Ken Anthony is Founder and Director of Nature Assets Consulting. Ken has 20+ years experience as a senior science leader and advisor to government, the university sector, NGOs and industries. Ken holds a PhD (cum laude) in marine biology from James Cook University and an MSc from University of Copenhagen. Ken has held research fellowships from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Australian Research Council, and has senior leadership training from Harvard Kennedy School and Macquarie Business School.
About Dr Ken Anthony
I founded Nature Assets because of a growing gap between what nature projects promise and what investors are able to assess. Part of that gap is scientific: ecosystems are complex to model and measure. Part is language: science and finance describe impact, risk and evidence in different terms, and due diligence falls between them.
My work closes that gap. For investors, I assess nature projects and portfolios for merit, risk, cost and uncertainty, and deliver a clear verdict you can take to a board or investment committee. For project proponents, I help translate scientific evidence into investment cases that can withstand that scrutiny.
Track record
At the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS), I co-developed the investment case for the Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program: an initial A$100M government investment that grew to A$300M by 2025. I did this as Director of Environmental Strategies and leader of AIMS’ Modelling and Decision-support team, after serving as Program Director for the Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest coral reef system.
I have also advised the US National Academies on interventions to build coral reef resilience, and the Australian Academy of Science’s Reef Futures program on supporting the Great Barrier Reef through an uncertain future. My published work has been cited more than 15,000 times (Google Scholar).
What I do now
As an independent advisor, I work with funders and project proponents. My assessments use TRACE (Trajectories, Risks, Accounting & Cost Evaluation), a project-investability platform developed from that decision-support work, together with portfolio-prioritisation methods and structured approaches to decisions under uncertainty. The method was built on coral reefs but can be applied across ecosystems, including forest restoration.
How I work
Every project assessment states its assumptions and the strength of evidence behind each judgement in meeting five key assessment criteria, so you can audit how I reached a verdict.
I report uncertainty as it is. I won’t round it up to make a project look better.
I hold no financial interest in the projects I assess.
I never assess a project I have helped prepare.