Scaling Up Sustainable Finance and Investment in the Global South
hosted by Professor
Michael G. Plummer
Ulrich Volz
Professor of Economics and Director, Centre for Sustainable Finance, SOAS University of London
Ulrich Volz is Professor of Economics and Director of the Centre for Sustainable Finance at SOAS University of London.
Volz is also a Senior Research Fellow at the German Institute of Development and Sustainability, Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science, Honorary Professor of Economics at the University of Leipzig, Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research, and Fellow at DIW Berlin.
At SOAS, he previously served as Head of the Department of Economics and Member of the University's Executive Board. Volz is academic director of the University Network for Strengthening Macrofinancial Resilience to Climate and Environmental Change, and a co-chair of the Debt Relief for a Green and Inclusive Recovery initiative. He serves on the Economic Advisory Network of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, the advisory panel of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), the International Advisory Committee for the Climate/SDGs Debt Swap Mechanism of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UN ESCWA), and the Alliance for Financial Inclusion's Research Advisory Council for Inclusive Green Finance.
Volz was Banque de France Chair at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris, and taught at Peking University, Kobe University, Hertie School of Governance, Freie Universität Berlin, Central University of Finance and Economics, and the Institute of Developing Economies (IDE-JETRO). He spent stints working at the European Central Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and held visiting positions at the University of Oxford, University of Birmingham, Aoyama Gakuin University, ECB, Bank Indonesia, Bank Negara Malaysia and the Asian Development Bank Institute, where he previously served on the Advisory Council.
Volz served as co-chair of the Global Research Alliance for Sustainable Finance and Investment and was a member of the Sustainable Finance Advisory Committee of the German Federal Government, the UN Inquiry into the Design of a Sustainable Financial System, the NGFS-INSPIRE Study Group on Biodiversity and Financial Stability, and the World Bank's Green Recovery Monitoring and Evaluation Technical Working Group.
In 2024, Volz was appointed by the Brazilian G20 Presidency to the Group of Experts of the G20 Taskforce on a Global Mobilization against Climate Change (TF-CLIMA). He has acted as an advisor or consultant to numerous governments, central banks, international organisations (including the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the United Nations) and development agencies on matters of macroeconomic policy, climate risk and sustainable finance, and financial sector development.
Volz obtained a doctorate in economics from Freie Universität Berlin and was a Fox International Fellow and Max Kade Scholar at Yale University.
