FP Forum @ COP28

Inger Andersen is Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme, headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya.

Between 2015 and 2019, Ms. Andersen was the Director-General of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Ms. Andersen has more than 30 years of experience in international development economics, environmental sustainability, strategy and operations. She has led work on a range of issues including agriculture, environmental management, biodiversity conservation, climate change, infrastructure, energy, transport, and water resources management and hydro-diplomacy.

Between 1999 and 2014, Ms. Andersen held several leadership positions  at the World Bank including Vice President of the Middle East and North Africa; Vice President for Sustainable Development and Head of the CGIAR Fund Council.

Prior to her 15 years at the World Bank, Ms. Andersen worked 12 years at the United Nations, first on drought and desertification, beginning with the UN Sudano-Sahelian Office. In 1992, she was appointed UNDP’s Water and Environment Coordinator for the Arab Region.

Ms. Andersen holds a Bachelors from the London Metropolitan University North and a Masters in Development Economics from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

Brad Ack has 35 years of experience working at the intersection of science, policy and environmental innovation, focused on the preservation of nature and a living world.  During his career he has designed and implemented innovative conservation and sustainability initiatives spanning tropical forests and high deserts to estuaries and the global ocean.  Brad has worked for both government and NGOs at senior levels.

Brad serves as Chief Executive Officer for Ocean Visions, an NGO at the center of a collaborative network of research institutions and innovators, investors, and practitioners of ocean regeneration.  Ocean Visions is advancing a new agenda for the ocean, focused on directly addressing the greatest cause of harm – greenhouse gas pollution that is driving existential threats to the ocean.  Ocean Visions works across sectors and disciplines to unlock new intellectual and financial resources to source, develop and scale cutting-edge innovation to regenerate critical components of the ocean-climate system.

Previously Brad served as SVP Oceans at WWF-US; Executive Director of the Puget Sound Recovery Program for the State of Washington; and Regional Director-Americas for the Marine Stewardship Council.  He earlier led conservation programs at Grand Canyon Trust and started his career working on community-based conservation in Latin America.  Brad received his Master’s degree from Georgetown University and Bachelor’s degree at Macalester College. 

Dr. Mayesha Alam is vice president of research at FP Analytics where she oversees the research team and leads research development for clients and partners. She previously helped establish and served as deputy director of the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security, and has also worked with the United Nations, World Bank, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and various nongovernmental organizations. Dr. Alam is the author of two books, Women and Transitional Justice and, with Robert Egnell, Women and Gender Perspectives in the Military, as well as reports on conflict, climate change, health, and gender. Her commentary has appeared in the Washington Post, CNN, NPR, Newsweek, and elsewhere. A nonresident senior fellow of the United Nations University Centre for Policy Research, Dr. Alam is a professor at Johns Hopkins SAIS, and holds a Ph.D. from Yale University.

Bama Athreya serves as the Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Hub and the Inclusive Development Hub in USAID’s Bureau for Inclusive Growth, Partnerships, and innovation.

Ms. Athreya is an expert on international labor issues, gender and social inclusion, and business and human rights. From 2019 through 2021, she was an Economic Inequality Fellow at Open Society Foundations and Senior Advisor on Gender, Equity, and Inclusion to Laudes Foundation. From 2013 through 2019, she served as USAID’s Senior Specialist for Labor where she developed new programming to address labor rights, counter human trafficking, and promote women’s economic inclusion and was part of a working group to advance USAID’s approach to gender and social inclusion. She has developed and led multi-stakeholder initiatives with global corporations, and has worked and written extensively on labor and gender in U.S. trade policy. She is on the Board of Directors of Green America, Advisory Board for Worker Info Exchange, affiliated as a Fellow with Just Jobs Network, and a regular contributor to Inequality.org. She also hosts a podcast on the future of work, The Gig. 

Ms. Athreya holds a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from the University of Michigan, and a certificate in Strategic Management for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion from Georgetown University.

