Sagarika leads on finance for the UN Climate Change High-level Champions, HE Ms Razan Al Mubarak (UAE) and Ms Nigar Arpadarai (Azerbaijan).

The Champions catalyse climate action and act as a bridge for non-state actors to parties to the Paris Agreement, with 13,000 non-state actors from over 130 countries in their network. This includes corporates, cities and financial institutions. The Champions’ finance priorities in 2024 include mobilising capital for developing countries, financing nature, adaptation, net zero and transition.

Sagarika initially joined the Champions on secondment from the PRI and helped establish GFANZ with the COP26 Private Finance Hub. Sagarika was PRI’s Director of Climate Change and the Environment, having set up PRI’s climate change work including the Net Zero Asset Owner Alliance, the Inevitable Policy Response and early green finance work in China. Sagarika was seconded to PRI signatory Aviva Investors, to support Aviva and the PRI Chair’s in the TCFD recommendations.

Before PRI, Sagarika worked for over ten years at F&C Asset Management, was as an investment committee member for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation for five years and a trustee at Earthwatch, an environmental research organisation. Sagarika started her career in a commercial role sourcing independently certified timber for B&Q, part of European retailer Kingfisher plc.

Sagarika serves as an expert on the advisory board of the Imperial College Business School Centre for Climate Finance and Investment, on the Global Capacity-Building Coalition Working Group and on the GFANZ workstream on Mainstreaming Transition Finance and Real Economy Transition.

Sagarika has an MSc in Development Studies from University of London, a post-graduate diploma in Management Studies from the University of Oxford and a BA in Social and Political Sciences from the University of Cambridge.