Gerd Leipold studied Physics and Meteorology in Munich and Hamburg, and in La Jolla, San Diego, and then worked at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, in the area of climate research.
.
He has a long history of spectacular Greenpeace initiatives. For example, in August 1983 he piloted a hot-air balloon from West Berlin into the former GDR, in protest against the nuclear weapons test being carried out by the four occupying nations. In the same year he became Director of Greenpeace in Germany and, starting with a small group of volunteers, created the largest German environmental organisation with 80 employees and an annual income from donations of DM50 million. From 1990 to 1992 he lead the Greenpeace International disarmament campaign and coordinated more than 50 international campaigns at sea.

As a consultant he advised Greenpeace for several years (from 1993 to 2001) in the development of campaigns and communication strategies. He also put his communication skills and his knowledge of campaign strategy at the disposal of other charitable concerns, such as the Red Cross, Oxfam, ActionAid and Consumers International.

In 2001 he took over from Thilo Bode as Head of Greenpeace International, responsible for 27 national offices, so he remains a powerful international presence in the arena of environmental protection.

He remains firm in his ideological beliefs; when George W Bush’s rejected the Kyoto Protocoll, he described him as an enemy of environmental protection, with a minority viewpoint financed by the oil and energy industry.