Nikki Batchelor is the Executive Director for the $100M XPRIZE Carbon Removal, a competition supported by the Musk Foundation to drive innovation, market adoption, and responsible deployment of carbon removal solutions. In this capacity she oversees program operations, develops partnerships, and leads strategic initiatives on topics such as environmental justice and investor engagement, including the Circular Carbon Network that provides market insights for the growing carbon tech and carbon removal sectors. Nikki also supports XPRIZE’s work across the Energy & Climate Domain and previously managed operations and impact programs for the $20M NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE from 2015-2021. She also serves on the Carbon Business Council Board of Directors and Puro.Earth Advisory Board.

Previously Nikki served as an Innovation Advisor for the U.S. Agency for International Development, designing and operating challenges and prizes across a range of topics including clean energy, water, health, education, and governance. She also managed operations and designed impact frameworks for several $100M+ grant programs in Afghanistan and Iraq. Additionally, she has worked as a Strategist for NationBuilder, a community organizing software platform, developing product use cases, marketing plans, and expansion strategies for new markets. Nikki holds an MBA from George Washington University in DC.

Jasmine Boehm has a track record of over 20 years working with corporations, the public sector, and international organizations on topics of Sustainability Management,Diversity & Inclusion, Gender Equality, Women’sEmpowerment, Strategy Development, Change Management,Employee Engagement, and Social Innovation. Jasmine is the Director of Change Management and Inclusion for USAID’s Engendering Industries Program. Engendering Industries uses a unique approach to enhance gender equality in male-dominated companies to strengthen the business performance and resilience of companies. The program engages 67 partner companies across 38 countries worldwide and has provided thought leadership to other donor funded programs as well as the expert community. It combines a course learning with a unique change management coaching to transform organizations with a long-term, strategic, and systemic approach. With program support, companies have hired and promoted nearly 11,600 women since 2020, and 75% report that business performance improved as gender equality improved. Under her guidance an excellent team of professional coaches provide change management support to Engendering Industries partners in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. Besides her role in Engendering Industries, Jasmine serves as a Senior Advisor to other programs, including JUST Energy transition programs, to help them use the Engendering Industries approach. She is a member of the World Bank WePOWER Human ResourceManagement Best Practices Working Group. Jasmine is a guest lecturer in universities' master and post-graduate programs, focusing on Sustainability Management, Human Rights and Business, Employee Engagement, and other related areas.Before joining Engendering Industries, Jasmine has served as the Sustainability Manager of Austria's largest industrial company, supporting the transformation of the core business to aid climate change adaptation and mitigation by integrating alternative energy sources, renewables, and a circular economy approach into an oil & gas company with the company ranked as the number one oil & gas company in all core markets. She has served as aSenior Vice President in a social business leading numerous projects supporting companies’ diversity and inclusion management, women's career advancement and improved reconciliation of work-life and family life for both, women and men. And Jasmine has started two consultancy firms providing strategy development, implementation and training support to the private sector, public institutions, and international organizations on Diversity Management, Sustainability Management, HR Management, and all related areas. Several of her clients earned external recognition after successfully implementing jointly developed measures.

Allison Carlson is the Executive Vice President of FP Analytics & Events at Foreign Policy. She oversees FPA’s cross-cutting research at the intersection of policy, technology, and global markets as well as Foreign Policy’s global dialogues and convenings. Prior to these roles, Carlson led FP Analytics’ energy and technology team for more than a decade, evaluating evolving climate and emissions policies and identifying opportunities for advanced technology deployment internationally. Before joining FP, she led the Latin America program for a boutique consulting firm assisting European companies on investing in emerging markets’ energy and financial sectors. Carlson has presented her work at a variety of international conferences and before the U.S. Senate. She is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, where she received a master’s degree in international relations and international economics.

