Meet the Team at One Tree Planted

Harry ‘Hank’ Lynch serves as President and CEO of One Tree Planted. Before leading the organization, Lynch served as President and CEO for WildAid, an international NGO and 2023 recipient of the prestigious Earthshot Prize award. Before that, he led Reston, Virginia (recognized as the first Biophilic City in the United States) as its CEO. He has also served as the CEO of Farm Sanctuary, the nation’s oldest and largest farmed animal rescue, welfare, education, and advocacy organization with sanctuaries on both coasts. Additionally, Lynch’s executive experience includes the top positions at The National Maritime Center in Norfolk, Virginia, the Port of Virginia’s Cruise Ship Authority, and Stan Hywet Hall & Gardens in northeast Ohio.

Leila serves as both Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer of One Tree Planted. She brings more than 25 years of experience in financial and operational leadership across both nonprofit and for-profit organizations, where she has supported sustainable growth, guided acquisitions, and ensured long-term financial stability. Known for her ability to align financial strategy with organizational mission, she has a talent for finding creative solutions and driving measurable results. She holds a Master of Business Administration from the Kellogg School of Management and a Bachelor of Arts in Statistics from Northwestern University.

Shalon serves as General Counsel of One Tree Planted. She brings more than 15 years of experience across nonprofit, government, and private-sector environments, where her work has centered on navigating complex regulatory, governance, and operational challenges for mission-driven organizations. In her role at One Tree Planted, she structures partnerships, develops compliance frameworks, and strengthens program integrity to support scalable, transparent reforestation efforts globally. She is known for aligning organizational practices with evolving ESG expectations and bridging legal rigor with mission execution — ensuring that ambitious sustainability goals are backed by sound systems, clear agreements, and responsible stewardship.

Marie Jones is an award-winning storyteller and communications executive with more than two decades of experience helping brands and mission-driven organizations connect with audiences and turn attention into action. She learned the art of communications in the State Department press office and built deep expertise in audience development through media, spending 15 years at Condé Nast in successive leadership roles during a period of profound industry change. There, she helped grow audiences and revenue through content, commerce, partnerships, and emerging platforms.
In 2016, Marie shifted her focus to mission-based work, leading teams at Farm Sanctuary and WildAid before joining One Tree Planted as Chief Strategy and Marketing Communications Officer. In this role, she helps shape organizational strategy, strengthen brand and mission alignment, and build awareness and engagement around the critical issues driving the organization’s work. She also supports corporate partners in developing meaningful CSR campaigns and ESG initiatives that connect brand purpose with measurable impact.

Annabella serves as Chief Development Officer at One Tree Planted, leading the organization's global strategy for fundraising, corporate engagement, and strategic partnerships. She brings more than 40 years of experience across the corporate, media, and nonprofit sectors, with a proven track record of building high-impact alliances and driving sustainable revenue growth. Her career began at major media organizations — including Viacom, Showtime, NBC/CNBC, and the Associated Press — where she honed her expertise in sales strategy, partner engagement, and cross-platform collaboration. She later transitioned into the social impact sector, holding senior roles at organizations including Special Olympics International and the USO, where she led multimillion-dollar fundraising campaigns and cultivated transformative corporate partnerships. At One Tree Planted, she oversees all development functions, working to expand donor investment and deepen partnerships that accelerate the organization's mission around the world.

Jim Massey is an influential leader in business, risk, and corporate governance, and the #1 best-selling author of two books, Trust in Action and Risk in Action. Over more than two decades, Jim built industry-leading programs with ground-breaking global partnerships. Most notably, Jim established one of the world’s first Net Zero programs, which included a 50-million-tree planting program in partnership with One Tree Planted.

Dr. Starry Sprenkle-Hyppolite is a restoration ecologist specializing in tree restoration and agroforestry. She is the Senior Director of Restoration Science for Conservation International (CI) supporting science-based tree restoration and quality monitoring across the tropics. Starry has published peer-reviewed papers mapping the Carbon Dioxide Removal “ecosystem,” the climate mitigation potential of increasing tree cover in agriculture, and predicting areas of natural forest regeneration. Before joining CI, she spent 15 years working in the humanitarian-development nexus in Haiti, including launching a successful community-based agroforestry program in the Artibonite Valley in 2005, which is still working and has helped people to plant more than 5 million trees.

Scott has worked at the frontline of the sustainability/impact sector in 30 countries, for 30 years. His groundbreaking work with The Forest Trust pioneered responsible sourcing, sustainability certification in tropical forest countries and regenerative supply chains. His work with some of the world’s largest agribusiness and food companies pioneered the first ever No Deforestation, No Exploitation and No Peatland clearance policies for Nestlé, Asia Pulp and Paper, Golden Agri Resources and Wilmar International. His work led the transformation of the palm oil sector away from destructive environmental practices and human rights abuses. He also led the transformation of the wooden garden furniture sector, and pioneered the first FSC certification in the Congo Basin.

Hugh Locke brings a wealth of experience in tree planting, agroforestry and regenerative agriculture. He is Co-founder and President of the Smallholder Farmers Alliance that plants an average of 800,000 trees a year with its farmer-members in Haiti. He is also Co-founder of Futurra, an organization that orchestrates regenerative agriculture and agroforestry programs and research. Hugh was a senior editor of the groundbreaking Regenerative Agriculture Global Reports, sponsored by The Rockefeller Foundation, which explore the definition, implementation, verification, and global scaling of regenerative agriculture.

Trent Preszler is Professor of Practice in the Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University and serves as Director of the Henry David Thoreau Foundation Planetary Solutions Initiative. After growing up on a cattle ranch in South Dakota and attending a one-room schoolhouse on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, his first job out of college was a White House internship for President Bill Clinton. Preszler received his BS from Iowa State University and his MS and PhD from Cornell University. His memoir, Little and Often, hit #1 on the Amazon books bestseller list and was a Best Book of 2021 by USA Today. His second book, Evergreen, chronicles America’s rise to global economic power viewed through the lens of Christmas trees.