Alok Sharma Keynote Speaker

Sir Alok Sharma was appointed President Designate of COP26, the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference hosted in Glasgow, in February 2020. He was formally confirmed as COP26 President at the start of the conference in November 2021 and served until the start of COP27 in November 2022.  During his COP26 tenure he set an ambitious international climate action agenda, concluding in around 200 countries coming together to forge the historic Glasgow Climate Pact.

Alok has built a global reputation as a calm and effective influence around the climate change debate.  He is passionate about the need to continue pressing for change across the world’s leading financial institutions to ensure far greater flows of public and private finance to climate action, especially the clean energy transition. Alok has argued for organisations like the World Bank to put tackling Climate Change at the very heart of their missions.

Alok was Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy between February 2020 and January 2021. As well as leading the department’s extensive response to support businesses and jobs during the pandemic, he also led on the Prime Minister’s 10-point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution and a seminal Energy White Paper. These collectively chart the UK’s path to cleaning its environment, whilst also encouraging private sector investment and jobs in current and future green industries across the UK.  He also chaired the UK Vaccine Taskforce’s Ministerial Investment Panel.

He served as Secretary of State at the Department for International Development from July 2019 to February 2020, where he set up the International Development Infrastructure Commission which set out recommendations on boosting private capital investment into sustainable infrastructure. He also led on the delivery of the first ever UK-Africa Investment Summit.

Before entering the UK Cabinet in 2019, he served in a range of other ministerial roles including as Minister of State for Employment; Minister of State for Housing and Planning; and Minister for Asia and the Pacific.

Prior to entering Parliament, he qualified as a chartered accountant and subsequently worked for 16 years in investment banking, based out of London, Frankfurt and Stockholm, advising clients on corporate finance matters.

Alok was knighted in His Majesty King Charles III’s 2023 New Year’s honours list for his services to tackling climate change.