Ryan Dolan

Ryan Dolan is managing director of the Blue Nature Alliance, a global partnership—led by The Pew Charitable Trusts, Conservation International, the Global Environment Facility, Minderoo Foundation, and the Rob Walton Foundation—that is accelerating large-scale ocean conservation around the world. Dolan oversees the Alliance’s global portfolio of site-based conservation efforts, helping to coordinate a worldwide network of more than 150 partner organizations working alongside governments, Indigenous peoples, local communities, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to accelerate effective ocean conservation. The Alliance’s work spans 44 place-based engagements across 61 countries and the high seas. It supports the protection and long-term management of nearly 4.5 million square miles (roughly 12 million square kilometers) of ocean and is on track to reach effective conservation across a total of 7 million square miles (18 million square kilometers) by 2027—5% of the global ocean.

Dolan joined Pew in 2013 and spent eight years advancing marine conservation in Antarctica’s Southern Ocean. During this time, he served for six years as the NGO representative to the U.S. delegation to the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources. He also helped to develop the campaign and policy strategy that led to the 2016 designation of the Ross Sea Region Marine Protected Area, then the world’s largest. Before joining Pew, Dolan worked on public health advocacy for the United Nations Population Fund in the Middle East, North Africa, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia regions and on corporate social responsibility for MTV Networks International.

Dolan holds a Master of Philosophy in environmental management from the University of Cape Town and a Bachelor of Arts in international affairs and Germanic studies from the University of Colorado, Boulder.