Biography
Pavan Sukhdev
Founder & CEO, GIST Impact
Other key responsibilities: former President, WWF-International; UNEP Goodwill Ambassador
Pavan Sukhdev is a scientist by education, an international banker by training, and an environmental economist by passion. Years of work in sustainability and the invisible economics of nature led to his appointment to head the United Nations’ “Green Economy Initiative ” and to lead the G8+5 study TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity).
Pavan was awarded the McCluskey Fellowship (2011) by Yale University. At Yale, he taught a graduate course on TEEB and wrote his book “Corporation 2020-Transforming Business for Tomorrow’s World”. In this book, he advocates four changes in micro-policy and regulation that can rapidly transform today’s corporation to deliver tomorrow’s green and equitable “economy of permanence”.
As Founder and CEO of GIST Impact, which delivers high-quality impact data and intelligence, Pavan works with corporations and investors, harnessing the power of impact economics and technology to discover the full value contribution a business makes to the world.
Pavan has served on the boards of Conservation International (CI), the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the Stockholm Resilience Centre (SRC), and the TEEB Advisory Board. His work has been recognised through several awards, including the Blue Planet Prize (2016) and the Tyler Prize (2020).
