Mary McBryde is the Director of Investment and Innovation at the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center at the Atlantic Council.   

Mary leads Arsht-Rock’s global climate adaptation investment and innovation activities. She is responsible for developing strategy, building partnerships, and creating approaches to mobilize investment in solutions that protect people, particularly the vulnerable, women, and children from the growing risks and impacts of climate change and climate-driven extreme heat. She is the lead architect for the Cool Capital Stack Initiative and manages all activities related to its design, growth, execution, and evaluation as well as developing additional, and related, initiatives and projects. Mary has been a Senior Advisor to the Center since 2022 and joins the Arsht-Rock team in April 2023.  

Mary brings more than two decades of experience in conservation, philanthropy, climate change, and investment. She served as the inaugural Director of Conservation for Fidelity Foundation, launching a new program focused on the protection of wild and community lands and equitable green spaces and climate resilience in cities. Prior to Fidelity, Mary was Director of the Liquid Assets Project, a collaborative partnership between Encourage Capital, Trout Unlimited, and Culp & Kelly, LLP that sought to develop innovative water impact investments – mobilizing private capital alongside philanthropic and public investment to support sustainable water solutions for the American West.  She founded Long Haul Conservation Advisors, a strategy consulting and advisory firm, serving clients including the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (Environment Program), the Open Space Institute, the National Park Foundation, among others.  

She serves on the Northern Forest Center’s Investment Review Committee for Innovative Finance and is former Board Chair of the Northern Forest Center and the Vermont Land Trust.  She co-chaired the inaugural chapter of Slow Money, Vermont Chapter to increase private investment in sustainable food businesses. Mary was the lead author of ‘Revolving Loan Funds’, a chapter in “From Walden to Wall Street: Frontiers of Conservation Finance.” Mary holds a MS from the University of Washington.