Dr. Dennis Garrity is a systems agronomist and research leader whose career has been focused on the development of small-scale farming systems in the tropics. He has been serving as Drylands Ambassador for the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, emphasizing the role of agroforestry, evergreen agriculture and landcare as critical to sustainable land management.

He is a Senior Fellow at the World Resources Institute, and Distinguished Senior Research Fellow at the World Agroforestry (ICRAF) in Nairobi. He served as Director General of the Centre from 2001 to 2011. He is currently focusing on building an African land restoration movement, and is leading an effort to perennialize global agriculture in the 21st Century. He is Chairman of the Board of the Global EverGreening Alliance, a partnership of nearly all of the major development and conservation organizations around the world, working together on a transformation of African and Asian farming through the integration of trees into farming systems, degraded forest lands, and rangelands. The Alliance is upscaling the practices of evergreen agriculture to tens of millions of the least-favored smallholder farm families in the tropics, and scaling-up evergreen electrical energy solutions for rural communities, with the potential to store vast amounts of carbon while increasing crop production, livelihoods and jobs. He also chairs the Steering Committee for Landcare International, a worldwide effort to support grassroots community-based natural resource management. During the 1980s he led the Agroecology Unit of the International Rice Research Institute, and he initiated and developed the Southeast Asia Programme of the World Agroforestry Centre during the 1990s, while based in Bogor, Indonesia.

He has published more than 200 scientific journal articles, books, popular articles, and policy briefs. He has served as advisor to 34 MSc and PhD students from the Kenya, Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Burma, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Madagascar, Canada, USA, Germany, and the UK, and has advised eight post-doctoral fellows in the conduct of advanced studies from the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Germany. He is a native Ohio, USA. He obtained his BSc degree in agronomy at The Ohio State University, his MSc in farming systems at the University of the Philippines at Los Banos, and his Phd in Agronomy at the University of Nebraska.

Dr. Sanjeev Khagram is the Director General and Dean of the Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University and the Foundation Professor of Global Leadership and Global Futures. He is a world-renowned scholar and practitioner in the areas of globalization, transnationalism, leadership, strategic management, entrepreneurship, social enterprise, cross-sector innovation, public-private partnerships, inter-organizational networks, good governance, transparency, the global political economy, sustainable development, human security, and the data revolution. He holds a bachelor's degree in development studies and engineering, a master's degree and doctoral degree minor in economics and a doctoral degree in political economy, all from Stanford University.

Dr. Khagram most recently led the establishment of the cross-sectoral Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data and International Open Data Charter. He also previously founded, and was the architect of, the multi-stakeholder Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency (GIFT). Dr. Khagram was selected as a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum and authored UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s report on the Impacts of the Global Economic Crisis in 2009. He was Dean of the Desmond Tutu Peace Centre, Foundation and Trust (DTPC) from 2003–⁠2005, and he was Senior Policy and Strategy Director at the World Commission on Dams, where he was the lead writer of the Commission's widely acclaimed Final Report from 1998–⁠2000. Dr. Khagram also founded and led Innovations for Scaling Impact, a global enterprise from 2007–⁠2012.

Dr. Khagram was the John Parke Young Professor of Global Political Economy, Diplomacy and World Affairs at Occidental College from 2012–⁠2018. He was previously Professor and the Founding Director of the Center for International Development at the University of Washington. From 2008–⁠2010, he held the Wyss Visiting Professorship at Harvard Business School. Dr. Khagram was Associate Professor at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government  and Visiting Professor at Stanford University's Institute of International Studies from 1998–⁠2005. He has also taught in numerous universities around the world including the Monterrey Institute of Technology (Mexico), Tata Institute of Social Sciences (India), Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (Singapore), University of Cape Town (South Africa), Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), and Central European University (Hungary). 

