Secretariat

Management

The Secretariat is headed by the Executive Director, who is appointed by and accountable to the Board. The Secretariat’s senior management team lead the various divisions of the Secretariat, providing the management capabilities to execute the day-to-day operations of the Fund.

Yannick Glemarec, Executive Director

Yannick Glemarec is the Executive Director of the Green Climate Fund. He was appointed by the GCF Board at its 22nd meeting and took office on 3 April 2019.

Yannick has 30 years of international experience in climate change, development and finance, and their interrelationships. He served as UN Assistant Secretary-General and Deputy Executive Director for Policy and Programme in UN Women from 2015 to 2018, overseeing services provided by close to 2,000 UN Women staff in over 80 countries worldwide. Before joining UN Women, he was Executive Coordinator of the UN Multi-Partner Trust Fund Office in New York from 2013 to the beginning of 2015. He was responsible for the design and administration of about 100 UN trust funds supporting humanitarian, post-conflict, development and climate action in over 100 countries.

Previously, he served first as UNDP Deputy Executive Coordinator and then as UNDP Executive Coordinator for the Global Environment Facility in New York from 2003 to 2012, where he oversaw the formulation and implementation of a USD 6 billion portfolio for climate change management, biodiversity conservation, and sustainable natural resources management. Earlier, he worked with UNDP in increasingly senior development and environment programme positions in Switzerland, Viet Nam, China and Bangladesh.

Yannick holds a PhD from the University of Paris in Environment Sciences, and two Master’s degrees in Hydrology and in Business Administration. He has authored several publications in the field of risk management, renewable energy, climate finance, and co-benefits between human rights, gender equality and climate action.

He is the third Executive Director of the Fund.

Henry Gonzalez, Deputy Executive Director

Henry is the GCF’s Deputy Executive Director. He has over 25 years of professional experience across sustainable and impact investing, emerging markets, and political and economic development. Prior to joining GCF he was an Associate Fellow at Oxford University’s Saïd Business School. He also served as member of Senior Management and Global Head of Research & Advisory at responsAbility Investments AG, where he led thought leadership, technical assistance, and ESG/impact integration strategies across the sectors of finance, climate and agriculture. He also spent time at Morgan Stanley, serving as a Vice President for Emerging Markets Debt investing and held other positions at the World Bank, the United Nations Development Program, and the Government of Costa Rica. Henry holds an MBA from Oxford University (Skoll Scholar), an MPA from Harvard University (Fulbright Scholar) and a BA in Political Science from the University of Costa Rica. 

Hong Paterson, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer

Hong Paterson is the GCF’s Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer. Before joining GCF, she was responsible for leading RBC’s Investor & Treasury Services (RBC I&TS) business in Singapore, as their Managing Director and Country Head. Her role at RBC included providing strategic oversight to RBC I&TS activities and contributing to the Asia Pacific strategy. She was also the Southeast Asia Coverage Executive responsible for the overall business development strategy and client engagement. Hong joined RBC with nearly twenty years’ experience at J.P.Morgan where she worked in several sectors including Commercial Banking, Investor Services, and Asset Management based in New York, Chicago, Hong Kong, London, and Singapore. Hong currently sits on the University of Virginia’s McIntire Global Advisory Board. Originally from Virginia, she holds a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville.

Kavita Sinha, Director (Private Sector Facility)

Kavita Sinha is the Director of the Private Sector Facility.  Previously she was with the European Climate Foundation (ECF) where she was the programme director for energy transition in Asia and also helped set up the Southeast Asia Clean Energy Facility; and was the interim director for Southeast Asia Energy Transition Partnership.  Prior to ECF, she spent 15 years in leadership roles in the corporate world – from start-ups to multinational corporations. She co-founded and successfully exited start-ups in clean energy and infrastructure services.  She also worked for nearly a decade with the U.S. Agency for International Development where she held several program management roles in renewable energy commercialisation, power sector reform and restructuring, cross-border energy trade and cooperation, as well as climate policy advisory and negotiations.  She has an MBA from Rutgers Business School and studied international relations and political economy from the London School of Economics and Political Science. She completed her PhD in energy systems from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi and has an honours degree in Chemical Engineering.

Carolina Fuentes, Director (Country Programming)

Carolina Fuentes is Director of GCF's Country Programming Division. She was formerly Deputy Director General for International Cooperation at the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources in Mexico, where she was in charge of climate change, international cooperation, and engagement with economic and environmental organisations such as the OECD and CEC. She previously worked as Director for Climate Change in the same ministry where she represented Mexico in international climate change negotiations. Carolina holds a Master's degree in Nature, Society, and Environmental Policy from the University of Oxford (UK).

