Stewart Sarkozy Banoczy

Stewart Sarkozy-Banoczy is the co-founder of Okhtapus Ltd and its affiliate nonprofit, O Lab, as well as the CEO (a.i.) of the World Ocean Council. Stewart is Ocean Fellow at the Center for Ocean Policy and Economics at Northeast Maritime Institute, advisory committee member and BlueSwell mentor for SeaAhead, lead rapporteur for SMILO-the small island organization, and board vice chair of Four Bands Community Fund, which he founded in 2000 on the Cheyenne River Lakota Indian Reservation. He also teaches resilience finance, innovation and storytelling at the International University of Catalunya’s School of Architecture.

Stewart has spent the last ten plus years dedicated to mainstreaming resilience and precovery across sectors and themes, with a passion for the ocean, water systems and breaking down silos between funders, practitioners, and policy makers, especially for urban, island, Indigenous and coastal contexts. Stewart was Global Director, Policy and Investments and co-founder at the Resilient Cities Network, the evolved, city-led network of the 100 Resilient Cities (100RC) program, creating the RCIFunds, co-founding/facilitating R21 and co-founding the Racial Equity through Resilience Community of Practice. During the 100RC period he served in variety of roles in Europe and the Middle East, Latin America, and the Caribbean, as well as the co-creator of the Urban Ocean Program. Stewart led the team that developed the 100RC challenge starting in April 2013, through Context Partners, where he was partner and managing director. He is a certified associate in the Waterfront Edge Design Guidelines (WEDG) and served as advisory board member for the Capitol Hill Ocean Week (CHOW). Stewart has formal degrees, certification and training in international business, foreign languages, corporate social responsibility, conservation, and environmental science.

Stewart is also the founder of Precovery Labs, where creativity and community drive impact and awareness for clients like RISE- Coastal Resilience Innovations, Ocean Conservancy, Opportunity Finance Network, NDN Fund/Collective, and Conservatoire d’Littoral, among others. Through Precovery Labs, he is also an active professional documentary and fine art photographer, visualizing stories of change and impact.