Natalie Bridgeman Fields is a senior consultant and strategic advisor.
Alongside her longstanding consulting career, Natalie has been a leader in the international movements for human rights and rights-based development and climate and environmental justice. Over three decades, Natalie has advocated for justice alongside communities as an international lawyer, consultant, award-winning social entrepreneur, founding executive director of the nonprofit Accountability Counsel, speaker, writer, and educator.
Natalie’s diverse and deep substantive expertise spans her passions for climate and environment protections centering community health and wellbeing, challenging systemic oppression by advancing corporate accountability, bringing community voice to international finance and development, media and communications for change making, and movement building and advocacy alongside communities speaking truth to power.
Natalie has 15 years of executive management experience leading complex, global nonprofits. Previously, Natalie led the International Program at Earthjustice, where she supported the work of an international team of lawyers, consultants, and scientists at the forefront of climate litigation.
Beginning in 2009, Natalie was the founder and executive director of Accountability Counsel. She began Accountability Counsel with an Echoing Green Fellowship, and later a Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation fellowship, building on a decade of her advocacy for the rights of predominantly Indigenous Peoples and traditional communities harmed by internationally financed projects.
She led Accountability Counsel’s growth from a concept backed by conviction to a preeminent and sustainable global organization of diverse community-driven lawyers, policy advocates, and researchers working to amplify the voices of people to defend their environmental and human rights. She ultimately oversaw an annual budget of $4 million for an organization where she was the primary fundraiser. The organization has played, and continues to play, a pivotal role in the growth, improvement, use, and understanding of international accountability mechanisms (IAMs) as tools for justice.
As an international human rights and environmental lawyer, Natalie has litigated cases against oil companies in Peru, has sued human rights abusers in U.S. courts and won, and has taken on abusive agribusiness companies in Liberia. Natalie's work alongside partners and communities has resulted in remedy for communities and environmental victories in multiple world regions.
Her early legal experience included corporate and securities litigation as an Associate Attorney at Wilson Sonsini. Her pro bono human rights work included managing the asylum program, returning grants of asylum for clients, and litigating Cabello v. Fernandez-Larios, the first crimes against humanity jury verdict in the United States, upheld on appeal.
Natalie’s consulting for international institutions has included the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), where she led a multi-stakeholder process to redesign the EBRD’s complaint mechanism, and the World Bank Inspection Panel, where she developed investigation procedures and provided lead support on several complaints. She has also consulted on accountability issues for UN institutions and the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
Natalie has undergone extensive training in leadership development, human resources with a focus on leadership and management, financial management for nonprofits, and JEDI-B (justice, equity, diversity and belonging).
She is a graduate of Cornell University (BA, Government and International Relations) and UCLA School of Law (JD, Program in Public Interest Law and Policy). Natalie speaks fluent Spanish, conversant German, and is always working on a smattering of other languages. Natalie is a lifelong singer and artist. She and her husband are proudest of their three children and budding family band. They live in San Francisco, California.
