Jonathan Wong is the Chief of Innovation, Enterprise and Investment at the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). He joined ESCAP from the UK Department for International Development (DFID), where he was the inaugural Head of Innovation. He has led the establishment of several high-profile social innovation initiativesincluding the Global Innovation Fund, a partnership between the governments of the US, UK, Sweden, Australia and South Africa.
He has extensive experience in innovation and entrepreneurship, technology, innovative financing and impact investing. He also has substantial policy expertise on these agendas, having advised governments across Europe, Africa, Asia and the Pacific, and Latin America.
Before joining DFID, he was a founding partner of a technology and innovation venture-capital fund and supported the establishment of the UK NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement.
Mr Wong has also served on APEC’s E-commerce Business Council and the UNCDF Board for ASEAN, and was awarded a Rockefeller Foundation Policy Fellowship and the inaugural Schwab Foundation Award for Public Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the World Economic Forum.