Ocean Leaders Fellowship Program

The Challenge:
✓ The ocean is our lifeline. And the next generation of ocean leaders is inheriting the responsibility to protect it. Yet systemic barriers, such as limited opportunities and exclusion from critical decision-making spaces, often prevent young leaders from contributing their expertise and advancing their careers.

The Solution:
✓ The Ocean Leaders Fellowship (OLF), developed by Sustainable Ocean Alliance in partnership with Dona Bertarelli Philanthropy, is an annual program dedicated to empowering the next generation of ocean conservation and climate leaders by equipping 40 early-career delegates each year with critical tactical skills, leadership opportunities, and high-level networks necessary to advance impactful initiatives.

✓ OLF is designed to cultivate belonging, activate collective power, and build lifetime leadership capacity, so Fellows can bridge local knowledge and global decision-making with confidence and integrity.

✓ The program curriculum includes skill development workshops, access to mentors, collaboration opportunities with peers, and a special opportunity to travel and participate in an international conference and leadership institute in June 2026.

✓ Be 18–35 as of June 20, 2026
✓ Work in ocean or climate action (with a strong interest in 30x30)
✓ Align with one of SOA's five Ocean Impact Areas
✓ Have C1 English proficiency
✓ Be available for international travel the entire dates of June 9-19th 2026
✓ Not have previously attended OOC or UNOC Youth forums

✓ Time Commitment: ~5 hours/week (average)

Rather than abstract pledges, Fellows work on:
✓ What protection means in their specific local and regional context
✓ Equity, livelihoods, and Indigenous leadership
✓ Ocean–climate connections
✓ How collective leadership shifts systems

Fellows will:
✓ Work in peer leadership pods (4–5 Fellows) that form the backbone of belonging and accountability
✓ Participate in dialogue-based learning, coaching, and office hours
✓ Practice leadership skills in real high-stakes policy contexts
✓ Build trust, confidence, and clarity as leaders in complex systems

✓skill development workshops
✓ access to mentors
✓ collaboration opportunities with peers, and
✓ A special opportunity to travel and participate in an international conference and leadership institute in June 2026.