creating change the collaborative way

Our Partners

our mission

Ma Oceans’ goal is to be a force multiplier for the ocean conservation community. There are thousands of organizations around the globe engaged in ocean conservation and environmental impact. And yet, our oceans are ailing. As a platform of platforms, we plan to unite under one banner, so that we can speak with one voice, and collaborate rather than compete. 

We understand that our enemy is the system that decades of short term thinking has created. We are taking a more nuanced approach, combining our understanding of return on capital and impact. By marrying the two we expect to enable ocean stewardship efforts to become self-sustainable and attract larger pools of capital. 

The decade 2021 - 2030, is the United Nations decade of ocean science. Using storytelling, games and digital media, we aim to make science accessible to a larger audience. We strive to challenge people to change their mindsets, purchasing behavior and habits in order to embrace a sustainable lifestyle.



meet the team

Nandita Parker

Captain and Founder

Nandita has an enduring passion for the oceans. Over the past 30 years, she has been exploring, sailing and diving in the world’s most beautiful seas and oceans. Witnessing first-hand, the gradual and continuing degradation of coral reefs, extinction of marine species and increasing plastic litter in the most far flung and remote beaches. She is committed to reversing this trend through the launch of Ma Oceans.

Nandita manages an India focused equity fund and is a veteran of the Indian fund management industry. She pioneered equities research in India in 1994 and launched India’s first alternative investment fund for global investors in 2004. Nandita is the founder and principal of Karma Capital Management LLC. In 2018, she formed Asset Managers Roundtable of India, an initiative to bring institutional investors on a single platform to advocate for policy change in India and to work together with the Indian government and market regulators for capital market and tax reforms.  Nandita has been championing the cause of gender balance in Boardrooms and women in leadership in corporate India for the past decade.  

Nandita’s investment career spans 28 years where her focus on companies that build long-term shareholder value led her to ESG, Environmental, Social and Governance, investing in India.  She is a thoughtful capitalist who understands global capitalist impulses and wishes to take her role as an environmental steward to the next level. She plans to accelerate change using design thinking, technology and data analytics in the Ma Oceans platform.

Douglas Parker

Founder

Douglas F. Parker, the co-founder of Ma Oceans, is a partner and COO of Karma Capital Management LLC.  He has 35 years of experience in investment management operations and in IT project and relationship management roles in the consumer finance and reinsurance industries.  Douglas -- a life-long sailor and advanced diver, ex-lifeguard, US Navy Officer and rescue swimmer -- will bring his global perspective, knowledge, expertise, and profound appreciation for the health of the oceans.

advisory board

Marcus Eriksen

Scientific Advisor

Marcus Eriksen is the Executive Director and co-founder of Leap Lab, a center
for sustainability. He studies the global distribution and ecological impacts of
plastic marine pollution, which has included expeditions sailing through all 5
subtropical gyres, Bay of Bengal, Southern Ocean and inland lakes and rivers -
publishing the first global estimate of all plastic of all sizes floating in the
world’s oceans in 2015. Today Eriksen’s work is focused on working with
corporations and cities to achieve “zero waste” goals, through biomaterials,
waste-free packaging and products, and smarter materials management
systems.

Sanjeev Bikhchandani

Strategic Advisor

Sanjeev Bikhchandani is the Founder of Info Edge India Ltd. - the company that owns Naukri.com, India’s leading job site. It also owns 99acres.com, Jeevansathi.com and Shiksha.com. In addition it has invested in promising internet start-ups such as Zomato, Policybazaar, Shopkirana, Ustraa, Gramophone and Printo, among others.Sanjeev schooled at St. Columba’s School in New Delhi.  He studied Economics at St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University (1981-1984) and  began his career working in advertising with Lintas. He then went to IIM Ahmedabad and graduated from there in 1989, to join the consumer marketing firm HMM Ltd.(now called Glaxo SmithKline Consumer Healthcare Ltd.).  He quit his job for entrepreneurship eighteen months later.


P.K. Agarwal

Strategic Advisor

A celebrated technology and academic leader in Silicon Valley, PK Agarwal serves as the Dean of UC Santa Cruz Extension in Silicon Valley. Prior to this, he was the Dean and CEO of Northeastern University-Silicon Valley, where he oversaw the startup and growth of the University by creating innovative programs, working with major employers, and contributing the economic vitality of the San Francisco Bay Area.

PK Agarwal holds a Master of Science, Operations Research from UC Berkeley and a Master of Science, Mechanical Engineering from California State University-Sacramento. He attained a Bachelor of Technology, Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

Bill Shireman

Strategic Advisor

Bill Shireman has an uncanny ability to cut through dogma and find common ground – even between those who love to hate each other.  He designed California's best-in-the-nation recycling system, brokered the first global supply chain standards for forest protection, united campus activities with corporate leaders to help build civil institutions in Sudan, and is now bringing the political left and right to protect the environment. He has been uniting political adversaries for more than 30 years – capitalists, activists, conservatives, and progressives.  He teaches the art to future business and political leaders at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, and in his seven books.  He practices it as President of Future 500, where he and his colleagues bring together corporate and environmental leaders to protect the world’s forests, oceans, and climate.  He helps conservatives and progressives find solutions together as board members and mentor of Bridge Alliance and Bridge USA.  A walking contradiction, Shireman is a life-long Republican environmentalist dedicated to the goals of progressives and the means of conservatives.  Bill believes the economy and nature are part of the same system, and that the political right and left are complementary opposites, only able to accomplish their ends together.  He lives in San Francisco with his wife Aileen and two of his three children.

sea suite

Kabir Parker

Marine Scientist

Kabir is a passionate freediver, researcher, conservationist, and videographer. He has spent time in a multitude of ocean ecosystems, from coral reefs to kelp forests, documenting marine life and the impact human beings have on marine habitats. He lives by the saying “Dive everywhere” because one never knows what experience the ocean may throw at you. Kabir has experience researching coral-zooxanthellae symbiosis as well as microbes involved in oil spill cleanup. As part of an internship at NASA he developed satellite image models of what plastic signals look like in the ocean. With this project he represented the United States at the Our Ocean Youth Leadership Summit in Oslo, Norway in 2019. He recently graduated from the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science with degrees in Marine Science and Microbiology. Kabir is an authorized AAUS Scientific Diver, PADI Rescue Diver, and an AIDA Master Freediver. In his free time, he enjoys spearfishing, which he believes to be the most selective and sustainable form of fishing when practiced responsibly.

Joshua Weiner

Technology Consulting

Josh is currently the CEO and Co-Founder of Oh Shoot!, a broad service platform headquartered in New Orleans, LA. He assists the MaOceans Team with their technology platform and its various applications. He is a rising senior at Tulane University and previously attended Fullstack Academy, the nation's premier Fullstack Software Development bootcamp.

JUNE 9-14

Join us for EarthX Oceans Week

Join us as Ma Oceans's founder, Nandita Parker speaks at EarthX Oceans Week June 9 -14. EarthX Oceans Week is brought to you with collaboration by the United Nations and National Geographic

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