Dr. Khagram has published widely, including: "Dams and Development: Transnational Struggles for Water and Power" (Cornell University Press); "Restructuring World Politics: Transnational Social Movements, Networks and Norms" (University of Minnesota Press); "The Transnational Studies Reader: Intersections and Innovations" (Routledge Press); and "Open Budgets: The Political Economy of Transparency, Participation and Accountability" (Brookings Institution Press). In addition, he's authored "Inequality and Corruption" in the American Journal of Sociology; "Possible Future Architectures of Global Governance: A Transnational Perspective/Prospective" in Global Governance; "Environment and Security" in the Annual Review of Environment and Resources; “Social Balance Sheets” in Harvard Business Review;“Evidence for Development Effectiveness” in the Journal of Development Effectiveness; and “Towards a Platinum Standard for Evidence-Based Assessment” in Public Administration Review.

Dr. Khagram has worked extensively with global start-ups, corporations, governments, civil society groups, multilateral organizations, cross-sectoral action networks, public-private partnerships, foundations, professional associations and universities all over the world, from the local to the international levels. He has lived and worked for extended periods in Brazil, India, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, South Africa, Thailand, Germany and the United Kingdom. Khagram is of Asian Indian heritage, a Hindu, and a refugee of Idi Amin's Uganda, which brought him to the United States in 1973 via refugee camps in Italy.  He is the proud father of two sons.

Dr. Mekala Krishnan is a partner at the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), McKinsey’s business and economics research arm.

Her research focuses on topics related to sustainable and inclusive growth, including climate risk and the net-zero transition, globalization, productivity growth, and gender economics. Her most recent research focuses on the net-zero transition, adaptation and physical climate risk across sectors and geographies, including its implications for companies and countries. She is an author of the recent MGI reports, The net-zero transition: What it would cost, what it would bring, From poverty to empowerment: Raising the bar for sustainable and inclusive growth, and Climate risk and response: Physical hazards and socioeconomic impacts. Her past research has focused on the risks facing global value chains and the future of globalization.

Mekala is a frequent speaker on these topics at global conferences as well as with executives at Fortune 500 companies. She has authored numerous articles and her work has been cited in leading business publications, including The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and Harvard Business Review.

Mekala serves on a Bretton Woods Committee working group on climate finance and on advisory boards for the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce and for the Sibley School of Mechanical Engineering at Cornell University. She is also on the board of the Global Fund for Women, a leading public foundation dedicated to improving global gender equality. She was previously a member of a task force at the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at Brookings focused on improving productivity measurement.

Mekala received her Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University in 2011. Prior to Cornell, she received a Bachelor of Technology degree in Mechanical Engineering in 2006 from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi.

Mr. Ali Mohamed, is the Climate Change Envoy at the Executive Office of the President, Kenya. 

Mr. Mohamed has been a member of the South-South Cooperation Council (SSCC) since its inception in 2017, and has participated in several initiatives and projects aimed at enhancing knowledge sharing, capacity building and technical assistance among countries of the Global South. He has also been a vocal advocate for strengthening the role of South-South cooperation in achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement on climate change.

As the Climate Change Envoy, Mr. Mohamed advises the President of Kenya on matters related to climate change policy and action, and represents Kenya in regional and international forums and negotiations on climate change. He also coordinates with other stakeholders, including civil society, private sector and development partners, to mobilize resources and support for Kenya's climate change agenda.

Philip Moss is the global director of tech removals at South Pole, a company that develops and implements comprehensive emission reduction projects, and he is the chairman of the board for the NextGen CDR Facility.

Bilha Ndirangu is the CEO of Great Carbon Valley, a project development company that aims to harness the Rift Valley potential for direct air carbon capture and storage and green industry in East Africa. She is also the co-founder of Jacob’s Ladder Africa, a non-profit with a particular focus on climate action and green workforce preparation. In this and other roles, Ndirangu is at the intersection of climate action, technology and education, positioning Africa as an investment destination for the green economy, identifying and scaling relevant technologies, and preparing its youth to provide the requisite skills mix.

