Rupert Hayward

Rupert, a Bahamian and British national, is Founder and President at the Blue Action Lab and Blue Action Ventures and a board director and IC member of the Blue Action Accelerator, a JV with Founders Factory. He is an executive director of the Grand Bahama Port Authority and the Grand Bahama Disaster Relief Foundation. He is also an advisor to Global Harvester Holdings, a UK green merchant bank. He holds a Govt appointed board seat on The Bahamas Protected Areas Fund and is an advisor to the University of The Bahamas, on climate and resilience. 

He brings more than 20 years of international investment experience in both emerging and developed markets. He is one of the original partners at Salamanca Group, a British merchant bank. Rupert, alongside his partners, spent almost 10 years building the business from a boutique investment advisory firm into a fully-fledged merchant bank, which included the merger of a risk consulting business (S-RM), the acquisition of Investec bank's trust business, and the development of 19 offices worldwide. 

He completed his MA (Hons) in Geography — Caribbean Development — at Edinburgh University, UK, in 2003, and has an MBA in Sustainable Business Management from Presidio Graduate School, San Francisco.