Experts & Staff

As Vice President for Institutional Strategy & Development at the World Resources Institute, Elizabeth Cook’s role is to work with WRI’s board and staff to scale up the organization’s priority initiatives. This includes expanding external partnerships critical to WRI’s programmatic success and financial resources. Under Cook’s leadership WRI’s budget has doubled in size, growing from $20 million in 2005 to $40 million in 2011.

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A staff member since 1994, Cook has held several diverse positions within the institute. Prior to her current role, she directed WRI’s Markets and Enterprise Program, which harnesses the power of business to create profitable solutions to environment and development challenges. Before that, she led WRI’s interdisciplinary Climate Protection Initiative, which worked in partnership with companies to identify policies and business strategies for achieving strong climate goals. Cook has over twenty years of experience working with industry on innovative responses to environmental issues. She has advised numerous Fortune 500 companies on how to strengthen corporate commitments to the environment, including GE, Nike, Wal-Mart, Exxon Mobil, BP, Johnson & Johnson, Alcoa, and Shell. She serves on Conservation International’s Center for Environmental Leadership in Business Advisory Committee.

In September 2007, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency awarded Cook its “Best of the Best Stratospheric Ozone Protection Award” in recognition of the most exceptional global contributions in the first two decades of the Montreal Protocol.