Founder · Builder · Advisor

I build integrity into the systems we rely on

For 25 years I've built institutions and companies that help the systems we depend on carry the public interest — from the Principles for Responsible Investment to the .eco domain to the campaign that saved .org. Now I help founders and leaders do the same.

Jake Malthouse
Work covered in

The hardest thing isn't building something new. It's helping the systems we already rely on grow more capable — so they can carry the things that matter most.

That's the thread through everything I've done. The PRI helped the world's largest investors account for things their models had not yet been built to see. The .eco domain gave an industry a new way to let a web address carry a genuine environmental commitment. The Save Dot Org campaign helped reinforce infrastructure that millions of organisations depend on. Each one meant strengthening a good system from within — finding the allies, the technology, and the arguments to help it do more of what it was there to do.

What I do

Three ways I work with people building hard things

I work with founders and leaders building ventures and initiatives at the frontier — especially across sectors, disciplines, or geographies where the usual playbooks don't apply, and where staying true to the mission is the actual challenge.

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Coaching

One-to-one executive and leadership coaching for leaders driving change at the frontier — in space, technology, and climate. The work is navigating the transition into an unfamiliar system, finding where your influence is real, and making lasting change while staying true to your values.

jakemalthouse.com →
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Advising & mentoring

As an executive-in-residence and advisor, I help founders navigate the moments where mission meets reality — regulatory and existential risk, fundraising under uncertainty, building coalitions, and holding the line on what matters while staying commercially viable. The pattern recognition of someone who has built at scale and kept the values intact.

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Speaking

I speak on building mission-aligned ventures, the founding of the ESG movement, defending the public interest in core internet infrastructure, and what it takes to help good systems become more capable from within. Hard-won stories, made practical.

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Track record

A quarter-century of building

$139T
In assets under the PRI — the framework I helped architect at UNEP FI
160
Countries where the .eco domain I co-founded now operates
$1.1B
Private-equity sale of .org blocked by the campaign I co-founded
25 yrs
Building at the intersection of sustainability, finance & technology
Jake Malthouse

Jake Malthouse · Vancouver Island, BC

About

Jake Malthouse is a founder, executive, and UBC Certified Organizational Coach with 25 years of experience building global institutions and technology companies at the intersection of sustainability, finance, and technology — and coaching the leaders doing the same today.

At the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative, Jake was one of the founding architects of the Principles for Responsible Investment. Working directly with figures including Kofi Annan, he helped design and launch a framework that mobilised some of the world's largest investors — among them the Norway Petroleum Fund, CalPERS, and the Universities Superannuation Scheme — and is now signed by institutions managing over $139 trillion in assets. The materiality report his team produced is widely credited with coining the term "ESG."

Jake has also co-founded and built technology ventures from zero. He co-founded .eco, the internet domain for environmental organisations and businesses, negotiating the original registry agreement with ICANN across 28 countries, securing backing from WWF and Greenpeace, and building it to profitability in under 12 months. The domain now serves over 9,000 organisations in 160 countries. He co-founded Foresight, a Canadian cleantech innovation accelerator, and co-founded and led the Save Dot Org campaign — a global coalition that successfully blocked the sale of the .org domain to private equity, earning coverage in the Financial Times, The New York Times, The Guardian, the BBC, and the CBC.

The through-line is consistent: building things that hold their values inside systems that don't naturally reward it. As an advisor and coach, Jake now works with founders facing that same challenge — bringing the pattern recognition of someone who has done it at scale, and the discipline to stay in service of the founder's own thinking rather than just the next answer.

Writing

How I think, in my own words

Writing is how I've moved things — the Save Dot Org campaign began with a series of posts. Essays on the public internet, the origins of ESG, and leading in complex systems.

More writing on internet governance and policy at CircleID →

Speaking

Talks & appearances

Featured podcast appearances:

Podcast

Space governance and internet governance

Podcast

Lunar innovation: The future of global governance

Podcast

Why being master of your domain

Topics I'm regularly invited to speak on:

  • Building mission-aligned ventures that survive contact with the market
  • The founding of the ESG movement — and what it got right and wrong
  • Defending the public interest in core internet infrastructure
  • Navigating regulatory and existential risk as a founder
  • Holding integrity inside systems that reward compromise
Enquire about speaking

In the press

Selected coverage

Currently writing

A book on building things that matter — without losing yourself

I'm writing about what 25 years at the frontier taught me about helping good systems grow more capable — and staying whole while you do it. Early days — join the list to follow along.

No spam. Occasional notes as the book takes shape.

Get in touch

Let's talk about what you're building

Whether it's advising, a speaking enquiry, or something else entirely — I'd be glad to hear from you.

jake@malthouse.eco

Looking for one-to-one executive & leadership coaching? That work lives at jakemalthouse.com.