Our Team

Ocean Exchange Team

Debbra Johnson

Co-Chair ARISE-U.S., Resilience & Transformational Change Advisor

Debbra A.K. Johnson serves as the Vice Chair of the ARISE U.S. Network. She has been a member ARISE since 2011.

The organization is the Private Sector Alliance for Resilience Societies and it is led by the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR).

Debbra has spent portions of her career moving between business ownership and corporate intrepreneurship – working on diverse issues across a number of sectors and disciplines. 

In 2014, following 16 years with DuPont where she held leadership positions in strategic market & product development, and sustainability, Debbra launched a small business that leverages global teaming to bring together best-in-class knowledge and experts.  Services include the models and the means to develop the essential capacities for adapting and transforming organizations; as well as advice, technical guidance and tools for ‘next gen’ disaster risk reduction/ resilience, climate adaptation, and sustainable development.  The work is aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals, The Sendai Framework, and the Climate Agreement.

Debbra is also a member of the Climate Chain Coalition, the Advisory Council of the Sustainability Curriculum Consortium, and she serves on the University of Oklahoma Public Service Institute Coalition.

She is a graduate of the University of Maine, Portland-Gorham, and holds a Certificate of Distinction in Transforming Development: The Science and Practice of Resilience Thinking, from the SDG Academy/Stockholm Resilience Institute, and a Certificates in Business Sustainability Management from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

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Ocean Exchange invites you to learn more about Awards Program, our ecosystem and success of our award winners and participants. Together, we can chart a powerful course to help ensure the future of our oceans and the Blue Economy.

“Ocean Exchange has a platform to enable people with information that they need to know about the ocean and then to showcase new technologies that are on the forefront of really helping the ocean and the planet.”

“The quality of the content and the people who are involved with Ocean Exchange is all high end.”

“Besides funding, Ocean Exchange provides access to a wide area network of incredibly talented people in organizations that really do just want to help people.”

“Ocean Exchange is really about helping the little guys grow and in so doing, helping the big guys be better ocean citizens.”

“Ocean Exchange seems to be much more focused on bringing to light under-capitalized, wonderful new technology ideas. And it’s all about two-way access to this new technology and to the people who can help with the experience to grow that technology.”

“Ocean Exchange is a force multiplier to enable sustainable innovation.”

“Ocean Exchange is a global, novel innovation forum that has a greater ability to attract a broader range of impactful stakeholders than any other event that’s out there.”

“Unquestionably, one of Ocean Exchange’s primary strengths is how it brings together people from different paths. That makes its event a delegator experience as well as experience for an innovator or awards nominee.”

“Ocean Exchange is entirely different from any of the other organizations that I’m involved in. It is about sustainable innovation. I think it’s also very different in the extremely broad range of stakeholders that it involves.”

“There’s nothing better than going to an event or engaging with people so you walk away and say, ‘Wow!’”