Nonprofit Leader of the Year 2024: John Leong, CEO of Kupu

His extensive leadership experience and unwavering vision has built Kupu into a powerhouse environmental nonprofit.

After graduating in 2000 from the Wharton School – one of the nation’s top business programs– John Leong could have easily taken the path to becoming a Wall Street financial analyst or hedge fund manager.

Instead, he came back to Hawai‘i and pulled weeds in Kawainui, the marsh in Windward O‘ahu.

He co-founded Pono Pacific Land Management with his wife, Julianna Rapu Leong. Pono Pacific blends conservation services with revenue-generating projects focused on renewable energy, local food production, reforestation and more. John Leong is currently chairman and CEO at Pono Pacific; Julianna Rapu Leong handles business development and project management.

In 2007, they co-founded the Honolulu-based nonprofit Kupu, alongside friend Matthew Bauer, who serves as Kupu’s COO. Kupu fosters climate stewardship and leadership among young people through environmental education programs, paid experiences, on-the-job training in sustainabilityfocused professions and more.

“Kupu was named after the kupukupu fern,” explains Kepa Barrett. In 2011, Barrett was a 16-year-old team member in Kupu’s Hawai‘i Youth Conservation Corps summer program when he first met John Leong. Barrett kept returning for more programs, rose through the ranks and is now an external affairs officer for Kupu.

The kupukupu fern can grow in volcanic cinder, and is among the first plants to colonize areas after lava has flowed. It helps rebuild the ecosystem “so other plants can grow and thrive,” says Barrett.

And like those plants, Kupu itself is growing. “Kupu has now reached a point in its organizational life cycle where it’s not the only plant growing on that topsoil; we are poised to not only grow ourselves but also to grow and diversify Hawai‘i’s economy in the green job sector,” Barrett says. “I see the organization continuing consistent trends of growth but also reaching new heights. It’s exciting in so many ways – and there is a lot of work to be done.”

An Idea Takes Root

As a kid growing up in lush Nu‘uanu, Leong enjoyed exploring the trails and streams in the area but admits his family members weren’t particularly outdoorsy.

They were, however, strongly entrepreneurial and supportive of others. “My grandfather had a restaurant and I saw how a business can impact lives,” says Leong. “People would come back to visit the restaurant and talk about how they got their culinary start there. He really thought about how he was going to develop people and support them.”

As a teen, Leong participated in a youth conservation pilot program run by the Department of Land and Natural Resources. That’s when he really fell in love with the environment, he says, “with the watersheds that support life, with the endangered species that are here.”

Michael Wilson, a retired associate justice of the Hawai‘i Supreme Court and former director of the DLNR, has been a longtime supporter of Leong and has served as a board member and advisory board member for Kupu. He started the youth conservation pilot program, which is how he met Leong.

“John was a senior at Punahou, and did that summer program and the rest is history,” Wilson says. “He loved it. His goal system was so different; he has an interior moral compass that is … I would call it almost unmatched. He is driven by a sense of compassion for his community and really is focused on nature. It’s unusual and rather pure because it doesn’t come with an agenda or a need for recognition.”

Evolving Into a Leading Nonprofit

With the success of Pono Pacific, Leong could see a shift in Hawai‘i toward social enterprise, which means using a market-driven approach to address unmet needs or solve social or environmental problems, and also that being in environmental work “does not mean you cannot have excellence in how you operate your organization.” He also spotted an opportunity to get younger people involved.

“The bad news is that all the environmental problems we have are human related, but the flip side of that is that we will have human solutions, especially as we link arms together.”

Bauer, who first met Leong while on a Pono Pacific crew, has now worked alongside him for half of his life. “When you are doing actual on-the-ground conservation work, you realize how much you can do, and can’t do, as an individual or even as a small group of people,” he says. “There are so many environmental challenges we face in Hawai‘i. When we started Kupu, it was amazing to see what you can do when you add more people to the mix. And not just for doing the work, but changing a mindset, sharing how unique Hawai‘i is, how extraordinary it is, how much we have a stake in making it the place we want to continue for our children.”

