Yulia has 13 years’ experience in consulting and managing projects on climate change, clean energy and sustainable development. She is a sought-after expert on international climate policy and green finance advising decision-makers at both national and local levels, private sector and financial institutions in developing innovative policy instruments and blended finance solutions to unlock critical private capital for climate and sustainability actions.

Yulia started her career in 2005 as a government official at the Russian Environmental, Industrial and Nuclear Supervision Service under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment. She was responsible for designing national climate mitigation strategies for different industries and promoting Russia’s international cooperation on climate change and the environment. After leaving governmental service, Yulia managed numerous sustainability projects in Europe, Asia-Pacific and North Africa and Middle East regions for public and private sector clients, not-for-profit organisations and international development agencies, such as the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Bank Group and bilateral donor programmes.

At South Pole – a global sustainability company, which Yulia joined five years ago, she holds a position of Head of Climate Policy & Finance practice in Asia. She manages a portfolio of projects in the region, providing strategic direction and technical support for project teams working on, for example:

• designing blended finance schemes to support climate action in different sectors and geographies,
• supporting public and private sector entities in accessing international climate funds and facilities, such as the GCF, NAMA Facility, Adaptation Fund among the others,
• designing monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) systems to track climate finance flows and effectiveness of finance in terms of climate mitigation and adaptation impacts,
• developing guidelines, tools, training courses and delivering training and workshops to build capacity of different stakeholders on various aspects of climate policy and finance.

Yulia holds a M.Sc. in Socio-Economic Geography from Moscow State Lomonosov University, Russia. She also completed a post-graduate course in Sustainable Development and Social, Economic and Political Geography at the same university.