Meet the Funga Team: Will Gardner

Get to know the Funga crew with this newest installment of our "Meet the Team" series. Come back monthly to meet more team members, hear about their journey to Funga, and understand their vital role in our community.

We’re big fans of the “Today I get to….” mentality. So, what do you get to do every day at Funga?

I am Funga’s Strategic Finance Manager, so I am responsible for all Funga’s strategic financial planning and analysis. Sometimes that means building our long-term financial model in Excel or reviewing budget-to-actuals with team leads. Other times, it involves working with investors and project finance providers to ensure Funga has the resources to grow as we continue to restore forest soil microbiomes and sequester carbon. On occasion, I also get to put on my carbon markets hat to assist our super talented carbon program manager and science teams in efforts like our new Verra methodology.

If you had to explain what Funga does to a third grader, what would you say?

Trees have partnerships with all sorts of tiny, microscopic critters in the soil. They help each other access nutrients and water that individually they wouldn’t be able to. When trees are replanted, they don't have the partners they need to become the biggest healthiest trees they can. We help give them back those partnerships. It’s kind of like moving to a new place to live—you’ll be OK on your own, but imagine if you had a friend who was able to tell you all the tips and tricks and introduce you to a bunch of people; it would be way better. We’re like that friend but for the trees!

Tell us a little bit about your life. How did it lead you to Funga?

I have been lucky that my life has led me to many different exciting places. Growing up in Bermuda, I spent a lot of time outdoors, learning about the effects of invasive insects on Bermuda’s endangered cedar trees and the effect of climate change on its coral reefs. I then went to high school around the corner from Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts, where I read a lot of nature literature and poetry (Thoreau’s Walden, Mary Oliver’s poetry, and Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire to name but a few) that continued to send me down this environment-focused path.

At university in Scotland, I focused on environmental economics and the Chinese language, writing my dissertation on China’s market-based pollution control mechanisms. Having seen the political challenges that conservation efforts can face, I knew that I wanted to focus on the intersection of business and the environment. After graduating, I knew that I could either learn the environment side or the business side.

Fate made the decision for me when I got a position on Jardine Matheson’s management trainee program in Hong Kong. Working at Jardines gave me the opportunity to spend six years learning as much as I could about business and finance, as well as having some fantastic adventures in Asia. I got to work with the finance team for a large retail company selling a grocery store in Vietnam, and join the pre-opening team to open a luxury Mandarin Oriental hotel in Beijing (and manage its spa as acting director of spa for three months—by far the best stories come from these three months), and finally to help lead the creation of Jardine’s first-ever carbon and waste inventories and the design of its future Net Zero commitments. During this final stint in corporate sustainability, I realised that I was most excited about nature-based solutions, but while I could make a well-argued business case for investments in natural capital, I lacked the ecological knowledge to talk about which interventions should be invested in and why.

This knowledge gap led me to attend graduate school, where I pursued a joint MBA and Master of Forestry degree at Yale. At Yale, I was lucky to get to work and do research with the Yale Applied Science Synthesis Program at the Forest School with Dr. Sara Kuebbing and Dr. Mark Bradford. My research focused on what constitutes a truly high-quality carbon credit. Specifically, I examined how protocol methodologies for determining additionality and baselines materially impact whether a credit genuinely represents a ton of carbon avoided or removed.

I first came across Funga during my second summer internship, when I attended the Forest Landowner’s Association Conference. I was there representing a forest carbon program called LandYield, and Funga’s booth was right next to ours. I got to know Josh and Anthony over those couple of days, and I stayed in touch throughout my final year of grad school. When Funga was looking for a Strategic Finance Manager, it could not have been a better match.

What is your favorite part of the job?

No single day is the same as any other. We are still a small team at Funga, and I am lucky that my work brings me into contact with all of our different teams. I never know what each day will bring. I may be working with our sales team on carbon yield projections and pricing for a potential carbon offtake, or I could be working with our forestry team on planning our annual inoculation, making sure they have everything they need to pull it off (it really is the Funga superbowl). The variety of my work and getting to work with such an amazing diverse group of people every day is my favourite part of working at Funga! 

What is one workflow/productivity tool or trick that you can’t live without?

Caffeine. One of the best parts of work from home is the fact that at any time, I’m only about 10 feet from my coffee machine. Our Ops team has a weekly meeting where we come together as a team to touch base on what each other is working on and what's going on in each others’ lives. It’s called the Ops Team Coffee Time, and I don’t think there has been a single time since I’ve joined that I haven’t had a coffee during that meeting.

What trivia round would you know every answer to?

Harry Potter. I love listening to the Harry Potter audiobooks when I’m doing something that requires some but not a lot of attention, like grocery shopping or running errands. I’ll slowly work my way through the series in 20 minute blocks and then just start back again at the beginning. Coming from Bermuda, I had the British versions growing up and the fact that the Stephen Fry audiobooks are simply better than the Jim Dale ones is a hill I will absolutely die on.

Can you share a favorite memory of/with the Funga team?

My days are very focused on the finance and business side of Funga, which means that I don’t get out in the field as much as the forestry grad in me would like. Last October, I got the chance to travel down to Moultrie, GA to help our forestry team with inoculation. It felt great to finally get my hands very literally dirty and touch some trees!