Biography

Georg Kell is Chairman of  the Board of Arabesque, a technology company that uses AI and big data to assess sustainability performance relevant for investment analysis and decision making.

He is also Spokesperson of the Volkswagen Sustainability Council.

Georg Kell is the founding Executive Director of the United Nations Global Compact, the world’s largest voluntary corporate sustainability initiative with over 9,000 corporate signatories in more than 160 countries. 

He established the Global Compact as the foremost platform for the development, implementation and disclosure of responsible and sustainable corporate policies and practices. In a career of more than 25 years at the United Nations, he also oversaw the conception and launch of the Global Compact’s sister initiatives, on investment, the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), and on education, the Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME), together with the Sustainable Stock Exchanges Initiative (SSE).

Georg Kell started his career as a research fellow in engineering at the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology and Innovation in Berlin. He then worked as a financial analyst in various countries in Africa and Asia before joining the United Nations in 1987. A native of Germany, Georg holds advanced degrees in economics and engineering from the Technical University of Berlin.