News & Events

New CEO and President Named

Charleston, South Carolina (July 19, 2023) – The Turtle Survival Alliance Foundation announced today that Marc Dupuis-Desormeaux, a well-regarded conservation biologist, has been named President and CEO, effective September 5, 2023. With his professional skills and dedication to TSA’s mission, Marc has already proven himself to be a significant contributor to TSA through his very active work on its Field Conservation Committee and Audit and Finance Committee. As a conservation biologist, he is renowned, among other things, for his important field research in Canada and Kenya.

“We are delighted to welcome Marc in this new role,” said Patricia Koval, Board Chair of Turtle Survival Alliance, “with his brimming passion for TSA’s mission and vision, his strong business acumen, his exemplary conservation credentials and his great interpersonal style, Marc is absolutely the right person to lead TSA forward at this time. He brings a powerful set of skills and experience to expand TSA’s important work.” She added “I want to extend tremendous thanks to Rick Hudson, a founder of TSA and TSA’s first President, who will continue to work with TSA as President Emeritus. I would also like to thank Genevieve Waller, who served as our Interim Executive Director for the last ten months.”

Marc Dupuis-Desormeaux said “I look forward to leading TSA’s team of incredibly dedicated people as well as to developing deep alliances with partners worldwide to ensure that we fulfill our mission to protect and restore wild populations of turtles and
tortoises.” Marc is a conservation biologist, researcher, and former lecturer at York University’s Glendon College in Toronto, Canada, where he recently won the President’s Research Award. Marc has studied and prolifically published turtle communities, demographics, and road mortality, and his work has resulted in over $1 million of mitigation work to reduce herpetofauna mortality. He has also organized successful citizen-science efforts to mitigate turtle mortality and protect hundreds of turtle nesting sites annually. Marc has worked across various landscapes and also has field sites in Kenya, where he has studied lion and hyena behavior, landscape prey-traps, and human-wildlife conflicts. While in Kenya, Marc discovered a new population of critically endangered pancake tortoises and subsequently organized a successful ongoing research program. In his earlier life, before dedicating himself to conservation, Marc had a successful career as an investment banker in London, England.

Marc also has considerable experience with managing and serving on the boards of NGOs. He is the Chair and President of the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy Canada, which supports community conservation projects in Kenya, focusing on education, community development and protection of endangered species. He is also a board member of the Ontario Turtle Conservation Centre and of the Canadian Herpetological Society. He is a member of the IUCN Tortoise and Freshwater Turtle Species Specialist Group and the Royal Canadian Institute for Science. Marc Dupuis-Desormeaux holds a Ph.D. in Biology and a Master of Environmental Studies from York University, Canada, a Master of Business Administration from the University of British Columbia and a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Ottawa. Marc is fully bilingual in English and French.