subsequently, he helped restore UNEP-WCMC’s fortunes, reinstating its reputation among decision-makers as a global leader in the synthesis and assessment of biodiversity. After 10 years with UNEP as director of the World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) in Cambridge, in March 2016 Hutton became director of the Luc Hoffmann Institute, a science-based incubator in the offices of WWF International in Switzerland. He was appointed executive director of Global Conservation Impact at WWF in 2020.

Hutton has produced over 100 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters as well as dozens of reports and conference proceedings covering issues such as conservation policy, wildlife and protected area management, community-based natural resource management, the sustainable use of natural resources and the relationship between conservation and poverty. In recognition of his academic interests he was elected Professor of Sustainable Resource Management at the University of Kent in 2007 and a by-fellow of Hughes Hall College (Cambridge, UK) in 2017.