Speaker detail

Marijan Gajšak

Marijan Gajšak is a member of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), working on sustainable cities within the Energy Systems and Industrial Decarbonization Unit, Division of Decarbonization and Sustainable Energy. He brings over 15 years of international experience in sustainable urban development, industrial decarbonization, climate finance and low-carbon investment. At UNIDO, he serves as Technical Lead on several sustainable cities-related projects across Asia and leads the origination and development of new sustainable cities programmes and project pipelines across Europe and Central Asia. His work focuses on translating urban and industrial decarbonization priorities into investable programmes, mobilizing international climate finance and leading their implementation. Throughout his career, Marijan has led or contributed to more than 50 climate finance and sustainable development projects across Europe, Asia, Africa, South America and the Pacific. His work spans sustainable cities, energy, industry, buildings, agriculture, and climate resilience, covering the full project cycle from strategic programming and project origination through development, financing, implementation and evaluation. Prior to joining UNIDO, Marijan was a Principal Consultant with a London-based climate finance consultancy, where he led multidisciplinary teams and advised international clients including the Green Climate Fund (GCF), European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), World Bank (WB), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), European Union (EU), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and others, as well as national governments, development agencies and public financial institutions. In this role, he led the development of successfully funded GCF and Global Environment Facility (GEF) projects and led Green City Action Plan development under EBRD’s Green Cities programme. He has also worked extensively with the Adaptation Fund (AF), Mitigation Action Facility (MAF) and other international climate finance mechanisms. Across his career, his work has contributed to the mobilization and programming of several billion US dollars in climate and sustainable development finance.