Our Strategic Council
The Strategic Council is made up of senior leaders who are leading in different fields and geographies. They provide support, advice, and challenges in their areas of expertise to help Climate Catalyst achieve our ambitious goals.
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Sharan Burrow is the General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, representing 200 million workers in 163 countries and territories with 332 national affiliates. The ITUC’s primary mission is the promotion and defense of workers’ rights and interests, through international cooperation between trade unions, global campaigning, and advocacy within the major global institutions.
Previously President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) from 2000 – to 2010, Sharan is a passionate advocate and campaigner for social justice, women’s rights, the environment, and labour law reforms, and has led union negotiations on major economic reforms and labour rights campaigns in her home country of Australia and globally. She has also served as a member of the Governing Body of the International Labour Organisation and is represented on a number of international commissions concerning climate action, industrial transition, and economic reform.
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Fiona Reynolds is an independent director and advisory board member working across superannuation ESG and sustainability issues. Fiona served as the CEO of the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) for over nine years, stepping down at the beginning of 2022.
Fiona has 25 years experience in the financial services, superannuation and pension sector. She joined the PRI from the Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees (AIST), where she spent seven years as CEO.
Fiona was named one of the 20 most influential people in sustainability globally by Barron’s magazine and has twice been named one of Australia’s one hundred women of influence by the Australian Financial Review.
Fiona is the Chair of the UN Global Compact Australia, she also serves on the Board of Frontier Advisors and Client Earth Asia Pacific and the Advisory Boards of Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners, Affirmative Investment Management and Climate Catalyst and the ESG advisory board of BASF and PWC.
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Anirban has worked with the USD 20 billion Mahindra Group since 1999. He has just taken up a leading role as the Head of Centre of Sustainability at Mahindra University. Prior to that he was the Mahindra Group's Chief Sustainability Officer. During his work Anirban has developed an award-winning sustainability framework, being the first in the world to commit to doubling energy efficiency, the first in the country to join the World Bank’s Carbon Pricing Leadership Consortium, commit to a carbon price, and to Science-Based Targets. He has helped harness more water than is consumed in the Mahindra Group and is currently striving to make Mahindra a zero waste to landfill, carbon-neutral organization.
Anirban has enabled Mahindra World City, a 1500-acre integrated township, to become a food waste-free city, a model that is being replicated in other parts of India. He has, in partnership with the World Bank, helped create the Sustainable Housing Leadership Coalition to enable the spread of green buildings in India. Anirban has spread sustainability in communities by leading the implementation of a national award-winning watershed development project that tripled per capita income for 20,000 Indians. He has helped create an EHS+ centre, in partnership with the Institute for Sustainable Communities, to spread sustainability in the supply chain.
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Matt Rogers is the founder of Incite.org, a values-based investor that provides catalytic capital and guidance for world-positive start-ups, non-profits, and activists. Matt is also the co-founder of Nest, where he built the team that created the first machine learning thermostat and the leading brand for the connected home.
Matt is a builder at heart. Prior to Nest, Matt started his career at Apple, building the software team for 10 generations of the iPod. He was one of the first engineers on the original iPhone and was involved in the development of 5 iPhone generations, and the first iPad.
Matt earned bachelor’s and masters degrees from Carnegie Mellon University. Together with his wife Swati Mylavarapu, he started Incite.org with the mission to empower teams with great ideas that solve important, underinvested-in challenges. Heeding the call to address the climate crisis, Matt leads Incite.org’s investments in climate solutions as well as nonprofits and advocacy groups advancing climate policy.
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Pok is a Climate Change and Sustainability Consultant at EY, with a focus on sustainability frame working and modern slavery. He is a Climate Reality Leader, Global Changemakers Fellow, and a Supporting and Designing Partner with the World Economic Forum on climate justice. Constantly learning and unlearning, he is currently engaged in creating a regenerative framework for Auckland, centered on learning from indigenous wisdom and development within planetary boundaries.
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Anote Tong was President of the Republic of Kiribati having served the maximum three-term limit between 2003 to 2016. During his terms in office, he was responsible for drawing the international focus of attention to the human dimension of climate change by highlighting the existential threat faced by his people and those of other vulnerable countries on the frontline of the impacts of climate change, many of which are in the Pacific Region. On leaving office he joined Conservation International as a Distinguished Fellow from 2016 to 2018 and continues to speak on a worldwide basis at conferences and institutions.
He resides in his home country of Kiribati, a group of 33 atoll islands which are narrow strips of land which are on average less than 2 meters above sea level located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. He is married with more than twenty grandchildren hence his deep concern for the future of his people and of the global community.
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Bernice Lee is Hoffmann Distinguished Fellow for Sustainability and Research Director – Futures and Chair of the Sustainability Accelerator Advisory Council at Chatham House. An expert on the politics of climate change, innovation for sustainability, international trade, and China, she is a member of the UK Global Resource Initiative Task Force, the UK Climate Change Committee's International Advisory Group and the Energy Foundation China Board, and the World Economic Forum Commission on Biodiverse Cities.
Bernice has previously been Director of Climate Change and Resource Security Initiatives at the World Economic Forum, Director of the Energy, Environment, and Resources Department, Director of the Global Economy and Finance department at Chatham House as well as the Founding Executive Director of the Hoffmann Centre for Sustainable Resource Economy (now relaunched as the Chatham House Sustainability Accelerator.
She also held positions at the UN Secretary-General’s office, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Aga Khan Foundation (UK), the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development and served on the Children Investment Fund Foundation’s Climate Change Advisory Board and Shell’s External Review Committee.
In 2011, she was awarded an OBE for services to UK–China climate change cooperation. She held degrees from the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics.
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Nathaniel Keohane is President of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES), a widely respected, nonpartisan non-profit organization that works with policy makers and leading businesses to accelerate the transition to a thriving, just, and resilient net- zero-emissions economy.
Dr. Keohane is a globally recognized expert on climate policy, carbon markets, and the economics of climate change. He has more than 20 years of energy and environmental policy experience in academia, government, and the non- profit sector, including at Environmental Defense Fund, where he held a range of roles including Chief Economist and most recently Senior Vice President for Climate; in the White House, as Special Assistant to President Obama for Energy and Environment in the National Economic Council (2011-2012); and, earlier in his career, as Assistant and then Associate Professor of Economics at the Yale School of Management. He holds a Ph.D. from Harvard and a B.A. from Yale.