Planet Visionaries – SEASON 5

In this episode of Planet Visionaries, a landmark podcast series in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, host Alex Honnold speaks with Anna Rathmann, Executive Director of the Jane Goodall Institute USA. Carrying Goodall’s vision forward, she focuses on chimpanzee protection, research and youth empowerment.  For nearly a century, Rolex has supported pioneering explorers. Ov...

In this episode of Planet Visionaries, a landmark podcast series in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, host Alex Honnold speaks with Pete Malinowski, President and CEO of the Billion Oyster Project. Raised on Fishers Island, Malinowski leads the effort to restore 1 billion oysters to New York Harbor by 2035, using recycled shells, reefs and community action to revive its ecosy...

In this episode of Planet Visionaries, a landmark podcast series in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, host Alex Honnold speaks with Emily Teitsworth, Executive Director of the Honnold Foundation. Teitsworth leads a global network of more than 100 grassroots partners across 30 countries, using community-scale solar to expand access to renewable energy. For nearly a century, Ro...

In this episode of Planet Visionaries, a landmark podcast series in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, host Alex Honnold speaks with National Geographic Explorer and photographer Tom Peschak, who documented 396 days crossing the Amazon basin as part of the Rolex and National Geographic Perpetual Planet Amazon Expedition. For nearly a century, Rolex has supported pioneering exp...

Throughout Season 5 of Planet Visionaries, a landmark podcast series in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, host Alex Honnold has spoken with extraordinary people leading innovation in conservation, science and technology. In this episode, he revisits the most powerful moments—from Miranda Wang who transforms previously unrecyclable plastics into high-value materials to Kris To...

In this episode of Planet Visionaries, a landmark podcast series in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, host Alex Honnold speaks with marine biologist Sheena Talma and deep-sea explorer Katy Croff Bell, who are National Geographic Explorers and members of the Rolex and National Geographic Perpetual Planet Ocean Expeditions. Together, they reveal how only 0.001 percent of the de...

In this episode of Planet Visionaries, a landmark podcast series in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, host Alex Honnold speaks with marine biologist Andrew Thurber and microbial oceanographer Allison Fong, who are National Geographic Explorers and key members of the Rolex and National Geographic Perpetual Planet Ocean Expeditions. Thurber studies how deep-sea microbes regulat...

In this episode of Planet Visionaries, a landmark podcast series in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, host Alex Honnold speaks with National Geographic photographer and Rolex Testimonee, David Doubilet, and marine biologist Jennifer Hayes about the decades they have spent capturing the wonder of the ocean. They share stories from iconic dives and reflect on the evolution of t...

In this episode of Planet Visionaries, a landmark podcast series in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, host Alex Honnold talks with Fernando Trujillo, marine biologist and 2024 Rolex National Geographic Explorer of the Year, about protecting pink river dolphins in the Amazon and Orinoco basins. Trujillo highlights the challenges and solutions of Amazon conservation, sharing in...

In this episode of Planet Visionaries, a landmark podcast series in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, host Alex Honnold explores the future of ocean conservation with legendary marine biologist and founder of Mission Blue, Dr. Sylvia Earle, and Titouan Bernicot, founder of Coral Gardeners. The two Rolex Testimonees share insights on protecting marine ecosystems by blending sc...

In this episode of Planet Visionaries, a landmark podcast series in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, host Alex Honnold talks to neuroscientist and Rolex Awards Laureate Grégoire Courtine and neurosurgeon Jocelyne Bloch. Both are pioneers in neurotechnology, using their expertise to help paralyzed people walk again. They explain the groundbreaking science behind their implant...

In this episode of Planet Visionaries, a landmark podcast series in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, host Alex Honnold sits down with Joe McNeil, CEO of Sage Development Authority of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. His mission is economic and deeply cultural: to restore long-term stability for the next generation of Lakota people by reclaiming control of their energy future t...

