Jacob Malthouse

Hi! I'm Jacob. I'm a proven impact entrepreneur driven by innovation, integrity and community to do things like these:

I created massive global change as one of the founders of the ESG movement and the Principles for Responsible Investment.
I founded a company and pulled together one of the largest environmental coalitions ever assembled to launch the world's first mission-aligned top-level domain: .eco.
My writing saved the .org domain from a private equity take-over, protecting critical infrastructure for miliions of the world's nonprofits.

My work in finance, cleantech, digital technology, and consumer advocacy has been covered in major news media around the world including the Financial Times, the Guardian, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the BBC, Boing Boing, the CBC and Vice.

I love drawing on the lessons from these experiences to help others achieve impact and meaning through their work. I do it in three simple ways: Discover, Thrive, and Build.

I've been working at the edge of global sustainability and technology for more than 20 years. One thing is certain, I've still got a lot to learn.

I write about what it means to have an impactful career in a rapidly changing world.

[online publication launching soon!]

Mentorship has been a huge factor in the impact I've had. More and more people are now asking me for advice.

Impact work is often emotionally challenging and a key way to thrive by helping one another. I set aside an hour every week to support innovators. Book a consult today!

Book a Consult

Want to work together? Let's chat! I support innovators that want to create positive impact.

I've made it happen and know how good it feels when you succeed. Send me an email and let's explore what we can build.

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How I Help

Low cost, creative, community engagement and strategies that deliver durable and authentic growth while creating customer moats that prevent or dissuade competition.
Competition crisis management specializing in defending against lawfare, public relations and social campaigns from aggressive competitors.
Regulatory risk management for teams and investors, especially financial and exceution planning and government relations in uncertain timeline or gated decision environments.
Leadership, fundraising and team development in early stage ventures focussed on achieving impact in technical sectors.

My Experience

At the UNEP Finance Initiative I project-managed the first global collaboration of financial institutions to undertake research on the materiality of ESG issues to equity pricing (report here). This work, along with the Freshfields report on the fiduciary duty of ESG issues, laid the foundations for the Principles for Responsible Investment. Along with James Gifford, I ran the PRI process until the first investor meeting. I've written about it here. Others have written about it here.

I left UNEP FI to join ICANN, the nonprofit responsible for critical aspects of technical Internet governance. While at ICANN I developed and launched the ICANN fellowships program and was a founding member of the ICANN Global Partnerships team. I left ICANN to co-found the .eco Internet domain with Trevor Bowden and Anastasia O'Rourke. I was Director and CEO of Big Room Inc, the company behind the .eco domain registry, for ten years.

After exiting from .eco I worked with Foresight - Canada's leading cleantech accelerator - on their ecosystem strategy, including open innovation challenges and cluster development.

I left Foresight to join the Open Lunar Foundation, where I worked to help it transition from a policy advocacy organization to an open technology policy innovation lab focussed on delivering a peaceful and sustainable lunar future.

Outside of work, I advocate for the preservation of open and accessible technologies. Most significantly this included the Save Dot Org campaign, which I helped catalyze with these posts, leading to global media coverage and the eventual regulatory rejection of the proposed sale of dot-org to private equity.

jacob@malthouse.eco | Linkedin