The people behind the practice.

Glen Hearns, PhD

Project Manager · Transboundary Water Specialist

Glen is a geologist and an experienced project leader. He has worked in over 25 countries throughout the globe on a variety of multi-national development agency assignments related to water, energy, mining and health. With over 30 years of professional work in resource management, decision making, conflict resolution and strategic planning, he brings a wealth of experience to the table. Further, Glen is an evaluation specialist with a focus on trans-jurisdictional management. He has a particular interest in water, energy, forest and ecosystems, benefit sharing, climate change mitigation and adaptation methods. Glen enjoys living on a remote Canadian island with his wife, children, sheep, chickens and other animals. As a hobby, he likes to teach physics to high school students. Glen is fluent in English and French and advanced in Portuguese and Spanish.

Carla Serrão

Stakeholder Engagement

Carla is an expert in sustainable development, financial inclusion, an outstanding communicator, gifted in policy advisory and guiding stakeholder collaborations through complex projects to reach common objectives. She has worked over 24 years of international development leadership with Ministries, multi-national development agencies and the private sector. She has the capacity to link local to regional to national processes, for extraordinary results-orientated success. Carla is most passionate about poverty reduction, serving the MSMEs, the informal sector, and the most vulnerable in society, inclusive of women and youth.

Carla loves to surf in Angola, laughs loud and lives by the beach in Portugal. Ms Serrão is fluent in Portuguese and English and is advanced in French and Spanish.

Neal Spackman

Ecologist · Regenerative Systems

Neal Spackman is an ecologist. He makes dead places come back to life and has deep experience reversing degradation across multiple ecosystems and in intra-ecosystem endeavors. Neal is a creative and entrepreneurial problem solver with over 15 years’ experience integrating ecosystem restoration with livelihood and enterprise development. He has led or advised projects across multiple ecologies and multiple countries, from desert watersheds in Saudi Arabia and UAE, to mangroves in Gambia and Mexico, to grasslands in Kazakhstan and Texas. Neal understands Carbon projects and has been in the forefront of Biodiversity credit development.

Neal is a UNFCCC Impact Maker, a Stanford University Tomkat Innovation Fellow, and winner of a Makkah Prize for Sustainable Development. Neal is passionate about regenerative development and is fluent in English and Arabic.

Juan Albarracin-Jordan, PhD

Social & Environmental Safeguards

Juan Albarracin-Jordan has been a social and environmental standards (SES) specialist and an environmental anthropologist for over 20 years. He works extensively with UNDP and the World Bank on projects globally, to ensure the integration of social and environmental principles and standards in project concept, design and implementation, inclusive of risk identification, compliance with UNDP social and environmental standards, and quality assurance of Vertical Funds (GCF and GEF) financed projects.

Juan is passionate about human rights and provides advisory services inclusive of cultural heritage (tangible and intangible), indigenous peoples, involuntary resettlement, and community health, safety, and security. Juan is Bolivian and is fluent in English and Spanish and advanced in German.