Markus Knigge has been Executive Director of Blue Action Fund and Chair of its Management Board since the foundation’s inception in 2017. In this role, he’s set up and grown the fund and oversees all aspects of the organisation and its Grant Programme. Markus is co-initiator and host of the Berlin Ocean Dinner series and serves as Germany’s representative to the governance committee of the G20 Coral Research and Development Accelerator Platform (CORDAP).

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 of the German Academic Exchange Service, Markus graduated with distinction from the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C. with a master’s degree in International Affairs and International Economics. Prior to that, Markus received a master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning from the Technical University of Berlin. In 2004, Markus was awarded the John J. McCloy Fellowship in Environmental Affairs. In 2023, The Rockefeller Foundation invited Markus to its Bellagio Residency Programme.