Naoko Ishii has served as the CEO and Chairperson for the Global Environment Facility (GEF) since June 2012. Prior to that, Ms. Ishii was the Deputy Vice Minister of Finance, where she was responsible for Japan’s international financial and development policies, and for its global policies on environmental issues such as climate change and biodiversity. She led the Japanese delegation at the Transition Committee for designing the Green Climate Fund.
For nearly half of her career, Ms. Ishii has served in international assignments outside of Japan, including at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. At the World Bank, Ms. Ishii was the Country Director for Sri Lanka and the Maldives (2006-2010). She also served as the World Bank’s country programme coordinator for Vietnam (1997-2001), project manager at Harvard Institute for International Development (1996-1997), economist at the International Monetary Fund (1992-1995) working for Africa and Asia, as well as visiting fellow at the Center for International Affairs at Harvard University (1984- 1985).
Ms. Ishii also taught sustainable development and environment at Keio University.
She has published numerous papers and several books, two of which were awarded the Suntory Prize (1990) and Okita Memorial Prize for International Development Research (2004). She is the inaugural recipient of the 2006 Enjoji Jiro Memorial Prize. She holds a BA and Ph.D. from University of Tokyo.
The Soneva Sustainability Report 2014-15 publishes the results of Soneva’s first Total Impact Assessment. [caption id="attachment_3317" align="alignleft" width="780"] Photo: Cat Vinton[/caption] In an effort to measure the total impact the company has on the natural world and on the…... more
Soneva was announced as the winner of the prestigious Word Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) Tourism for Tomorrow Award 2015 in the Environment category at the WTTC…... more
Participants at the 2014 SLOW LIFE Symposium. Successful initiatives such as WHOLE WORLD Water and Learn to Swim were born out of the SLOW LIFE Symposium. Following…... more
