Pipa Elias is deputy director of the Walton Family Foundation’s Environment Program. She began her role with the foundation in February 2021. As deputy director, she manages environmental grantmaking and advances strategic direction across the program’s three geographic areas of focus. Pipa fosters an inclusive approach to leadership and is passionate about developing partnerships to solve problems.

Before joining the foundation, she worked at The Nature Conservancy (TNC) as director of agriculture for North America. Skilled at applying scientific research to advance policy and conservation solutions, Pipa leveraged collaborations to help producers meet the growing demand for food while protecting critical lands and waters.

Pipa also served as a senior policy advisor, leading land use policy advocacy at the United Nations climate negotiations and other multilateral venues. In her eight years working on the UN climate negotiations she led a coalition of nearly a dozen NGOs that helped influence the system of incentives and measurements for the land-use sector in global climate agreements. Pipa also served as policy lead on the team that helped to publish a seminal paper on Natural Climate Solutions.

Pipa received her M.S. in forestry from Virginia Tech, and her B.S. in environmental science from the University of Notre Dame.