Ilona Szabó de Carvalho is the co-founder of the Igarapé Institute, a global think-and-do tank focused on climate and human security, and of the Green Bridge Facility,
a gateway to high-integrity green enterprise and sustainable development in Brazil and the Amazon Basin.

She serves on several boards, including as co-chair of the Global Future Council on Nature and Security at the WEF, and a member of the External Expert Group on the New Inter-American Development Bank Group Institutional Strategy, of the Social and Sustainable Economic Development Council of Brazil’s Presidency, of the Fernando Henrique Cardoso Foundation (FFHC), and Re.green, an ecological restoration company. She was also a member of the UNSG High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism.

She earned a Master’s degree in Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of Uppsala in Sweden. She is an affiliate scholar at the Princeton University Brazil Lab and was a public policy fellow at Columbia University in NY.

She is a columnist at Folha de São Paulo and an author. Ilona was nominated as a Young Global Leader at the WEF. She received the Public Security Order of Merit (Brazilian Government), and the Bertha Lutz Diploma (Brazilian Federal Senate).

Previously, Ilona was the Executive Secretary of the Global Commission on Drug Policy and of a national gun control campaign in Brazil. She also worked for five years in investment banking in Rio de Janeiro.