Today Kupu has a dozen programs, including the Hawai‘i Youth Conservation Corps, Hawai‘i Youth Sustainability Challenge, Conservation Leadership Development Program, Environmental Education Leaders, Kōkua Camp and Nā Manu ‘Elele Stewards. Named a Best Place to Work in 2024 by Hawaii Business Magazine, Kupu has trained more than 6,000 teens and young adults. It currently has 400 people on payroll, and a core staff of 70 to 80 people, many of whom are themselves graduates of Kupu programs.

Kupu’s program members have provided over 3 million hours of service, planting more than 1.5 million native plants and removing 151,000 acres of invasive species. And Kupu has supported program members’ continued education, with $6.3 million in education awards. All told, Kupu has generated more than $229 million in socioeconomic benefits within the Pacific region, according to the organization.

For example, the Kupu ‘Āina Corps was created to support Hawai‘i’s economic comeback following the Covid pandemic and has since been deployed for recovery efforts in the wake of the Maui wildfires. That workforce development program has, to date, provided yearlong paid training positions for 560 people. Kupu ‘Āina Corps positions are structured as a cost share, and participants work on host sites that can include nonprofit organizations, for-profit businesses, and state and county government agencies. Its work involves agriculture, environmental technology, sustainability and other green job positions.

Another Kupu success story is the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Ho‘okupu Center, which opened in 2019 at Kewalo Basin and boasts classrooms, a commercial kitchen and community meeting spaces. There, Kupu administers the Honolulu school district’s only off-campus alternative learning opportunity: the Culinary Social Enterprise and Community Program. It provides employment training to help get underresourced youths into the job market, GED instruction, life skills development and trauma-informed services. More than 100 youths have received alternative high school diplomas upon completing the culinary program, which also provides professional experiences in catering at over 400 events at the Ho‘okupu Center.

Students taking part in the alternative learning opportunity have shown an average GPA increase of 1.8 points after completing their first semesters at the Ho‘okupu Center. Bauer says it’s because young people see themselves in a different light when they realize they’re problem-solvers for Hawai‘i’s environmental challenges.

“It has motivated a lot of students,” Bauer says. “They see the importance of education and they see their own importance in the solutions we need for Hawai‘i.”

Opening the center was an important inflection point for Kupu and demonstrated its evolution “from a scrappy organization to a place that has roots, showing we can create a space where there were once drugs and gambling, and now there is instead a place for finding a future,” Leong says. “One of the kids had previously dropped out (of high school). He did our program and got a four-year scholarship to Menlo College.” A Kupu staffer personally helped to get the student to California and moved him into the college. “Those things make me really proud, what that symbolizes,” says Leong.

He hopes that Kupu can open more educational centers.

“What I’d love to see is where people can get certificates in a career pathway package, getting paid and getting an education at the same time. That’s a model we can provide for the 21st century.”

Young People Are a Natural Resource

Prior to Kupu, Hawai‘i didn’t really have “an organization that connected people – hands-on, and hearts and minds – into the issues that our Islands are facing,” Bauer says. “John’s leadership in creating Kupu provided that opportunity, bringing people together with common solutions and widespread support.”

Bauer calls Leong optimistic. “When I’m in meetings with him, it’s interesting, I hear one thing but he always hears a solution or finds a way on how we can play a part in the story and how we can support another organization. My metaphor is he’s like the tide. He’s going to move forward. He’s not going to knock anybody over but he will continue to go around or go over. He has a force of nature about him that is impressive.”

While many in the younger generation might seem more interested in their smartphones than in pulling invasive plants, Leong says his goal is to engage people where they are. “We encourage them to get their hands in the dirt, their fingers in the limu. But everyone has their own passion and skill set. We’ve had Kupu grads go into design, into teaching. We had a program participant who wants to go into environmental law.”

