Lori Perkins is vice president of Canopy Strategic Partners and facilitates strategic planning engagements for a broad range of clients, including zoos, aquariums, botanical gardens, and cultural attractions. She leads DEAIJ and women in leadership initiatives and contributes her expertise to conservation planning efforts and expanding our executive search and recruitment services.
Perkins has always been deeply involved in wildlife conservation and management through the AZA. She has chaired the association’s animal welfare committee and its animal population management (APM) committee (then known as WCMC) and is currently an advisor to the APM Committee. She has chaired the AZA’s board of professional ethics, having been nationally elected to this body for the second time in her career, and she served as a site inspection team leader for the AZA’s accreditation program.
Perkins has worked as a curator of many varied taxa, but her primary focus has always been the conservation and management of apes, with a particular focus on orangutans – she led the Orangutan Species Survival Plan (SSP) for 30 years, and chaired the Ape Taxon Advisory Group (TAG), the umbrella group coordinating the SSPs for all ape species. She also serves on the board of directors of the Center for Great Apes, a nonprofit organisation in Florida which runs a sanctuary for rescued and retired orangutans and chimpanzees.
Perkins was formerly the deputy director at the Birmingham Zoo and has a depth of experience in the zoological field, including working at Zoo Atlanta, Lincoln Park Zoo, and recently Disney’s Animal Kingdom as the education and science director. She has served as chair of AZA’s animal welfare committee and its wildlife conservation and management committee. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Massachusetts, Perkins earned a Master’s Degree in Psychology at the Georgia Institute of Technology as a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellow.