Ms. Christiana Figueres was appointed Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in July 2010. During the next six years she worked to rebuild the global climate change negotiating process, leading to the 2015 Paris Agreement. Ms.Figueres has worked in the fields of climate change, sustainable development, energy, land use, and technical and financial cooperation. In 2016, she was Costa Rican candidate for the United Nations Secretary General and was an early frontrunner, but decided to withdraw after garnishing insufficient support. She has served on the board of the Spanish infrastructure and energy corporation Acciona since 2017. She is a founder of the Global Optimism group and the author of The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis (2020), co-authored with Tom Rivett-Carnac. Ms. Figueres was Minister Counselor at the Embassy of Costa Rica in Bonn, West Germany.