Executive Director, Sustainable Conservation

Ashley Boren is executive director of Sustainable Conservation, an environmental nonprofit organization that partners with business and other stakeholders to find environmental solutions that make economic sense. Founded in 1993, Sustainable Conservation’s effectiveness lies in building strong partnerships with business, agriculture and government – and establishing models for environmental and economic sustainability that can be replicated across California and beyond. Boren received a 2007 James Irvine Foundation Leadership Award for her “unwavering commitment to innovative, balanced problem-solving to address a variety of critical environmental problems facing California."

Boren has directed the strategy, growth and operations of Sustainable Conservation since 1997. Prior to Sustainable Conservation, Boren spent eight years at Smith & Hawken, a mail order and retail gardening company, where she worked in finance, new business development, inventory planning and retail merchandising. Boren began her career at The Nature Conservancy in program development and fundraising. In addition to her work at Sustainable Conservation, Boren serves as a Trustee of the Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation; an Independent Trustee of Marketocracy; a member of the California State Board of Food and Agriculture; and a member of the Executive Committee of the Agricultural Sustainability Institute's External Advisory Board at the University of California, Davis. Boren has a bachelor’s degree in human biology, a master’s in applied economics and an MBA from Stanford University.