Helen Mountford is the Vice President for Climate and Economics at the World Resources Institute (WRI). The Climate team helps policymakers, businesses and civil society in countries around the world and through international collaboration to identify and advance the deep structural shifts needed to successfully address climate change. The Economics team supports work across WRI by integrating an economics approach as appropriate to strengthen the underlying analysis and impact of our work. Helen is also Program Director for the New Climate Economy project, the flagship initiative of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate that provides independent and authoritative evidence on actions which can both strengthen economic performance and reduce the risk of dangerous climate change.

Helen previously worked as Deputy Director of Environment for the OECD advising governments on policy reforms, and overseeing work on green fiscal reform, climate change finance and economics, fossil fuel subsidy reforms, green growth, water pricing, biodiversity incentive measures, and economy-environment outlooks and modelling.

Mauricio Cárdenas served as Colombia’s minister of finance and public credit from 2012 to 2018, and is now Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University.

As finance minister, Cárdenas was responsible of coordinating efforts for Colombia’s successful accession to the OECD.  He served as the Chairman of the Boards of Governors of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and of the Intergovernmental Group of Twenty-Four (G-24). He was chosen by Euromoney, as finance minister of the year in 2015.

Cárdenas has twice been the executive director of Fedesarrollo, one of Latin America’s premier economic and social policy think tanks. He has also been a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, where he led the Latin American Initiative.

Cárdenas holds a PhD in economics from the University of California, Berkeley, and a master’s degree from the University of the Andes. He is married and has three daughters.

Task Force Members