Zach Knight is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Blue Forest Conservation.  With a background in financial engineering, Zach became passionate about expanding the opportunity set for private and institutional investors seeking market rate returns in the climate finance space. Zach co-founded Blue Forest Conservation to do just that – develop sustainable solutions to pressing environmental challenges with an initial focus on watershed health.

Blue Forest Conservation financing, the Forest Resilience Bond, taps institutional capital to finance proactive forest restoration, returning forest land to its natural ecological state, in an effort to alleviate two of the most pressing environmental challenges in California and the Western United States – severe wildfire and water security.

Before working as a high-yield bond trader, Zach began his career at Merrill Lynch working in structured finance, derivative structuring and correlation trading. Zach is a seasoned financial engineer who left the Wall Street trading floors behind to pursue his passion for environmental investing. At Berkeley-Haas, Zach focused on sustainable investing and impact evaluation.