Carbon Finance Lead, Climate Business Department, International Finance Corporation (World Bank Group)

Basak is a carbon market and climate change expert with 20 years of experience. Between 2002 and 2018, Basak worked as an energy trader, business development executive, and emissions trading manager for Total Gas & Power Limited. As an FCA-regulated derivatives trader, she traded natural gas, electricity, and carbon certificates on a physical basis and as derivatives on OTC markets and main European Energy Exchanges. She set up the emissions trading desk, managed the GHG exposure of Total Group, and contributed to the company’s climate strategy. Following TOTAL, Basak managed investments in a venture capital fund. As a member of the investment committee, she has conducted due diligence and worked to identify, invest, and support businesses fulfilling Fund’s criteria. She currently works for the Climate Business Development Department to enhance IFC’s carbon market activities in emerging countries. Basak aims to work for a low-carbon path to development across the globe for the rest of her career. She firmly believes the solution to the biggest threat facing our world today will be found with a concerted effort by the private sector, international institutions, and public sector.
 
Basak studied politics and economics at Marmara University in Turkey and continued her studies at the Ecole Nationale d’Administration (ENA) in France. She holds a double diploma from ENA in France, an MPhil, and a Ph.D. in Development Studies from the University of Cambridge in the UK. She is the author of “The Nature of the Firm in the Oil Industry: International Oil Companies in Global Business (Routledge Studies in International Business and the World Economy – 2015)”.