Dr Simon Stuart is one of the world's leading conservation scientists, best known for leading the development of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species into the world's most authoritative assessment of species' extinction risk. Awarded the prestigious Blue Planet Prize in 2020 for his contributions to global biodiversity conservation, he has spent more than three decades advancing species conservation internationally, including as Executive Director of A Rocha International. We were honoured to have time with him and the chance to mine him for wisdom, stories and reasons to stay hopeful.