Leadership

Wilford's professional career has been devoted to understanding and taking actions to address global challenges – as a U.S. diplomat in Asia, a professor of international business, the publisher of a world affairs publication, and an international business consultant. In 2004, he co-founded the Quest for Global Healing initiative that brings people together from around the world every other year to help transform their concerns over environmental and social challenges into concrete initiatives. The last gathering was at the Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park in June 2009. Wilford has degrees from Yale, Harvard, and the University of California at Berkeley and lives in Sausalito, California, with his wife Carole Angermeir-Welch. He recently authored a book entitled The Tactics of Hope – How Social Entrepreneurs are Changing our World.

 

Wilford also has a deep commitment to the natural world. He was the chairman of the Board of the National Outdoor Leadership School, (NOLS), and was the head of the support team on Everest in 1994 that removed 5,000 pounds of trash from the high camps and introduced the notion of Leave No Trace to much of the high altitude climbing community. In 1988 he took the photo of Mount Everest from the Tibetan side which became the cover photo of the National Geographic climbing map of Mount Everest. He joined the Headlands Institute Board in 2005 and the NatureBridge Board in 2007.