Ursula Wynhoven

URSULA WYNHOVEN ITU Representative To The United Nations, New York Ursula is the Representative to the United Nations in New York for the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the UN’s specialized agency for information and communication technologies (ICTs) with the mission to connect the world. Ursula heads the ITU’s liaison office at UN Headquarters and works on issues like ICTs for the Sustainable Development Goals and EQUALS: the global partnership for gender equality in the digital age. She joined the ITU in September 2017 after 15 years at the UN Global Compact, the UN’s corporate sustainability initiative, where she was one of the earliest staff members helping to build that initiative into the world’s largest of its kind with over 12,000 businesses and other participants from all sectors in over 160 counties with over 80 country networks and a full roster of work streams on virtually all corporate sustainability themes. She was a Member of the Executive Committee and Chief, Social Sustainability, Governance and Legal. She was responsible for programmes on human rights and labour, gender equality, poverty and inequality, peace, anti-corruption and the rule of law, and also led legal affairs. Among other initiatives, Ursula and her team spearheaded the development of the Women’s Empowerment Principles, the Children’s Rights and Business Principles, Business for the Rule of Law, and the Guide for General Counsel on Corporate Sustainability. Part of her tenure included a six month loan as Senior Advisor to the UN Human Rights Office’s Business and Human Rights team. Prior to joining the UN, Ursula worked for the OECD in Paris on the Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, and for law firms and government human rights agencies in Australia and the US. She is a lawyer with 22 years’ experience educated at Monash University, Australia, and Columbia Law School in New York, where she was a human rights fellow.