GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT FACILITY - Key Persons

Adriana Goncalves Moreira

Job Titles:

Senior Biodiversity Specialist

Akila Nazneen

an..@thegef.org

Job Titles:

Senior Financial Assistant

Alexandre Pinheiro Rego

Job Titles:

Senior Communications Officer

Aloke Barnwal

ab..@thegef.org

Job Titles:

Senior Climate Change Specialist

Aloke joined the GEF Programs Unit in May 2018 as Senior Climate Change Specialist to work on sustainable cities and climate change adaptation programs. He is a climate change and public policy professional with 15 years of hands-on experience in climate change mitigation and adaptation, natural resources management, and sustainable livelihoods in developing and least developed countries. During his career, Aloke has extensively worked in non-profit, private sector and donor organizations on a wide range of environmental and development issues at grassroots as well as national and regional policy levels. Prior to joining GEF, he worked as climate and environment adviser at the UK's Department for International Development (DFID) in India where he was leading a $30m portfolio of climate resilience and urban technical assistance programs. Prior to DFID, Aloke worked on USAID-funded $20m renewable energy deployment technical assistance program in India as renewable energy policy specialist. Aloke has worked extensively in South Asian countries including India, Bhutan, Nepal, and Lao PDR on formulating climate change policies, accessing climate finance and developing innovative technology solutions to climate change challenges. Aloke led the technical assistance to India to register its first Green Climate Fund (GCF) project and to Bhutan in preparing their Technology Needs Assessment (TNA) report on climate change. Aloke is a Ford Foundation Fellow and holds a master's degree in Public Affairs from Indiana University, Bloomington, United States, and a bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering from Jalpaiguri Government Engineering College, West Bengal, India.

Alua Kennedy

Job Titles:

Communications Officer

Alua is a marketing communications professional from Kazakhstan. She came to GEF from the World Bank where she was implementing the online communications strategy of the Governance Global Practice. Alua has extensive experience with special events and digital content marketing. She has a BS in International Relations and Foreign Policy from Al-Farabi Kazakh State University and a MS in Communications from Ithaca College.

Amanda Olesia Adams

aa..@thegef.org

Job Titles:

Program Assistant

Andrew Hume

ah..@thegef.org

Job Titles:

Senior Environmental Specialist

Anil Sookdeo

as..@thegef.org

Job Titles:

Coordinator for Chemicals
Senior Environmental Specialist

is the GEF's Coordinator for Chemicals and Waste and is a member of the GEF Leadership Team. He works towards a pollution free, zero waste future through supporting the GEF's work on the implementation of the chemicals and waste multilateral environmental agreements including the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, the Minamata Convention on Mercury, the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, and the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management. Anil is a national of Trinidad and Tobago and has worked in the field of environment and development for over 20 years.

Aoki, Chizuru

Job Titles:

Lead Environmental Specialist

Apel, Ulrich

Job Titles:

Senior Environmental Specialist

Asha Bobb-Semple

Job Titles:

Environmental Specialist

Asha has 10 years of experience in managing projects and investment/grant programs in the areas of biodiversity conservation, climate change and natural resource management (water and forests) with specific reference to small island developing states. Asha has worked at the NGO, public sector, and multilateral levels and has engaged at numerous stages of her career with the academic and private sectors. Her most recent role was a short term consultant with the World Bank Global Water Practice, supporting knowledge management and Bank operational activities of the Water Supply and Sanitation, Global Solutions Group. Asha has also worked with the UNDP Sub-Regional Office (for Bahamas, Turks and Caicos Islands, Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Jamaica), where she served as the Environment focal point providing technical advice and managing the programming and monitoring of national and regional projects and prior to that at the Environmental Foundation of Jamaica (the first debt/for nature swap negotiated by the country). Asha has an MSc in Environment and Development from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), University of London.

