Markus Knigge is Executive Director of Blue Action Fund and Chair of its Management Board. In this role he has overall responsibility for implementing and evaluating its Grant Programme, as well as managing day-to-day operations.

Prior to Blue Action Fund, Markus held various positions with The Pew Charitable Trusts where he built up the European Marine Programme and led Pew’s efforts to end overfishing in the European Union. He also worked as EU Marine Programme Officer at the WWF European Policy Office and was a senior fellow of the Ecologic Institute in Berlin and Brussels.

As a scholar at the German Academic Exchange Service, Markus graduated with distinction from the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University in Washington DC with a master’s degree in international affairs and international economics. Prior to that, he received a master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning from Technical University of Berlin. In 2004, Markus was awarded the John J. McCloy Fellowship in Environmental Affairs.