Oyun Sanjaasuren, Director (External Affairs)

Dr Oyun Sanjaasuren is the Director of External Affairs. A former Minister from Mongolia, Oyun has extensive experience in representing international organisations. She served as the first President of the United Nations Environment Assembly, the governing body of UN Environment. After leaving the Government of Mongolia in 2016, she was appointed Chair of the Global Water Partnership, an intergovernmental organization to advance water security by working with over 3,000 institutional partners in more than 180 countries. Oyun's five consecutive terms in Mongolia's Parliament included stints as Minister of Environment and Green Development (2012-2014) and Minister of Foreign Affairs (2007 – 2008). Holding a Ph.D. in Earth Sciences from the University of Cambridge, Oyun has also been a prominent advocate of civil and social rights.

German Velasquez, Director (Mitigation and Adaptation)

Dr German Velasquez (Jerry) is the Director of GCF's Mitigation and Adaptation Division. He has worked for various United Nations departments on environmental conventions and governance, as well as on disaster vulnerability and risk, since 1994. With the UN Office for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) he supported the development of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. Jerry previously led the largest association of cities promoting resilience – the UN Making Cities Resilient Campaign – with more than 3,600 members globally. With UN Environment (UNEP) and the Global Environment Facility (GEF) he helped countries to implement multilateral agreements, in particular the Rio Conventions. Jerry received a Master and Doctor of Engineering degree on Hydrology and Water Resources from Nagoya University (Japan).

Lilian Macharia, Director (Portfolio Management)

Lilian Macharia is the Director of Portfolio Management at GCF. She is a Kenyan national with over 21 years of designing, structuring and managing complex public and private financial sector investments in multiple sectors, including energy, gender, agriculture, manufacturing and SME sectors across Africa. Prior to her appointment, Lilian was a Senior Program Management Specialist where she assisted in setting up portfolio monitoring and management systems, and led the team that monitored and managed the implementation of GCF's portfolio. She had served for over 11 years with the African Development Bank (AfDB) in various capacities, and represented the AfDB in various investee company boards. She also previously served in various roles in Practical Action (Eastern Africa), K-Rep (microfinance) and NEPAD Secretariat in Johannesburg. Lilian holds a Bachelor of Education and Master of Business Administration from Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Kenya.

Mark Jerome, Head of Risk Management and Compliance a.i.

Mark Jerome is the Head of Office a.i. of the Office of Risk Management and Compliance. Mark joined the Green Climate Fund in January 2017 as Head of the Internal Audit Office and led a team developing and performing internal audit and advisory services. Previously, he was an audit partner at KPMG where he focused on emerging economies and the development sector; he was a member of KPMG’s Global Steering Committee on the Development Sector (2007-2016) and the Technical Working Group on International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) (2010-2016). Before joining KPMG, he was a civil servant in the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries & Food (MAFF), where his work included running MAFF’s Top Management Information System. Mark qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1992 and is a Fellow Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales. He holds an BA (Hons) in Modern History from the University of Oxford.

Pa Ousman Jarju, Secretary to the Board

Pa Ousman Jarju is the Secretary to the Board at GCF. Formerly, he was the Gambian Minister of Environment, Climate Change and Natural Resources and Chair of the Least Developed Countries (LDC) Group to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Pa Ousman was Special Climate Change Envoy of the Gambia and has extensive diplomatic experience across the 47 LDCs, China, the United States and the European Union. He has gained wide-ranging managerial experience in the Gambia's Department of Water Resources as its Director and then overseeing Minister. Pa Ousman holds advanced diplomas from the Institute of Commercial Management (UK) and the IHE Institute for Water Education (the Netherlands), as well as a Bachelor of Engineering in Chemical Engineering.

Joanne Brinkman, General Counsel a.i.

Joanne Brinkman is the General Counsel a.i at the Green Climate Fund (GCF). She joined GCF as its first Deputy General Counsel in April 2021. Prior to GCF, Joanne was responsible for institutional and corporate law matters at the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), based in Luxembourg. Before the ESM, she took on successively more senior positions in the institutional, co-financing and corporate legal fields, among other institutions, at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in London and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Manila. Joanne was admitted to the bar in 1992. Prior to her work in successive International Financial Institutions, she gained extensive in-house experience, including as General Counsel to telecoms and high-tech companies in Europe and the Middle East.