Alok Sharma
Boards have made net zero commitments. The capital plan to deliver them is missing. Finance teams, sustainability leads and policy chiefs now have to reconcile multilateral targets, transition risk and shareholder return inside the same decision, while the geopolitical ground under climate policy keeps shifting.
Alok Sharma is the former COP26 President and Chair of the UK Transition Finance Council, advising boards on how climate policy, geopolitics and capital allocation now meet inside the same decision.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Alok Sharma
- He chaired the negotiation that produced the Glasgow Climate Pact, working with nearly 200 governments. Few advisors can read multilateral climate dynamics from inside the chair.
- As Chair of the UK Transition Finance Council, he is actively shaping how private capital is mobilised for transition, not commenting on it from a distance.
- His vantage spans Cabinet, COP, the Rockefeller Foundation Climate Advisory Council, Conservation International and Oxford Martin School, giving boards a single voice across policy, philanthropy, science and finance.
- TIME named him in the 2025 TIME 100 Climate list for his work mobilising transition finance, a credible external benchmark of current relevance.
- A 16-year investment banking career in London, Stockholm and Frankfurt gives him the financial fluency to discuss transition with CFOs and treasurers in their own language.
Biography highlights
- President of COP26, Glasgow 2021, the conference that produced the Glasgow Climate Pact
- Former UK Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and previously Secretary of State for International Development
- Chair of the UK Transition Finance Council, appointed by HM Treasury and the City of London Corporation in 2025
- Visiting Fellow, Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford
- Co-Chair, Rockefeller Foundation Climate Advisory Council; Distinguished Fellow, Conservation International
- KCMG, 2023 New Year Honours, for services to tackling climate change; created Baron Sharma of Reading, 2024; named to TIME 100 Climate, 2025
Biography
The Glasgow Climate Pact was negotiated in a room with delegations from nearly 200 countries. Alok Sharma chaired that room as President of COP26. The pact, agreed in November 2021, kept the 1.5 degree goal in formal reach and pulled coal and fossil fuel subsidies into a UN climate text for the first time.
Before COP, he was Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and earlier Secretary of State for International Development. The route there was unusual for a climate principal: chartered accountant at Coopers and Lybrand Deloitte, then sixteen years in investment banking with Nikko Securities and Enskilda Securities across London, Stockholm and Frankfurt. That financial background sits behind his current work on capital flows.
He now chairs the UK Transition Finance Council, set up by HM Treasury and the City of London Corporation to make the UK a leading market for high integrity transition finance. He is also a Visiting Fellow at the Oxford Martin School, Co-Chair of the Rockefeller Foundation Climate Advisory Council, and a Distinguished Fellow at Conservation International. TIME named him to its 2025 TIME 100 Climate list for that body of work.
For boards, the value is the through-line. He has held the pen on a multilateral climate text, sat in a UK Cabinet making industrial policy, and now sits in the room where transition finance rules are being written. He was made KCMG in the 2023 New Year Honours and elevated to the House of Lords as Baron Sharma of Reading in 2024.
Key speaking topics
- Transition finance and capital allocation under net zero
- Climate diplomacy and the post-Paris multilateral system
- Energy transition and industrial strategy
- COP outcomes and what they mean for corporate strategy
- Geopolitics of climate, including US, EU and emerging market dynamics
- ESG under regulatory and political pressure
Ideal for
- Boards, CEOs and CFOs reconciling net zero commitments with capital plans
- Chief Sustainability Officers, Heads of ESG and transition leads inside financial institutions
- Investor and asset owner audiences working on transition portfolios
- Government, multilateral and policy audiences working on climate and industrial strategy
Audience outcomes
- A clear read of where multilateral climate policy stands after COP26 to today, from someone who chaired the room
- A grounded view of how transition finance is actually being structured in the UK and globally
- A senior-level perspective on how climate intersects with geopolitics, industrial policy and capital markets
- Specific signals to track for boards making transition-linked decisions over the next planning cycle