Woochong Um

Woochong Um is the Chief Executive Officer of Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (since August 2024), where he leads a global mission to unlock the clean energy transition and end energy poverty. As CEO, he directs the organization's strategic, programmatic, financial and operational agenda; steers alliance-building across governments, philanthropies, multilateral institutions, corporates and civil society; and represents the organization as a leading global voice on accelerating just and equitable energy transitions. Under his leadership, Global Energy Alliance has structured its core solutions around two pillars—Grids of the Future (GoTF), to modernize grids and enable clean power flow at scale, and Powering Opportunity (PO), linking distributed clean energy to productivity, jobs, and livelihoods. He also drives country strategies, scales distributed renewable energy solutions and battery storage, advances fossil fuel decommissioning, mobilizes climate and development finance, and catalyzes fundraising in support of the Alliance's mission.

Prior to Global Energy Alliance, Mr. Um served more than three decades at the Asian Development Bank (ADB), culminating as Managing Director General (2021–2024)—the highest career staff management position at the institution. In this capacity, he oversaw operations and institutional functions across all six vice presidencies, served as a core member of ADB's Management Committee, and was frequently appointed Officer-in-Charge across vice presidencies spanning knowledge, climate, private sector market solutions, and regional operations. He led major institutional initiatives including execution of ADB's Strategy 2030, organizational transformation programs, innovation frameworks, talent and leadership systems revamps, and internal culture and resilience programs.

Mr. Um led several landmark climate and finance milestones at ADB: the launch of the Energy Transition Mechanism to retire coal assets in developing Asia; raising ADB's climate finance ambition to USD 100 billion by 2030; scaling adaptation finance through sectoral transformation; and establishing the Innovative Financing Facility for Climate in Asia and the Pacific (IF-CAP) to multiply climate finance via donor guarantees. He also coordinated ADB's evacuation and relocation of Afghan national staff during the 2021 crisis—a complex multinational humanitarian operation executed under highly constrained conditions.

From 2018 to 2021, as Director General of the Sustainable Development and Climate Change Department, he led ADB's thematic, knowledge, climate, gender, safeguards, trust fund, and global funding portfolio; institutionalized long-term strategic sector plans; and served as the institution's focal point for the COVID-19 pandemic response across health, economic stabilization, operations, and vaccine access. He also served as Chief Compliance Officer for environmental and social safeguards and consolidated ADB's trust fund management infrastructure to improve donor coordination and resource efficiency.

Earlier leadership roles at ADB included: Secretary of the Bank (2014–2018), managing governance interfaces among the Board of Governors, Board of Directors, and Management, and organizing four Annual Meetings; Deputy Director General for programs and thematic sectors (2009–2014); and senior posts overseeing sustainable infrastructure, climate policy, emerging carbon markets, and major public private partnerships—including the landmark Nam Theun 2 Hydropower Project in Laos, a USD 1.5 billion multi-stakeholder PPP executed with the World Bank, European Investment Bank, Agence Française de Développement, and commercial lenders.

Before his development finance career, Mr. Um brings early experience (1986–1993) in the U.S. private sector at Pfizer Inc. and Pitney Bowes, where he led billing, technology, and software modernization programs that introduced automation and meaningful workforce productivity gains.

A Korean national, Woochong holds an MBA in Finance and International Business from New York University and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Management from Boston College.