Previously, Ndirangu was the CEO of the African Leadership Academy, where she worked on pathways to enable young leaders to solve key leadership challenges facing the continent. Prior to that, she was the CEO of Africa’s Talking, where she expanded the company into 20 markets in African countries. Ndirangu also worked at Dalberg, where she launched the Nairobi office and advised clients on solutions to African challenges including energy, agriculture and education.

Ndirangu has been recognized on the Choiseul 100 Africa 2022 ranking, is a Desmond Tutu Fellow, and was awarded the Woman of Firsts Excellence in Education Award by CMMI. 
She holds a degree in electrical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is a Yale Emerging Climate Leaders Fellow.

Alyse Nelson is president and CEO of Vital Voices Global Partnership. A cofounder of Vital Voices, Alyse has worked for the organization for more 22 years, serving as vice president and senior director of programs before assuming her current role in 2009. Under her leadership, Vital Voices has expanded its reach to serve over 20,000 women leaders across 184 countries and territories.

Previously, Alyse served as deputy director of the State Department’s Vital Voices Global Democracy Initiative and worked with the President’s Interagency Council on Women at the White House.

Alyse is a regular speaker on leadership and global women’s issues. She has spoken before the United Nations General Assembly, the Clinton Global Initiative, Fortune Most Powerful Women, Oxford Student Union, Women in the World, among others. She has conducted leadership training with women at the Central Intelligence Agency, DFID, the UK Development Agency, Fortune 1000 companies and at numerous conferences.

Alyse is a Member in the Council on Foreign Relations and  serves as an official Observer for the World Bank’s We-fi Initiative for Women Entrepreneurs.  She serves on advisory boards for The B Team, Chime for Change and Global Citizen. Fortune Magazine named Alyse one of the 55 Most Influential Women on Twitter and she was featured as one of Newsweek’s 150 Women Shaking the World. Alyse was honored in 2015 with a Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Award and in 2018 Apolitical named her one of the most influential people in global gender policy.

Alyse is the author of the best-selling book “Vital Voices: the Power of Women Leading Change Around the World” and editor of “Vital Voices: 100 Women Using Their Power to Empower.”‘ She has been featured in various international and national media. She completed her graduate degree work at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

Zainab is the co-founder for Daughters for Earth, Chief Awareness Officer at Find Center, and host of Redefined podcast. Zainab started her career when she was 23 years old as the founder and former CEO of Women for Women International, an organization to help women survivors of conflicts. She built the group from helping 30 women to reaching nearly half a million women and raising 146 million dollars in aids and micro-loans to help them and their families rebuild their lives. Zainab is also the author of a few books, including the national bestseller Between Two Worlds and her latest Freedom Is an Inside Job. She is also the creator and host of several shows, including #MeToo, Now What? on PBS, and Through Her Eyes with Zainab Salbi at Yahoo News.Zainab is the co-founder for Daughters for Earth, Chief Awareness Officer at Find Center, and host of Redefined podcast. Zainab started her career when she was 23 years old as the founder and former CEO of Women for Women International, an organization to help women survivors of conflicts. She built the group from helping 30 women to reaching nearly half a million women and raising 146 million dollars in aids and micro-loans to help them and their families rebuild their lives. Zainab is also the author of a few books, including the national bestseller Between Two Worlds and her latest Freedom Is an Inside Job. She is also the creator and host of several shows, including #MeToo, Now What? on PBS, and Through Her Eyes with Zainab Salbi at Yahoo News.

