Madhu is a skilled conservation practitioner with over 20 years field experience across South and Southeast Asia. She is committed to enabling conservation impact at scale, with involvement ranging from field implementation to regional and global policy development. Experienced with developing and operationalizing multi-stakeholder conservation alliances working across institutions, often in complex political situations, she believes in maintaining a positive and transparent work environment that facilitates collaboration even when there are divergent positions. Diplomacy and consensus-building skills have been critically important in helping convene diverse groups and creating the potential for new ideas and initiatives to emerge. With relevant experience in personnel, financial and organizational management, she has the ability to delegate effectively, and to empower and motivate teams toward desired outcomes. Her deep knowledge and experience with conservation challenges and solutions are valuable assets for mobilizing the Commission’s expertise to achieve conservation impact. Strongly purpose-driven, she is able to work across disciplinary and core expertise boundaries to engage and influence policies and action by functionally diverse organizations. She has lived and worked in both emerging economies and developed nations with accumulated experience in resource mobilization, programme strategy development and implementation. If elected, she would devote 100% of her time to WCPA.
Madhu is a long-term WCPA member, with deep experience in protected area management and species conservation. She supports field programs at priority sites across Asia, implementing protected area creation and management, human-wildlife conflict, species monitoring, and policy action. She co-led the development of the Asian Species Action Partnership, an IUCN SSC initiative (www.speciesonthebrink.org) that catalyses action to promote recovery of Southeast Asia’s Critically Endangered species. She has engaged with international policy platforms such as CITES and CBD and in regional policy processes like the ASEAN Working Group on Nature Conservation and Biodiversity. Madhu has supported capacity development strategies for protected area management with Southeast Asian government agencies and institutions. Her Ph.D from Duke University focused on the cascading impacts of ecosystem disruption on biodiversity in the Lago Guri islands in Venezuela. She has published extensively on protected area effectiveness and governance, community-based conservation, wildlife trafficking and conservation prioritization in both academic and NGO literature. Recently, she co-led the development of a Professional Master’s Programme in Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainability aimed at building Asian conservation leadership at the National University of Singapore.
