Director and Representative to the United Nations/Head of UN Affairs, ITU

Since 2017, Ursula Wynhoven has been the ITU’s Representative to the UN. The ITU is the UN’s specialized agency for information & communication technologies with the mission to connect all the world's people - wherever they live and whatever their means. Ursula leads UN relations and represents the agency and its Secretary-General at the UN in NY. She heads the ITU’s UN Liaison Office working at the intersection of technology and development, promoting digital inclusion and the use of ICTs for the SDGs. Ursula is an international lawyer with 26 years’ work experience. Previously, Ursula spent 14 years with the UN Global Compact, the UN’s corporate sustainability initiative. Her last position was Chief, Social Sustainability, Governance & Legal and member of the Executive Committee. Ursula led legal affairs and oversaw policy development & implementation of the UNGC’s integrity measures. She also led the UNGC's work on human rights & decent work, gender equality, poverty & inequality, peace, anti-corruption & the rule of law. She was responsible for the creation and development of many initiatives including the Women's Empowerment Principles, Children's Rights and Business Principles, Guide for General Counsel on Corporate Sustainability, Business for the Rule of Law, and the Foundation for the Global Compact. Ursula began working with the UNGC in 2002 and played an active role in helping to grow the initiative to more than 13,000 signatories in more than 160 countries with a full roster of corporate sustainability workstreams. Ursula's tenure included a 6 month loan as Senior Advisor, Business & Human Rights to the UN’s Human Rights Office. Prior to joining the UN, Ursula worked in law firms and government human rights agencies in Australia and the US, and for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on the Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, the OECD's corporate responsibility initiative. Ursula has LLMs from Columbia Law School, where she was a Human Rights Fellow, and Monash Law School, and Bachelor’s degrees in Law, Economics, and Letters. She has been admitted to practice law in jurisdictions in the US (NY and CA), Australia, and the UK. Since 2007, Ursula has been an Adjunct Professor in Corporate Sustainability, Business & Human Rights at Fordham Law School and previously taught at Reykjavik University School of Law. Ursula is a Director and the Secretary of the Board of the United Nations Federal Credit Union and a Trustee of the Parker School of Foreign & Comparative Law at Columbia Law School.