Amy Thom

Amy is a Manager on the Sustainable Development Innovation team in Verra’s Program Development and Innovation Department. In this role, Amy is the team’s technical lead supporting the evolution and expansion of the SD VISta and CCB Programs. She also contributes to identifying and realizing new methodologies and asset opportunities for sustainable development outcomes. Currently, Amy is leading over thirty global projects in the SD VISta Nature Framework pilot process, which is helping to shape the framework’s approach to biodiversity quantification.

Amy is a rural development practitioner and socio-economic researcher with over ten years of hands-on experience in project design, implementation, and impact evaluation. She has led multi-faceted initiatives addressing agriculture, conservation, food security, climate change, and sustainable livelihoods.

Prior to joining Verra, Amy managed a multi-province farmer support program across rural South Africa, where she led field-based teams and engaged local, national, and international stakeholders for strategically layered sustainable development interventions. Amy has also consulted on a range of social sector projects dealing with impact strategy, market analyses, stakeholder mapping, evaluation design, and international partnership creation.

Amy recently completed a Ph.D. in Agricultural Engineering at the University of Lisbon, where she modeled production efficiency and social impacts among smallholders in Madagascar. Amy also holds a Master’s degree in Social Justice from the University of Cape Town and a Bachelor’s degree in International Studies and Sociology from the University of California.

Amy joined Verra because she loves to connect the dots between theory, data, and practice to drive real-world change for people and the planet. She loves languages, wild places, her dog Vasco, and she’s been surfing around the world for the past twenty years.