Ari is an economist from Finland and he has spent most of his life in development work, first in the field of industrial development and technology/investment promotion and then specializing in environmental financing issues. His experience includes UNDP in Hanoi and Dhaka, UNIDO headquarters in Vienna and Representative in Bangkok, manager for cleaner production financing at UNEP Paris, environmental advisor to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, and Team Leader for a KfW environmental credit line in Indonesia. More recently he has worked at the Environment Department of the World Bank in Washington DC leading a cluster on climate finance acting as well as preparing for Rio+20. In May 2012 he joined the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN) as Director of Policy and Programmes.