JACQUELINE WESTLEY ’03

The summer after her sophomore year in high school, Jacqueline Westley ’03 traveled halfway around the world and came home a changed person, one that might not have set her directly on her current career path, but which certainly informed her choices.

“I did a summer immersion program in China organized through St. Andrew’s,” Westley said. “Connecting with peers on the other side of the world at a formative age was an absolutely transformative experience. Among other things, it gave me a sense that I'm a small part of the global community. In doing my part as a member of the global community, I wanted to have a career purpose that is rooted in making the world a better place.”

Now, 20 years after graduating from St. Andrew’s, she is a Finance Director at World Wildlife Fund, helping to launch its Nature-based Solutions Origination Platform. Her path to the WWF began at William & Mary where she earned a degree in economics.

“I had some really great math teachers at St. Andrew’s, so I felt very capable with math and quantitative fields more generally,” Westley said. “I connected with finance and economics at William & Mary – the theory made logical sense to me. And I liked the many real-world applications of economics and finance. There are so many interesting things you can do with skills in economics and finance – from running a business to managing a portfolio of investments to working in public policy.”

After William & Mary, she attended Duke’s Fuqua School of Business where she got her MBA. “Combining economics and finance and repairing the world led me to Duke to pursue a career in impact investing,” Westley said. “Impact investing is investing for a positive economic return as well as an explicit positive social and environmental return.”

Repairing the world is a concept that is rooted in Westley’s Jewish faith. In Judaism, “Tikkun Olam” means improving and repairing the world. Westley first worked toward that at Calvert Impact Capital, then the Nature Conservancy, and now at the World Wildlife Fund.

“I serve as a bridge between conservation and climate projects and the world of finance,” Westley said. “Specifically, I work on channeling private return-seeking capital to fund projects that generate positive outcomes for climate by sequestering additional CO2e and nature by protecting biodiversity. A lot of conservation and climate change work is funded by donations or philanthropy – capital you don't have to pay back, or non-return-seeking capital. But, in order to meet the scale of the climate and biodiversity crises, there's a need to go beyond philanthropic capital. There is far more capital in the world that is return-seeking – or requires repayment plus some return. The idea is to find ways to fund conservation and climate projects with this return-seeking capital.”

For now, Westley will continue to work on repairing the world – one investor at a time.