Sylvie Goulard Keynote Speaker

Dr Sylvie Goulard is Professor of Practice in Global Affairs and Geopolitics at SDA Bocconi School of Management.

She is a member of One Planet Lab (President Macron’s multi stakeholder global initiative dealing with climate and biodiversity).  She is co-chair (with Dame Amelia Fawcett) of a Franco British initiative aiming at creating nature related financial instruments to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss.  In 2024, she joined the Council of the Munich Security Conference Foundation. In 2025, she joined the Board of the Institut Océanographique de Monaco, a scientific institution, working on biodiversity.

Between 2018-2022, Sylvie was Deputy Governor of the Banque de France.  Her portfolio comprised international issues, research, public financial education and financial stability issues, including those related to climate and the monitoring of the secretariat of the Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS) that coordinates the work of around 120 Central Banks and supervisors committed to tackle climate related financial risks and encourage sustainable development. Within the NGFS, Mrs Goulard co-chaired the Task Force on nature-related risks.

She served as a Member of the European Parliament from 2009 to 2017 for the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats group, as Minister of the Armed Forces of the French Government and as Vice Governor of the Banque de France from 2018 to 2022. She was a member of the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee and chaired the inter-parliamentary group for the fight against poverty, which aimed to give a voice to disadvantaged people within the European institutions.

From 2001 to 2004, she was the political advisor to Romano Prodi, who was the President of the European Commission at that time.

Her book L’Europe pour les Nuls (First, 2007) won the European Book Prize. She has written several other books, including La Democrazia in Europa (Flammarion/Rizzoli, 2012), co-authored with Mario Monti; Goodbye Europe (Flammarion, 2016), an analysis of Brexit and its consequences for Europe; and Green or Greed: No Prosperity Without Respect for Nature (2026), which argues that long-term economic prosperity depends on protecting nature and advancing sustainable development.

She was awarded with the Chevalier de l’ordre national du mérite français (2008) and the Verdienstkreuz am Bande, Germany (2014).

Having graduated from Sciences Po and the Ecole Nationale d’Administration (ENA), she studied law. During her time at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, she particularly dealt with issues related to European integration and Germany. She also worked at the Conseil d’Etat.

As well as delivering in her native French, she also speaks in English and German.