In this episode of Planet Visionaries, a landmark podcast series in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, host Alex Honnold sits down with Indigenous environmental advocate Xiye Bastida. A global youth leader and co-founder of the Re-Earth Initiative who brings ancestral knowledge into modern climate action, she explains why hope, culture, and collective action are essential to p...

In this episode of Planet Visionaries, a landmark podcast series in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, host Alex Honnold sits down with Ben Mirin, acoustic and ethno-biologist, and Founding Director of the Creative Conservation Lab at Cornell University. Named one of The Explorer’s Club 50 People Changing the World, – Mirin blends sound with science. Together with Honnold, the...

In this episode of Planet Visionaries, a landmark podcast series in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, host Alex Honnold revisits his conversation with Felix Brooks-church, co-founder of Sanku, a non-profit organization tackling ‘hidden hunger’ at scale by fortifying staple foods. At the end of this episode, Brooks-church, a Rolex Awards Laureate, provides an update on his pro...

In this episode of Planet Visionaries, a landmark podcast series in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, host Alex Honnold sits down with Oliver Utne, founder of Kara Solar, an Indigenous-led project building solar-powered riverboats and charging stations in the Amazon. With the support of the Honnold Foundation, Kara Solar gives communities clean, reliable transport that reduce...

In this episode of Planet Visionaries, a landmark podcast series in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, host Alex Honnold sits down with acclaimed photographer, conservationist and SeaLegacy co-founder Cristina Mittermeier. A pioneer of conservation photography, she has spent her life capturing the beauty and fragility of the ocean and is now using her voice to protect it. From...

In this episode of Planet Visionaries, a landmark podcast series in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, host Alex Honnold meets marine biologist, explorer and Project CETI founder David Gruber - a scientist pushing the boundaries of how humans understand the natural world. From discovering the first biofluorescent sea turtle to pioneering soft robotics that allow us to study oc...

In this episode of Planet Visionaries, a landmark podcast series in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, host Alex Honnold meets actor and climate advocate Mark Ruffalo, co-founder of The Solutions Project, and Gloria Walton, the organization’s president and CEO. Together, they share how their movement is shifting power to frontline communities and driving a transition to renewa...

In this episode of Planet Visionaries, a landmark podcast series in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, host Alex Honnold meets with world-renowned wildlife photographer Paul Nicklen. He shares how his deep reverence for the natural world has evolved into a mission of global advocacy for conservation through his visually stunning work. For nearly a century, Rolex has supported...

This time on Planet Visionaries, host Alex Honnold meets two filmmakers on the front lines of environmental storytelling: Alice Aedy, documentary director and co-founder of Earthrise Studio, and Malaika Vaz, filmmaker and CEO of Untamed Planet. Both are National Geographic Explorers whose work captures the intersection of people, planet, and power, using storytelling to shift perspectives and insp...

In this episode of Planet Visionaries, a landmark podcast series in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, host Alex Honnold meets two of the brightest innovators redefining how to recycle the unrecyclable: Miranda Wang, co-founder and CEO of Novoloop, and Shay Sethi, co-founder and CEO of Ambercycle.  Both co-founded their companies at age 19 and have found innovative ways to tra...

In this episode of Planet Visionaries, a landmark podcast series in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, host Alex Honnold sits down with Kris Tompkins, former CEO of Patagonia and co-founder of Tompkins Conservation. She explains how she became a trailblazing conservationist, protecting 15 million acres of land by creating or expanding 15 national parks in Chile and Argentina,...

In this episode of Planet Visionaries, a landmark podcast series in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, host Alex Honnold is joined by wildlife filmmaker Bertie Gregory and penguin researcher Pablo García Borboroglu. The 2025 Rolex National Geographic Explorers of the Year, who collaborated on the docuseries “Secrets of Penguins”, explain why protecting these remarkable birds m...

Host Alex Honnold introduces a new season of Planet Visionaries, the podcast exploring bold ideas and big solutions in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative. This season spotlights innovators who aren’t just imagining a better future but actively creating it. Guests include actor and climate champion Mark Ruffalo, celebrated photographer and biologist Cristina Mittermeier, and pio...