Maryam Golnaraghi’s 25-year career has been dedicated to pioneering climate resilience, climate risk management and decarbonisation initiatives. Her experience spans senior executive roles, entrepreneurship, and international advisory positions across the private sector, public sector, and United Nations.
Maryam is currently the Director of Climate Change and Environment at The Geneva Association, the think tank for the global insurance industry. In this role, she collaborates with CEOs and executive teams of the largest re/insurance companies and builds cross-sectoral partnerships to boost the industry's contributions to addressing climate change. Her most recent work focuses on:
- Developing and operationalising innovative risk management solutions to unlock capital and expedite market readiness of new climate technologies for industrial decarbonisation;
- Improving the insurability of extreme weather events for housing, industrial sectors and critical infrastructure systems;
- Advancing climate risk modeling for business decision-making and regulatory reporting;
- Classifying climate litigation sources against corporations and governments with implications for insurers and investors.
Recognised as one of Climate Insider's 20 ‘Leading Women on Climate Tech and Innovation’ (2024), Maryam was also selected among the top 20 ‘Most Influential on Climate Change’ by InsuranceERM and the top 100 influencers on ‘Resilience’ by The Leaders’ Magazine (2020).
She has provided advice to companies and boards of directors and been featured in platforms such as The Economist Climate Summit, Wall Street Journal Pro, BBC Radio, World Economic Forum, InsuranceERM, and Risk.net.
Maryam's previous roles include Chief of Disaster Risk Reduction at the United Nations' World Meteorological Organization (2004–2014), where she headed up an international program and delivered capacity development projects in climate and disaster risk management to governments across more than 40 countries. She also led UN initiatives on Early Warning Systems and Emergency Preparedness. She served as an advisor to former U.S. President Clinton in his role as the UN Special Envoy on Tsunamis following the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami.
In 1997, she founded and served as the CEO of Climate Risk Solutions, Inc., a pioneering research and advisory firm specializing in advanced climate risk analytics and risk management. Her clients included federal and state governments in the U.S., public utilities, and companies in the energy, agriculture, finance, and insurance sectors.
In addition, Maryam mentors climate tech startups through the Creative Destruction Lab; was a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, and serves on several boards of directors, as well as advisory committees in the public and private sectors. She has authored numerous reports on climate change and a book on multi-hazard early warning systems (Springer).
Maryam holds a Ph.D. in Physical Oceanography and an M.Sc. in Applied Physics from Harvard University, and a B.Sc. in Chemical Engineering from Cornell University.
