Climate-KIC appoints new Chief Executive Officer

Climate-KIC, the EU’s main climate innovation initiative, has appointed Dr. Kirsten Dunlop as its new CEO from 30 January 2017.

Dr. Kirsten Dunlop, Climate-KIC’s newly appointed CEO

She will be responsible for continuing to expand Climate-KIC’s work supporting climate innovation across Europe – growing Climate-KIC’s world-class network of partners, strengthening ties with academics, innovators, entrepreneurs and the public sector, to build a zero carbon economy and climate resilient society.

Kirsten’s career spans academia, consulting, banking, insurance, strategy, design, innovation and leadership, across three continents (Europe, Australia and North America).

Kirsten joins us from an Australian financial services conglomerate, Suncorp, a long-standing partner of Climate-KIC and a member of innovation project, OASIS. For the past four years she has been Executive General Manager Strategic Innovation for Suncorp Personal Insurance and then Suncorp as a whole, directing a program of work managing and responding to strategic risk through innovation.

As part of this work, she has been instrumental in working towards the creation of Climate-KIC Australia, inspired by the European model.

She has led the Generali Group Innovation Academy for Assicurazioni Generali, worked in UniCredit and Newton Management Innovation in Milan, and at KPMG and Second Road in Sydney. A specialist in experiential learning and a life-long exponent of cross-disciplinary thought and practice, Kirsten has a Ph.D. in cultural history on the marriage of rhetoric and architecture in the building of Italian medieval and Renaissance cities.