M. Hady Sherif is currently the Executive Director for Commercial and Regulatory at the Liberia Electricity Corporation (LEC) since April 2022, and a board member of Center for Sustainable Energy Technology (CSET), a local non-governmental development organization involved in energy and development research and related policy intervention for sustainable development and poverty reduction in Liberia.
He has over 16 years of experience in the planning, management and implementation of socio-economic and community development research, projects, and programs. Mr. Sherif has managed multidisciplinary local teams involved in various projects/contracts in Liberia funded by a number of local and foreign development organizations and firms.
Mr. Sherif served as Director of Energy for the MCC-funded Millennium Challenge Account Liberia (MCA-Liberia) from December 2016 to March 2021. Prior to joining MCA-Liberia, he served as Projects Consultant, Senior Projects Officer, Projects Manager and Executive Director between September 2006 and November 2016 for the Center for Sustainable Energy Technology (CSET).
In 2007, while at CSET, he assisted in the development of the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Policy & Action Plan of Liberia funded by REEEP and the GOL. Under the then USAID-funded Liberia Energy Assistance Program (LEAP), he served as local project coordinator for Liberia’s first-ever prepayment electricity metering pilot project in 2008/2009. While at CSET, he also played a major role in the formation and establishment of the then Prototype Rural and Renewable Energy Agency (PRREA) of Liberia and served as its Planning and Technology Officer until the Prototype RREA was transformed to the GOL-RREA. During the development of the National Energy Policy of Liberia, he played a significant role on behalf of CSET during the nation-wide validation of the policy document in 2009. Mr. Sherif played the lead role in managing and coordinating MCA-Liberia’s standing up and operationalization support to the Liberia Electricity Regulatory Commission (LERC).
Mr. Sherif has vast experience in stakeholders’ relations and management, as well as experience in consensus building, and working with multidisciplinary, multi-cultural teams including donors. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree with honors in Economic and Social Studies from Fourah Bay College (University of Sierra Leone) and Master of Science degree in Regional Science from the University of Liberia.

Hnede L. Berrian-Sillah currently serves as the Senior Manager of the Gender, Employees Relations, and Human Resources Information System Department at the Liberia Electricity Corporation (LEC). She is an administrator with over 15 years of effective management and communications skills in various administrative and managerial roles. She holds a master’s degree in Management from the Cuttington University Graduate School and is currently a candidate of Law at the Louis Arthur Grimes School of Law, University of Liberia. She also successfully completed the Gender Equity Executive Leadership Program (GEELP) from the Georgetown University, McDonough School of Business in partnership with USAID Engendering Utilities Program. 

In her current role, Hnede and her team have developed several policy documents to include the LEC Gender and Social Inclusion Policy, Sexual Harassment Policy, Dress Code and Hygiene Policy and established the Female Workers of LEC (FEWLEC), the first of its kind in the Corporation. FEWLEC is an organization of females of LEC networking to champion the internal and external issues affecting women of the Corporation. 

Prior to her ascendency to the current position, she served as the Office and Communications Manager of the Mt. Coffee Project Implementation Unit, a dedicated Unit within LEC which was responsible for the rehabilitation of the Mt. Coffee Hydro Power Plant, Liberia’s only electricity grid which was destroyed during the Liberian Civil Crisis. She handled all administrative processes of the project during the various rehabilitation stages up to its dedication by the then President of Liberia, Madam Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

Andrew Sollinger is the publisher and CEO of Foreign Policy, which he joined in 2018. Previously, he was executive vice president at Business Insider, executive director of Capital New York (now Politico NY) and managing director of the Financial Times Americas. Sollinger was part of the executive team that built Money-Media, a digital news startup focused on the fund management industry, and sold it to the FT. A former reporter and editor for Institutional Investor magazine's newsletter division, Andrew has lived in London, Hong Kong and New York. He is a graduate of Clark University, where he was executive editor of The Scarlet.

David Thompson is the Acting Coordinator for Power Africa - a U.S. Government-led partnership convening the collective resources of 200+ private sector, international development organizations, and governments from around the world to increase energy access and to end energy poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. As a career Foreign Service Officer with 20+ years with USAID, David previously served as USAID Deputy Mission Director at USAID/Tanzania. He has also worked in Washington, DC, Afghanistan, Honduras and Albania. Previously he led housing and post-conflict reconstruction initiatives in South Africa and Bosnia-Herzegovina.