RCS Distinguished Alumni Award Recipient Richard Lawrence '70

Richard H. Lawrence  Jr. ’70 is the founder and executive chairman of Overlook Investments Group, which he established in 1991. Overlook is an independent fund management company that invests in a concentrated portfolio of public equities throughout Asia, excluding Japan.

Richard is a director and co-founder of several nonprofit organizations focused on climate change mitigation. In 2004, Richard and his wife, Dee, founded the Proyecto Mirador Foundation, a nonprofit that has built over 330,000 fuel-efficient stoves in rural communities across Honduras and Guatemala. In 2016, the Lawrences founded Cool Effect, a nonprofit online platform that enables individuals and Fortune 500 companies to offset their carbon emissions through the purchase of carbon credits from high-integrity carbon reduction projects worldwide. In 2017, they established High Tide Foundation, a nonprofit organization involved in climate change mitigation.

Richard is chairman of the nonprofit Carbon Mapper, which deploys satellite technology to pinpoint and track point source emissions, particularly methane. In 2021, he helped establish the Global Methane Hub with over $225 million in philanthropic funds to support methane advocacy and mitigation.

Richard graduated from South Kent School in 1974 and Brown University in 1978 with a degree in Economics. He is the author of Carbon Done Correctly: A Model for Climate Mitigation from the Global South to Wall Street, where he introduces the voluntary carbon market through the lens of unsung heroes around the globe who are on the front lines of the fight against climate change.