Broughton Coburn graduated with an A.B. degree from Harvard College in 1973. He has lived in the Himalayas for more than two of the past four decades, overseeing development and environmental conservation efforts for the World Bank, UNESCO, World Wildlife Fund, and other agencies. He was also appointed Regional Director for the American Himalayan Foundation, a charitable organization based in San Francisco.

In the late 1980s, he worked with two other Principal Investigators that developed the Operational Plan for Nepal's Annapurna Conservation Area, and in the Tibet Autonomous Region he led a team to the north side of Mt. Everest to propose the Quomolangma Nature Preserve. For the United Nations Development Programme, he was Chief Technical Advisor to the Rasuwa-Nuwakot Integrated Rural Development Project, overseeing $19 million of World Bank credit funds and $1.1 million of UNDP technical assistance funds, for natural resource-based rural development of two districts north of Kathmandu.