SOAS Centre for Sustainable Finance appoints Dr Stephany Griffith-Jones as Professor in Practice for Financing Sustainable Development
The SOAS Centre for Sustainable Finance is pleased to announce that Dr Stephany Griffith-Jones has been appointed as Professor in Practice for Financing Sustainable Development.
Stephany is one of the most influential and visible voices in the field of financing sustainable development. Her work on the role of public development banks in financing sustainable development has been hugely influential, contributing to a reassessment of their role in development and climate finance. Her work was instrumental in the establishment of the Finance in Common System, a global network of more than 540 public development banks which aims to align financial flows on the 2030 Agenda and Paris Agreement for Climate Change.
Stephany, who did her undergraduate studies in economics at the University of Chile and earned a PhD in Economics at Cambridge University, has specialised in international and sustainable development finance and international macroeconomics. She is an Emeritus Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex University and recently completed her tenure as Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Chile, a post she held from January 2024 to December 2025. She was first appointed to the board of the Chilean Central Bank in 2022 and was only the third woman to do so in the Bank’s nearly one-hundred-year history.
She previously served as Financial Markets Director at the Initiative for Policy Dialogue at Columbia University and was Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies. She has held the position of deputy director of International Finance at the Commonwealth Secretariat and has worked at the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs and in the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. She has published over 25 books and written many scholarly and journalistic articles.
Her appointment as Professor in Practice is further strengthening SOAS’ leadership role in financing sustainable development and the role of public development banks in this. With an outstanding track record in policy-focused research, high-impact publications, and convening international networks, Stephany offers critical expertise in mobilising cross-sectoral partnerships that align with SOAS’s global mission and the work of the SOAS Centre for Sustainable Finance. Stephany will support the development of joint research initiatives and policy dialogues that elevate the Centre’s role in shaping the international discourse on financing sustainable development and public development banking in particular.
Professor Stephany Griffith-Jones says: “I am honoured and thrilled to be appointed Professor in Practice for Financing Sustainable Development at such a prestigious institution as SOAS. I look forward to working with Prof Volz and colleagues, both on research and policy dialogue in the crucial topic of financing sustainable development, especially related to public development banking.”
Prof Ulrich Volz, Director of the SOAS Centre for Sustainable Finance, says:
We are honoured and delighted to welcome Stephany Griffith Jones as a Professor in Practice for Financing Sustainable Development to SOAS. Stephany is an inspirational scholar with an impressive track record not only in research but also in policy making. We are excited to work with her at SOAS and push the frontiers of financing sustainable development.
