Chris Jochnick President & CEO
Why I am passionate about Landesa’s mission:
I see land rights as the common denominator between so many of the most stubborn challenges facing the world today. Land rights are an under-recognized and under-utilized lever that can help us achieve our development goals from women’s economic empowerment to nutrition and from conservation to food security. Landesa is perfectly positioned to work in partnership with both the public sector and the private sector to make lasting, transformative change.
ABOUT CHRIS:
Chris Jochnick is a global land rights expert and social entrepreneur with decades of experience in international development. Chris joined Landesa as CEO in August 2015 after leading Oxfam America’s work on corporate engagement including shareholder engagement, value chain assessments, and collaborative advocacy initiatives, such as the successful “Behind the Brands” campaign. Jochnick is the co-founder and former director of two pioneering non-profit organizations: Center for Economic and Social Rights and the Ecuador-based Centros De Derechos Economicos y Sociales.
Jochnick spent seven years working in Latin America, devoting much of that time to addressing threats to indigenous peoples’ land rights. Prior to Oxfam, Jochnick worked as a corporate attorney with the Wall Street law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison, on corporate governance and social responsibility issues.
Jochnick is a graduate of Harvard Law School and a former fellow of the MacArthur Foundation and Echoing Green. He teaches a course on business and human rights at Harvard Law School.
He is Chair of the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre and on the Steering Committee of the Sorensen Center for International Peace and Justice. He is a member of the advisory council of the International Land and Forest Tenure Facility, and of the Center for Business and Human Rights at NYU Stern School of Business. He has published scholarly articles widely and has edited two books. Jochnick lives in northern California with his wife and four children.
Education:
- JD, (cum laude), 1993, Harvard Law School, Cambridge, MA. Co-Editor in Chief, Harvard Human Rights Journal
- BA, Political Science (cum laude), 1987, Amherst College, Amherst, MA.
- University of Nairobi, 1986/87, Kenya.
Areas of Expertise:
- Legal and Policy Research
- Expropriation
- Community Mobilization
- Community-Investor-Government Partnerships
- Participatory Processes
- Training and Capacity Building Support
- Policy Advocacy and Communications
Languages:
- English
- Spanish