Alok Sharma Keynote Speaker

Lord Alok Sharma served as a Member of Parliament in the UK House of Commons for 14 years (2010–2024) and was subsequently appointed a Member of the House of Lords in the UK Parliament.

Prior to entering Parliament, Alok qualified as a chartered accountant and then worked as an investment banker for 16 years based out of London, Frankfurt, and Stockholm.

He served in a range of UK government ministerial roles prior to entering the UK Cabinet as Secretary of State for International Development. In 2020 he was appointed Secretary of State for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy, as well as President Designate of the 26th UN Climate Change Conference (COP26). In 2021, he took on the COP President role full-time, leading the UK’s work in bringing together the world to tackle climate change and securing agreement from almost 200 countries on the historic Glasgow Climate Pact.

Alok has built a global reputation as a calm and effective influence around the climate change, energy transition, and sustainable investing debates. 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 and sustainable investing, especially the clean energy transition. His leadership in this area has been widely recognised, and he appears on TIME magazine’s 2025 TIME 100 list of the most influential people driving business climate action for his work chairing the UK’s Transition Finance Council.

During his time as Secretary of State for Business, 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 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.

As Development Secretary 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.

In addition, he has served in the UK Government as Minister of State for Employment, Minister of State for Housing and Planning, and Foreign Office Minister for Asia and the Pacific.

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

He currently serves as Chair of the UK’s Transition Finance Council, is a Visiting Fellow at the University of Oxford, Co-Chair of the Rockefeller Foundation’s Climate Advisory Council, and a Distinguished Fellow at Conservation International.