Dr. Carolyn Deere Birkbeck is the Founder and Executive Director of the Forum on Trade, Environment, & the SDGs (TESS), housed at the Geneva Graduate Institute. TESS was launched to support the multilateral dialogue, inclusive international cooperation, and policy action necessary to align trade and trade policies with the urgent need for environmental action, sustainable development, and just transitions. Carolyn has been active for over 25 years in providing thought leadership and fostering inclusive dialogue on a more sustainable and equitable global economy, engaging with a broad diversity of governments, stakeholders, and experts.

In 2022, Carolyn played a leading role in the creation of the Coalition of Trade Ministers on Climate, which brings together a diverse group of 64 ministers, co-led by the trade ministers of Ecuador, the European Union, Kenya, and New Zealand. Carolyn is also an advisor to the High Ambition Coalition to End Plastics Pollution, which brings together over 50 ministers of environment, for which TESS has been engaged by the co-chairs Rwanda and Norway to support the Secretariat. In addition, Carolyn participates in the Advisory Group of the Business Coalition for an Ambitious Plastics Treaty.

Carolyn is the Founder and Board Chair of Global Policy Reporting, a Geneva-based non-profit organization dedicated to open access, independent, and professional news reporting, which houses Health Policy Watch (launched in 2019) and Intellectual Property Watch (active from 2004–2019).

She previously worked at the University of Oxford’s Global Economic Governance Programme, based at the Blavatnik School of Government, conducting research on developing countries and development issues in global economic governance. She has also been an Assistant Director at the Rockefeller Foundation in New York where she was responsible for grantmaking in the “Global Inclusion” theme on global policymaking on topics ranging from trade and intellectual property to sustainability, health, and development. In Washington, D.C., she worked as the Manager of the Congressional Staff Forum on International Development at the Overseas Development Council.

Carolyn has been a consultant to a range of non-governmental and international organizations, including UNEP, UNCTAD, UNDP's Office of the Human Development Report, the South Centre, the Open Society Institute, the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development, Chatham House, the International Institute for Sustainable Development, the Commonwealth Secretariat, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature. She has served on a number of advisory groups and boards, and has led or participated in collaborative research projects on issues ranging from public health and trade; the climate crisis and global economic governance; human rights and trade; plastic pollution and the transformation of the plastics economy; and remaking the global trading system for a sustainable future.

In 2026, Carolyn was invited to be an International Gender Champion, joining over 300 active champions—including heads of international organizations, permanent missions, and civil society—committed to breaking down gender barriers and making gender equality a working reality in their spheres of influence.

Carolyn holds a DPhil in International Relations (University College, Oxford), an MA in International Relations (Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies), and an undergraduate degree in Political Economy from the University of Sydney.