I have spent the last five of my eight working years supporting, designing, and leading environmental management programs in east and southern Africa. I have watched many brilliant colleagues discover groundbreaking environmental solutions and yet we still face a dismal future. Research has revealed ideas, products, behaviors, and many more solutions to our climate conundrum, but our economy is richly integrated among actors and any true change requires intention and complex collaboration. We need to focus now on intra- and inter-organizational structure (how we work together) and clear, strategic, mutually beneficial goals (why we work together). This is where I want to focus, and where I know I can make a difference. Consumers are too self-focused—for a slew of understandable economic, cultural, and political reasons—to consistently make ethical, environmentally sound decisions. Also, the true environmental cost for goods and services is almost never accessible to a consumer, it's rarely fully known by the supplier. We need macro-level adjustments to our policies, structures, and systems. We need shared support and implementation of comprehensive environmental policy. In some cases, I do mean to regulate business, but I think the government and public sector actors also need to meet businesses where they are. We have created inflexible, arduous, high-cost business environments that drives companies to pull their own levers to sustain profits. We need to develop mutually beneficial partnerships that incentivize environmental stewardship and reframes the environment as a co-benefit, not a cost. In the end, we are reliant on the same resources to survive and when we put pride aside I believe we can find common ground. I have worked closely with the U.S. Government as my primary client to support governments across east and southern Africa to shape and deliver environmental management and protection programs. I led multiple in-country ground-level research initiatives to inform land, forest, and water management programs in Zambia, Malawi, and Ethiopia. I met with public and private sector stakeholders, established partnering strategies, and developed an understanding of the social, political, and economic context of natural resource management. I led the design of two program proposals in Zambia: one for $25 million to reduce reliance on charcoal, another for $19 million to address water, sanitation, and hygiene service delivery using a combination of governance and market solutions. I have been deeply involved in the development, buy-in, and implementation of high-level strategy for our corporate office and programs in east and southern Africa. These experiences taught me how healthy organizations run and the impact strong leadership can have on something as small as a project milestone, or as large as a country’s policy. If selected, I will apply this scholarship towards an MPA in Environmental Policy to become a better steward for this much-needed change in our society.