Johan L. Kuylenstierna

Johan L. Kuylenstierna was Executive Director for SEI until 15 January 2018.

He holds an adjunct professorship in international water resources issues at the Department of Physical Geography and Quaternary Sciences at the Stockholm University. Johan has previously worked as the Chief Technical Advisor to the Chair of UN-Water, based at FAO in Rome.

Before joining the United Nations, he served as Project Director at the Stockholm International Water Institute with the overall responsibility for the World Water Week in Stockholm. He also established the Swedish Water House initiative and served as its first manager.

Johan has worked as a consultant for many years with a focus on environmental management, corporate social responsibility (CSR), communication, core-value development, stakeholder participation processes and capacity development. Among other things, he developed and ran negotiation training games, both in Sweden and through international training programmes.

He has experience from international policy work through professional positions at the World Meteorological Organization in Geneva and the Division on Sustainable Development (CSD) at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. He focused primarily on water and climate change issues from policy and management perspectives. He worked in close co-operation with governments, international organisations, NGO’s, and the academic and business communities.

His academic background is in Palaeoclimatology and he has conducted research work, published scientific and popular articles and has thorough experience as a university teacher in various fields related to physical geography, water resources management and environmental studies.