Robert Heinzman

Managing Partner, Change Leadership Expert

Robert joined Growth River in 2010. His consulting expertise has been forged from an unusual career. With a start in environmental chemistry, he researched groundwater pollution in the desert Southwest. A logical, though perhaps not obvious, path led him to the Amazon and the front lines of tropical forest conservation. This work resulted in the founding of US and international organizations, a series of global forums in tropical forest management, a book (Lessons of the Rainforest, Sierra Club Books, 1991), and a central role in establishing the Maya Biosphere Reserve, the largest protected area in Central America. After years of bearing witness to the conflict endemic to the agricultural frontier in the forest tropics, and the disturbing intrigues of Washington, D.C., Robert committed to a life of rigorous spiritual practice to figure out what real solutions to global problems are.

Those solutions start with how people engage in teams to create value. Robert has leveraged this experience across sectors, including work with executive leadership teams at New York Genome Center, GENEWIZ, Allergan Medical Devices, Sococo, Onyx Specialty Papers, United Nations Office of Information and Communications Technology, Henke Sass Wolf Medical Devices, and Edward Jones Financial Services.

Robert holds a BA (Honors, Phi Beta Kappa) in Geochemistry from the University of Colorado, and a Masters of Environmental Studies from Yale School of the Environment. He has also completed courses at Harvard Kennedy School in Climate Change Policy and Economics. Robert sits on the boards of different nonprofits, including the Institute for Regional Conservation and Children’s Education Foundation – Vietnam.