About us
A collaborative built for credible nature- based solutions
Veridia Partners brings together independent senior practitioners in the United States, United Kingdom and Kenya.
Between us we have decades of work in forestry, conservation, agricultural supply chains and the standards that govern them, across more than 70 countries.
Meet the Team
Jessica Grillo, Partner
Jessi bridges technical rigor and on-the-ground reality to design solutions that strengthen ecological and community resilience, stand up to market scrutiny, and deliver fair outcomes for the people they affect. For over twenty years and across 30+ countries, she has worked at the intersection of ecological, social, and economic systems alongside conservation organizations, communities, farmers, businesses, and governments. As a consultant, she has benchmarked verification oversight across leading carbon and sustainability standards for the Environmental Defense Fund to inform jurisdictional REDD+, and co-designed a community-led carbon standard for Equitable Earth that channels finance directly to forest communities. Earlier in her career, she led integrated landscape and sustainable sourcing initiatives at the Rainforest Alliance and provided climate-related social risk modeling and disaster intelligence with the US State Department's Famine Early Warning System (FEWS NET). She has advised more than 20 multinational companies, including Nestlé, Aldi, Olam and Burton — not just on what to commit to, but on how to make those commitments real across complex supply chains.
Jessi holds a Master's degree in International Development from Clark University. She is based in Oregon.
Martin Noponen, Partner
Martin has spent nearly twenty years designing and delivering nature-based solutions, from smallholder landscape programmes and REDD+ projects to the standards and MRV systems that hold them accountable. He has built certification standards from first principles, including the Climate, Community & Biodiversity Standard, the merged Rainforest Alliance/UTZ Sustainable Agriculture Standard, and most recently Equitable Earth, a forest carbon standard guided by Indigenous Peoples and local communities. He has also put them into practice, working with certification bodies, companies, national partners, and certificate holders to implement and adapt them over time, so he knows where they work well and where the pain points lie. As Global Director of Quality and Impacts at Wildlife Works, he built the quality, MRV, and impact frameworks underpinning a multi-country REDD+ portfolio and supported investor engagement and fundraising. As Director of Nature at the Rainforest Alliance, he led a team of ten thematic experts and a programme portfolio spanning 70+ countries and 2.5 million smallholder farmers, with partners including Nestlé, Nespresso, and Unilever.
Martin holds a PhD in Agroforestry from Bangor University and CATIE, and an MSc in Forest Protection and Conservation from Imperial College London. He is based in York, UK.
Hunter Doughty, Partner
Dr. Hunter Doughty uses rigorous impact evaluation and behaviourally informed design to build, run, and improve operations and programs. She has a doctorate from the University of Oxford and a master’s from the University of Virginia. She has built global operating frameworks and funding criteria (adopted across 3+ organisations and 10+ international teams), created a company-wide data system used for external regulatory reporting, redesigned national surveys for governments, led a 9-month capacity-building program for 30+ professionals, and managed teams and budgets through ambiguous, fast-moving environments. She has worked in the US, UK, Southeast Asia, and Africa, as well as with teams in Latin and South America. Her clients span the US and UK Governments, the UK Royal Foundation, global corporations, elite universities, multi-million-dollar funding bodies, and global nonprofits. Hunter is based in California.
William Crosse, Advisor
Will Crosse has spent more than two decades working across Africa, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America at the intersection of landscape strategy, biodiversity conservation, and markets. With the Rainforest Alliance and Conservation International, he built science-based monitoring and adaptive management frameworks for nature-based solutions. As Vice President of Impacts at Everland, he led REDD+ due diligence and portfolio reporting, and he co-developed Equitable Earth, a carbon market standard that channels finance directly to Indigenous Peoples and local communities. Will is currently Chief Operating Officer of a community-based climate organization and remains connected to the group as an external advisor. He holds an MSc in Oceanography from the University of Southampton and is based in Nairobi.