It’s not a one-job-fits-all approach, and Kupu and its partners are involved in many fields, including geographic information systems, clean energy, food systems, wastewater, wildfire prevention and resiliency, forestry, trail management and native/ endangered species protection.

But no matter what interests the program members have, Leong says, they’ll learn to care about the community they are in. “They can have a calling that is higher than getting themselves ahead, and we can help unlock their calling.”

Barrett notes that Leong is a father of four and prone to telling dad jokes. “John’s leadership style is almost like a fun parent,” he says, but beyond that, he’s a leader with “confidence, firmness, vision and faith.”

“When I was in the programs, I saw someone who was well educated, who was not afraid to get his hands dirty. It is not what John says that necessarily inspires me. It’s what he does. He could have had another type of life and instead chose something outside the box, and look what it has done. John doesn’t evaluate his accomplishments off the GDP of his leadership. It’s about the impact: socially, economically, environmentally. We are better here in Hawai‘i because of his leadership.”

After completing the youth programs, Barrett went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in environmental policy with a minor in economics. Many of Kupu’s professional staff are former program members, says Barrett. “In my own department, two-thirds of us were participants. It’s a very special thing because we clearly know the experiences and the value we are adding to the people who come through the programs.”

Leong is quick to credit his team for his success.

“We have the best team. We have such committed, caring, intelligent people. It’s changed a lot; in the beginning, we were willing to take anyone off the street who would sacrifice pay for passion. We were doing the work that was required, trying to find new work and funding, and doing it all. As we’ve grown and expanded, we’ve developed into a more professional organization. Traditionally in nonprofits, you see the front-line work and many of us start in that mission, but equally important is the recruitment, marketing, accounting, all the things that make a stronger organization. My hope is that we can be the type of organization that fills a hole in the entry-level work of conservation but also in professional levels and management, so we can as a sector provide a competitive environment for support, training and payroll.”

Shaping the Environmental Philanthropy Sector

As Kupu has become more established, it’s found new ways to support Hawai‘i’s communities.

Says Bauer: “We see ourselves as increasing capacity for the environmental and conservation and sustainability sectors in Hawai‘i. If we are able to bring in more resources from the continent, whether that be federal or philanthropic monies that can support and strengthen the overall industry, then that is something we want to do.”

For example, a new $20 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forestry Service will help Kupu become a grantmaker itself, aiding other organizations around the state with tree planting and maintenance. This grant provides financial and technical assistance for workforce development and will help to cultivate Indigenous equity and mitigate invasive species, pests and diseases, according to the USDA.

Leong says Kupu is looking to reach out beyond Hawai‘i, too. “We can be a connecting tissue within the Pacific,” he says, sharing best practices and ensuring everyone gets a seat at the table.

Leong’s wife is from Rapa Nui; Bauer’s wife is from Guam. Pacific nations “are our cousins and our neighbors next door,” says Bauer. “We do what we can to support American Samoa, the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands, Rapa Nui, Guam. We are a trusted entity that can help bring resources.”

Speaking of family, Leong’s oldest child just interned with Kupu before going off to college.

“We are careful and respectful that our kids have their own path and we want them to express themselves,” says Leong. “But they did grow up drinking the Kool-Aid.” He fondly recalls his daughter stepping into a leadership moment during a youth ropes course. “There she was, a little 6-year-old, telling the 18-yearolds what to do. She’d tell them, ‘This is how you make sure you are safe, this is how you build a team.’ ”

With Kupu, “John’s created a new model that allows for transformational change,” says Wilson, the retired Supreme Court justice. “It is the institutionalization of the ethic of taking care of our ‘āina and our kai, and to do it with aplomb and to do it with a sense of joy, and therefore attract every strata of society. John’s skill set means that he’s at another scale of ingenuity, creativity, compassion and commitment, and he has the best kind of leadership, because it’s the leadership that penetrates the people around him and makes them feel good about what they’re doing. It happens after they get to know him.”