Vivek Pathak

Vivek has been passionate about climate for most of his career. He is currently the Regional Chief Risk Officer, Asia Pacific. Until recently he was the Director and Global Head of Climate Business.

He takes inspiration from his strongest beliefs – the world needs urgent action to combat climate change, addressing climate change will generate huge business opportunities for the private sector and capital markets, and climate risk is as important as other risks and needs to be urgently mainstreamed.
Vivek believes in looking for these opportunities to mobilize capital needed to move them forward. He played a leading role in business development, guiding standard-setting and new product design, and connecting the dots across the IFC to mainstream the climate lens into all IFC’s business. He believes that the private sector will be key to greening major sectors of national economies – from energy and transport to agriculture and manufacturing – and is committed to helping clients who are working to move the needle on the low-carbon transition in their countries and communities.
He was previously IFC’s Regional Director for East Asia and Pacific, where he led investment and advisory operations across 18 countries and was one of the first at IFC to integrate climate into all aspects of the business. Before that, he was IFC’s Director and Global Head of Credit and Investment Risk. He had also held multiple leadership roles managing portfolio, credit risk, and business development in frontier markets at IFC, Bank of America and ABN AMRO Bank. He started his career in advertising, where he learned the importance of knowing your audience, and the power of words to change the World.