Kandeh K. Yumkella is the Director-General of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization

United Nations Industrial Development Organization

The United Nations Industrial Development Organization , French/Spanish acronym ONUDI, is a specialized agency in the United Nations system, headquartered in Vienna, Austria...

 (UNIDO).

Education

• 1991 - Ph.D.
  Ph.D.
  A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...
  
   Agricultural Economics, University of Illinois
• 1986 - M.Sc. Agricultural Economics, Cornell University
  Cornell University
  Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
  
  
• 1982 - B.Sc. General Agriculture, Njala University College, Sierra Leone

Tenure at UNIDO

Yumkella has worked in different high-level policy positions in UNIDO, including as Special Adviser to two previous Directors-General and as Representative and Director of the first UNIDO Regional Office in Nigeria

Nigeria

Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...

 http://www.unido.org/index.php?id=o3358.

In December 2005, Yumkella was appointed as Director-General of UNIDO, and in December 2009 he was reconfirmed for a second term in office.

In June 2009, Yumkella was appointed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

Ban Ki-moon

Ban Ki-moon is the eighth and current Secretary-General of the United Nations, after succeeding Kofi Annan in 2007. Before going on to be Secretary-General, Ban was a career diplomat in South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in the United Nations. He entered diplomatic service the year he...

 to chair a new Advisory Group on Energy and Climate Change. The members of the Group, comprising international experts, industry leaders and United Nations system representatives, advise on energy issues critical to the new global climate change deal and beyond.

Yumkella is the Chairman of UN-Energy

UN-Energy

UN-Energy is an interagency mechanism within the system of the United Nations related to energy. It was created after the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, and its purpose is to create a coherent approach towards a sustainable energy system especially in developing...

, a United Nations system coordination body dealing with energy-related issues.

He is also a member of the China Council of International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED) which consists of senior Chinese officials and international experts and advises top Chinese Government officials on environment and development.

Kandeh Yumkella is a prominent public speaker, who addresses global issues, including poverty

Poverty

Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...

 reduction, climate change

Climate change

Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...

  http://en.cop15.dk/blogs/view+blog?blogid=1600, the Millennium Development Goals

Millennium Development Goals

The Millennium Development Goals are eight international development goals that all 193 United Nations member states and at least 23 international organizations have agreed to achieve by the year 2015...

, as well those related to Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/28/africa-recession and the developing world

Developing country

A developing country, also known as a less-developed country, is a nation with a low level of material well-being. Since no single definition of the term developing country is recognized internationally, the levels of development may vary widely within so-called developing countries...

 http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-06/05/content_11489441.htm in general, green industry and renewable energy

Renewable energy

Renewable energy is energy which comes from natural resources such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, and geothermal heat, which are renewable . About 16% of global final energy consumption comes from renewables, with 10% coming from traditional biomass, which is mainly used for heating, and 3.4% from...

 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/yumkella2/English.

Dr. Yumkella's opinion pieces have appeared in major international newspaper

Newspaper

A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...

s, including The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

, the International Herald Tribune

International Herald Tribune

The International Herald Tribune is a widely read English language international newspaper. It combines the resources of its own correspondents with those of The New York Times and is printed at 38 sites throughout the world, for sale in more than 160 countries and territories...

 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/19/opinion/19iht-edyumkella.html, and The Guardian.

He has also appeared on several international broadcast networks, including CNN

CNN

Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...

's Amanpour

Amanpour

Amanpour was a news program hosted by Christiane Amanpour. It last aired on April 30, 2010 as Ms Amanpour resigned her position as CNN's chief international correspondent to work for rival network ABC's This Week. The show featured interviews with top news makers on current events...

 programme, BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

, Sky News

Sky News

Sky News is a 24-hour British and international satellite television news broadcaster with an emphasis on UK and international news stories.The service places emphasis on rolling news, including the latest breaking news. Sky News also hosts localised versions of the channel in Australia and in New...

 and CNBC

CNBC

CNBC is a satellite and cable television business news channel in the U.S., owned and operated by NBCUniversal. The network and its international spinoffs cover business headlines and provide live coverage of financial markets. The combined reach of CNBC and its siblings is 390 million viewers...

.

Awards and honours

• Honorary Doctorate University of Madras
  University of Madras
  The University of Madras is a public research university in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. It is one of the three oldest universities in India...
  
  , India
• 2008 Champion of Youth Award, 4th World Youth Congress in Quebec City, Canada
• Madhuri and Jagdish N. Sheth International Alumni Award for Exceptional Achievement, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)
• The Prix de la Fondation of the Crans Montana Forum
• Honorary Distinguished Visiting Professor, Shanghai Institute of Foreign Trade
  Shanghai Institute of Foreign Trade
  Shanghai Institute of Foreign Trade is a public university in Shanghai, China. Founded in 1960, the Shanghai Institute of Foreign Trade is an institution of higher learning formerly subordinate to the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation. Since 1994 it is under the administration...
  
  

External links

• Yumkella's Bio on the UNIDO official website
• UNIDO official site
• http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7904263.stmKandeh K. Yumkella interviewed by BBC's Andrew Marr
  Andrew Marr
  Andrew William Stevenson Marr is a Scottish journalist and political commentator. He edited The Independent for two years until May 1998, and was political editor of BBC News from 2000 until 2005....
  
  ]
• Podcast of Yumkella on the Amanpour Programme
• UNIDO video - Greening Industry and Renewable energy