Executive Chairman

The Board of the Equator Group in New York

Private entrepreneur, banker and dedicated environmentalist, John Forgach Chairs the Boards of Equator Environmental, LLC in New York, Forestre Holdings UK Ltd, a London based global insurer for standing timber properties and Beyond Timber Corp, Panama, a company dedicated to the plantation and restoration of the forests of the Panama Canal watershed.

Before joining Yale University in 2003 as a McCluskey Fellow at the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, he launched a number of private banking enterprises in Brazil, including A2R Fund Management LLC, Banco Axial S.A., São Paulo, and Terra Capital, the first for-profit biodiversity investment fund in Latin America.

He holds a number of environmental awards for his innovative approach to Environmental Banking, including the 2001 Rainforest Alliance Green Globe Award and the 2000 BRAVO Latin Trade Magazine Business Award.

He sits on a number of international Boards including: the President’s Advisory Council of Earth University in Costa Rica, the Business Advisory Council to the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), the World Bank’s International Advisory Group of the Pilot Program for the Protection of the Tropical Forests of Brazil (PPG-7), the IISD in Canada and Fundecor in Costa Rica. He has also founded Swiss and Brazilian NGOs for education and the preservation of endangered South American wildlife. A former Vice President of Chase Manhattan Bank in Paris, Madrid and New York, he received his B.A. from Harvard University.