Dharshan Wignarajah

Dharshan Wignarajah leads Climate Policy Initiative’s Europe and UK team. CPI is an analysis and advisory organization with deep expertise in climate finance and policy. Its mission is to help governments, businesses, and financial institutions drive economic growth while addressing climate change. Dharshan has more than 20 years of public and private sector experience in strategy consultancy and government in climate and development finance, impact investing, and clean technology and renewable energy, with an emphasis on innovation that leverages scarce public resource to catalyse private finance at scale. At CPI, he leads teams working on climate finance tracking and analysis, including CPI’s flagship Global Landscape of Climate Finance, tracking of finance commitments, sector-specific finance addressing methane, air pollution, and energy, and initiatives such as the Cities Climate Finance Leadership Alliance and the Climateshot Investor Coalition focused on Food Systems. He regularly speaks on climate finance topics including recently at the Global Investigative Journalism Conference and sits on the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) Advisory Panel. He previously served in the UK Government’s Cabinet Office COP26 Unit, where he led the UK Presidency’s work on Finance and aspects of Resilience, after roles in leading international development department teams focused on private finance mobilization. This included working closely with multilateral development banks, the UK’s development finance institution, and a number of infrastructure financing platforms including the Private Infrastructure Development Group. Professional experience includes industry experience with Shell in their solar businesses, and working as a strategy consultant, both independently and with McKinsey, where he focused on pharma, energy and non-profit sectors, as well as a range of leadership, strategy and sustainability topics.