Astrid Hillers

ah..@thegef.org

Job Titles:

Senior Environmental Specialist, International Waters

Astrid Hillers is responsible for the GEF's work on International Waters in Africa and on shared surface and groundwater in Asia. She also leads several cross-sectoral Strategic Global Initiatives at the GEF. Among these strategic initiatives is the work on Water Security and the Nexus between water-food-energy and ecosystems which is underlying both conflict and cooperation potential in many shared surface and groundwater basins. She joined the GEF in 2012. Prior to this she engaged in cooperation on river basins in Africa, especially the Nile basin, during most of her career at the World Bank, where she worked since 2000, and in her previous work at UNDP. At the World Bank, she also led the initial establishment of the Pilot Program for Climate Resilience as part of the Climate Investment Fund team. She is a German national and an environmental engineer by training, and before coming to the US in 1989, she worked for the German Environmental Protection Agency in the water quality compliance program on state level.

Avril Benchimol Dominguez

Job Titles:

Senior Financial Specialist

Avril Benchimol Dominguez is leading the blended finance initiative (Non-Grant Instruments) at the GEF with a portfolio of active projects above $250 million. The goal of this initiative is to test blended finance structures that de-risk private investment and help create innovative financial structures to combat global environmental degradation. The GEF blended finance window offers a wide array of financial instruments including equity, debt, and risk-sharing instruments to be used in environmental projects that are perceived as too risky for commercial finance alone. Avril has seventeen years of experience in capital markets and structured finance both in multilateral development banks and investment banking. During her eight years of work at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), she designed and executed capital markets and structured finance transactions supporting SDGs. She also led a green microfinance facility in 11 countries that facilitated microfinance clients' mitigation and adaptation initiatives. Prior to joining the IDB, she spent six years working in investment banking for Morgan Stanley and BNP Paribas in London, Madrid, and Brussels. Her main areas of expertise included capital markets and structured equity derivatives. In capital markets she worked in the origination and structuring of equity and debt transactions such as IPOs, rights issues, and corporate bond issues. In 2011, she received her Master of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University, where she graduated with honors. Avril is originally from Spain and currently lives in Washington, DC.

Bakarr, Mohamed

Job Titles:

Lead Environmental Specialist

Barber, Glynis

Job Titles:

Program Assistant

Barnwal, Aloke

Job Titles:

Senior Climate Change Specialist

Berardi, Filippo

Job Titles:

Senior Climate Change Specialist

Besson, Olivier

Job Titles:

Senior Communications Assistant / Procurement, Events

Bisset, Robert

Job Titles:

Head of Communications / Communications

Bobb-Semple, Asha

Job Titles:

Environmental Specialist

Bogyo, Christina

Job Titles:

Senior Program Assistant

Caldicott, Jonathan

Job Titles:

Senior Policy Officer

Callenberg, Mia

Job Titles:

Junior Professional Officer

Carlos Manuel Rodríguez

Job Titles:

CEO and Chairperson
Expert

Lawyer by profession, politician by choice, and conservationist at heart, Carlos Manuel Rodríguez was elected as CEO and Chairperson of the Global Environment Facility by its governing body, the GEF Council, in June 2020. The former Costa Rican Environment and Energy Minister was a pioneer in the development of Payment for Ecosystem Services initiatives and strategies for forest restoration, ocean conservation, and de-carbonization, and is an internationally recognized expert on environmental policy, multilateral environmental negotiations, and financing for nature conservation. During his three terms as Minister of Environment and Energy, Costa Rica doubled the size of its forests, made its electric sector 100 percent clean and renewable, and consolidated a National Park System that has positioned the Central American country as a prime ecotourism destination. Rodríguez has held various technical and political positions over the past 30 years. In the early 1990s, he worked as Director of Costa Rica's National Parks Service and is also founder and board member of many environmental NGOs and tropical research institutes. Since the 1992 UN Sustainable Development Summit in Rio, he has participated in all multilateral environmental negotiations, as an expert negotiator in UNFCCC, CBD, and UNCCD, and participated in negotiations for the creation and implementation of the GEF and the Green Climate Fund. After his second tenure as Minister, he was Vice-President for Global Policy at Conservation International, for 12 years, working in 30 tropical countries in Central and South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia.