Montgomery (Monty) Simus has several decades of experience of the nexus of impact investing, catalytic philanthropy, and innovative social finance to build and scale high-growth, purpose-driven commercial and philanthropic initiatives.
Montgomery (Monty) Simus is the Associate Director of the Global Academy for Sustainability and Diplomacy, a new platform established by UNU-INWEH to enumerate, assess, and activate a new era of environmental diplomacy by sharing expertise, experience, and standards of excellence amongst interested individuals and organizations worldwide in support of the UN’s 2030 Agenda.
Prior to joining UNU-INWEH, he spent the past several decades at the nexus of impact investing, catalytic philanthropy, and innovative social finance to build and scale high-growth, purpose-driven commercial and philanthropic initiatives that serve millions of at-risk Afghans, and activate sustainable aquaculture and fisheries that improve the lives of millions of women, men and youth in the Global South.
Monty is a graduate of Yale (B.A.), Harvard (Master in Public Policy), and 2023 Impact Leader In Residence at Harvard’s Advanced Leadership Initiative focused on global water accessibility, climate adaptive finance, sustainable investing, and resilient infrastructure. His current research is focused on how Western, non-Western and Indigenous communities consider and manage water ownership, natural resources, and blue-green trade-offs. As founder of Water Politics, one of the world’s first global water-related geopolitical risk advisory and consulting firms, he is a frequent writer and speaker on issues of freshwater scarcity, the linkages between water, energy and food, and emerging markets.