Edward Norton

Edward Norton is one of the most celebrated actors of his generation. He has starred in over 50 films, produced 13, written 5 and directed 2. He has been nominated for four Academy Awards (for Primal Fear, American History X, Birdman & A Complete Unknown), 5 Screen Actors Guild Awards, 3 BAFTAs, 3 Golden Globes and has won the Golden Globe, an Emmy, an Obie and numerous other awards for his performances and productions. His most recent film as a writer and director is, “Motherless Brooklyn”, which he wrote, directed, produced and starred in. A meditation on hidden power and the threat of autocracy in America, filmmaker / historian Ken Burns wrote that the film is ‘nothing less than a modern masterpiece.’ He most recently appeared as legendary folk singer Pete Seeger in the hit film ‘A Complete Unknown’, which was nominated for 8 Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor for his performance. Norton has a substantial parallel career as a serial entrepreneur, investor and activist in both environmental sustainability and technology ventures. In 2004, Norton co-founded the water treatment technology company Baswood Technologies, which was acquired by Cambrian Innovations, on whose Board he still serves. The company has pioneered the ‘Water Treatment / Energy Savings as a Service’ model and counts many of the largest industrial users of water in the world among its customers. Cambrian was acquired by Pennybacker.

In 2010, Norton and his wife, film producer Shauna Robertson, co-founded CrowdRise, a charitable crowdfunding and fundraising software platform that, within three years, grew into one of the largest crowdfunding platforms in the world. Over $500 million USD was raised for charities on CrowdRise. In 2017, CrowdRise merged with GoFundMe to create the largest online charity platform in the world. Norton serves on the Board of GFM, which now processes over $6 billion of charitable contributions annually and is routinely cited as one of the most important social impact companies in the world.

In 2014, Norton and Daniel Nadler co-founded EDO, a company applying advanced data science and machine learning to the development of highly innovative audience measurement signals for the media and advertising industries. The company’s data and software is now used by all of the major television network ad sellers and a rapidly growing share of the world’s largest brand advertisers in auto, insurance, CPG and movie marketing. EDO is regularly cited as one of the most significant new technology companies in media and advertising. Recently, every single streaming service, including Disney and Netflix, named EDO as their preferred provider of measurement for ad supported streaming across their platforms, making EDO the leading measurement provider for the ad supported streaming industry. Norton was the co-CEO of EDO for the first three years and he and Nadler now serve as co-Chairs of the board. In 2020, Norton co-founded Zeck, a business software company offering a subscription cloud-based board governance and presentation platform. Over 1000 companies and non-profits are using Zeck in just its second year and it is on pace to double that customer base this year. Norton is the Head of Strategy for Zeck.

In 2020, Norton also co-founded Stax Engineering a company providing emission capture as a service to shipping companies in California ports. Stax uses electric-powered, barge-mounted mission capture systems to help all shippers be compliant with new state regulations requiring 100% capture of emissions while at berth in California ports. Norton one of three co-founder partners and also serves as the Chairman of Stax.

Norton is also a committed social and environmental activist. Norton currently serves as the United Nations Ambassador for Biodiversity and for nearly 20 years he has served as the Board chair of the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust, an organization he helped create. MWCT is a community-based Kenyan org working to preserve the endangered wildlife and threatened forest ecosystems in Kenya’s iconic southern rangelands. MWCT’s work to develop an innovative portfolio of sustainable, natural capital-based revenue streams for Maasai communities has been awarded both the UNDP Equator Prize and the UNEP Champions of the Earth Prize. Norton seeded MWCT’s effort to build the Chyulu Hills Carbon project and has led the effort by the project to build a consortium of corporate partners buying offset credits. The project has generated over $12million in sales of credits to date and was just issued 3.2 million new credits.

Norton recently co-founded Conservation Equity with Brian Sheth (ex co Founder of Vista Equity / founder Haveli Investments). A self-described ‘Environmental Benefit Corporation’, CE is seeking to design a high leverage conservation finance model that recycles foundation grant capital while creating a long-term private equity grade revenue stream purposed 100% to conservation finance, Conservation Equity has partnered with the Discovery Land group on a series of luxury ecotourism developments in Kenya. Conservation Equity will contribute 100% of its profits to conservation financing and takes no capital management fees of any kind.

Signature Theater Company
Norton has been on the Board of New York’s Signature Theater Company since 1994 when he made his Off-Broadway debut there. Signature is the only theater in the country that devotes an entire season each year to the work of one living American playwright. Edward Albee, Arthur Miller, Sam Shepard, Horton Foote, John Guare, Lanford Wilson and Tony Kushner are just a few of the playwrights who have spent a season in residence with Signature. In its fifteen years, Signature has been repeatedly recognized as one of the most important and outstanding new theaters in America, winning every award available to an Off-Broadway theater.

As noted in the NY Times, Norton led the company’s campaign to build a stunning new, Frank-Gehry designed complex of three theaters on 42nd Street…the Signature Theater Center…and personally raised most of the nearly $100million for the project and its Affordable Ticket initiative. Opened in January of 2012, the Signature Center is one of the largest new performing arts centers built in NY since Lincoln Center and has been widely celebrated for both its design and its productions in its first year.

Middle East Peacemakers Fund
Another of Norton’s projects is the Peacemakers Fund at Yale University, his alma mater. As a response to the events of September 11th and the increasing conflict in the Middle East, Norton contributed $100,000 to establish a fund that provides travel-study grants for Yale undergraduates to study the people, languages and cultures of the Middle East and Central Asia. The Fund is
now administered by the MacMillan Center for Middle East Studies at Yale and has sent nearly 100 students to the Middle East to pursue research and study. Fundraising for the fund’s endowment is ongoing.

Friends of the High Line
Norton was also an early Board member, public champion and fundraiser for the Friends of the High Line, which has worked for the last 15 years to create New York’s most celebrated new public park out of an abandoned freight rail track. Running over two miles through Manhattan’s industrial West Side, the High Line now welcomes millions of visitors every year, has transformed the economics of the neighborhood it runs through and has been celebrated all over the world as one of the most creative urban re-development projects in recent memory.

Awards
For his work on the environment, Norton has received awards from the Harvard Center for Environmental Health and the International Congressional Conservation Foundation. For his work on the High Line and Signature Theater Center, he received the Mayor’s Award for the Arts from NY City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg.