Lawyer by profession, politician by choice, and conservationist at heart, Carlos Manuel Rodriguez 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.

Cassie Flynn has provided strategic advisory services to UN bodies and other international organizations, national, state and local governments, multi-billion dollar companies, and civil society groups on climate change and sustainability issues. As a Climate Change Policy Specialist with the United Nations Development Programme, Cassie supported countries in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations and provided technical advice to countries on finance, capacity building, adaptation and technology. In 2011, Cassie authored “Blending Climate Finance through National Climate Funds,” a guidebook on designing and establishing national funds.

Jennifer Morgan took the helm of Greenpeace International in April 2016. She was formerly the Global Director of the Climate Program at the World Resources Institute. A climate activist, she has been a leader of large teams at major organisations, and her other ports of call have included the Worldwide Fund for Nature, Climate Action Network, and E3G.

Marco Lambertini is Director General of WWF International, having first worked with WWF as a youth  volunteer in his native Italy. As the head of the largest and most respected nature conservation organization,  he works with world leaders, corporate executives and civil society to forge a future in which people and  nature thrive. He sits on the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development  (CCICED) chaired by the Ministry of Environment, is an international ambassador of the Food and Land Use  Coalition (FOLU), a founding member of the Nature Action Agenda and Friends of Ocean Action of the World  Economic Forum (WEF), Business for Nature Coalition (BfN) and the Global Commons Alliance.

He leads a global Network with nearly 60 years of environmental conservation successes, five million  supporters, 35 million followers on social media and activities in over 100 countries, running around 3,000  local projects per year as well as global initiatives like Earth Hour engaging millions and reaching billions of  people annually.

Prior to joining WWF, he served as Chief Executive of BirdLife International where he coordinated a global  partnership of over 120 civil society organizations based in countries and territories in all continents. Marco’s  experience and career ranges from ecological field research to international policy, nature reserve  management, integrated conservation and development projects, environmental education, NGO development communications and campaigning, in many countries all over the world.

Thomas Bohner has been CEO of Mitsubishi Power Europe GmbH since April 2019, following on from his role as acting CEO since September 2018. He received his BSc in Mechanical Engineering from Institute of Technology, Biel, Switzerland and MSc in Industrial Economics (BWI) from Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, Switzerland. He started his career at ABB Power from 1993 to 2001, last in the US. He worked at Alstom Power from 2001 to 2009, where he became the factory director. He was transferred to China to assume the role of general manager at Alstom Beizhong Power JV from 2009 to 2014, from 2014-2015 he served as managing director of Wuhan Boiler Company. Upon his return, he became managing director at GE Boiler Deutschland

Thomas Saueressig is a member of the Executive Board of SAP SE. He leads the Board area SAP Product Engineering and has global responsibility for all business software applications. This includes all functional areas from product strategy and management to product development and innovation as well as product delivery and support. He is responsible for a portfolio that includes the SAP S/4HANA suite, SAP Digital Supply Chain, SME, and industry solutions. In addition, SAP Product Engineering is responsible for cloud offerings such as SAP Ariba, SAP Concur, SAP Fieldglass, SAP SuccessFactors, and SAP Customer Experience. Saueressig is also in charge of all development cross-functions at SAP, comprising the global SAP Labs Network, SAP Knowledge & Education, Globalization Services, and SAP User Experience, as well as the overall quality of SAP software products. In addition, the Board area covers SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud as well as SAP’s global cloud infrastructure ensuring a consistent level of scalability, reliability, performance, security, and data protection across all solutions for SAP’s customers.

Before being appointed the head of SAP Product Engineering, Saueressig was chief information officer (CIO) and global head of IT Services at SAP. As CIO, he was responsible for SAP’s IT strategy and execution following a cloud-first approach. Under his leadership, the IT organization pioneered new business models. Prior to that, he led the enterprise mobility efforts including all cross-functions, followed by global responsibility for the IT project delivery and the client IT organization.

Saueressig started his career at SAP in consulting for CRM implementations. He spent several months in SAP Labs North America in Palo Alto, California (USA) and was a Board assistant for several years.

He was included on Fortune’s 40 Under 40 list in 2016. As global sponsor for the SAP Business Women’s Network, the largest employee network at SAP, and for the Women in Tech@SAP initiative, Saueressig supports corporate initiatives for gender equality.

Saueressig has a degree in Business Information Technology from the University of Cooperative Education in Mannheim (Germany) and a joint executive MBA from ESSEC (France) and Mannheim Business School (Germany).