Craig Leeson

Craig Leeson is an award-winning filmmaker, television presenter, explorer, public speaker, and entrepreneur. He is the director, narrator, and writer of the multi-award winning documentary feature films “A Plastic Ocean” (released 2017), IMAX Presents The Last Glaciers (released 2022) and The Last Glaciers: Journey To The Extreme (released 2023). He is also the 2022 Australian Of The Year (TAS). Craig is the CEO of Leeson Media International, Leeson Global Media and Ocean Vista Films, and founding partner of digital marketplace www.cooee.eco whose mission is to encourage smarter consumerism as a solution to single-use plastics, the climate crisis and biodiversity loss. He also hosts the A Wave Of Change podcast and is an Antarctic and Arctic Climate Expedtion Ambassador. Craig has worked with National Geographic Channel, where he conceptualized and produced National Geographic Channel Asia’s first in-house tv series called Geowatch Asia.  He has worked as media strategist for Richard Li on Asia’s three biggest joint ventures between PCCW and Telstra Australia. In 2007 he founded and built the I Shot Hong Kong Film Festival to help reinvigorate Hong Kong’s flagging film industry through grass roots development. He is an advisor to The Klosters Forum, is a sustainability partner to BNP Paribas and was Cathay Pacific’s first Change-maker Award recipient in 2019. He advises government and corporate institutions and community organisations globally on environmental issues such as single-use plastics, climate and biodiversity, helping frame policy in Colombia, Mexico, Australia, and the UK. He has worked with the world’s major broadcasters as a producer and foreign correspondent, including BBC, CNN, Bloomberg, PBS, National Geographic Channel, Discovery Channel, Bio Channel, Universal, Al Jazeera and the Seven Network. He began his career as a newspaper journalist before moving to radio and television as a news correspondent and anchor for ABC TV Australia and later for ATV, RTHK and Star News (Hong Kong). In 2005 he was given access to film across China for his National Geographic Channel epic, Marco Polo: The China Mystery Revealed, only the second international producer ever to be allowed to do so since the early 1950s. Craig is a renowned public speaker, moderator and emcee and has delivered keynote addresses to global conferences and film festival events, including the Royal Geographic Society, Tedx, Forbes, Fortune Magazine, International Congress on Conservation Biology, FilmAid Asia, EarthX, The Klosters Forum, BNP Paribas Sustainability Future Forum, Academia Film Olomouc, Ocean Geograhic, Wonderfruit, COP 26, 27 and 28, and the Global Citizens Forum. Craig is a passionate oceans and mountain explorer, surfer and diver. He is a qualified bronze medal certified surf lifesaver having represented his home state, Tasmania, at the Australian titles and holds medical, CPR and surf rescue crew certification as well as a surf rescue boat license. He is also a qualified advanced SCUBA diver and holds an FAA-rated private pilot’s license and a UK paragliding pilot’s certificate. Craig also plays guitar in a published rock band.