Speaker Bio
Anna Tunkel is an executive director and head of strategic partnerships & global engagement at APCO Worldwide. Ms. Tunkel’s team at APCO specializes in developing and leading cross-sectoral partnerships and global engagement strategies focused on advancing business and societal impact.
Ms. Tunkel has nearly two decades of experience at the nexus of business strategy, ESG, public affairs and communications, advising innovative global organizations from leading Fortune 100 companies to sovereign wealth funds, family offices, foundations and disruptive start-ups. Some of her projects range from catalyzing private sector engagement with the youth climate leaders, harnessing AI for disaster preparedness and city resilience to helping launch one of world’s largest new blockchain initiatives and raising global awareness around urban water loss and new technologies addressing it. She regularly counsels APCO’s clients on strategic engagement with agenda-setting initiatives at UN General Assembly, Davos, COPs and other key platforms.
In her previous positions, Ms. Tunkel was a director in APCO’s Shanghai and Beijing offices, leading complex market entry and expansion projections in China and advising China’s multinational companies on their globalization strategies. She started her career with APCO in Washington DC as chief of staff to APCO’s founder and CEO and worked on a variety of business development and special projects for the firm, spanning APCO’s offices across North America, Europe and Asia. Prior to joining APCO, she worked for the Division of External Relations at the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva and Physicians for Human Rights.
Ms. Tunkel has a Master of Science with academic distinction from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, and is a graduate of Singularity University executive program on exponential innovation. She was named one of the 99 most influential foreign policy leaders by the Diplomatic Courier, and is an alumna of the Bucerius Global Governance Leadership program. She is an advisor to Massachusetts Institute of Technology flagship Solve initiative focused on Resilient Ecosystems and Economic Prosperity, serves on B-20 Taskforce for Energy, Climate and Sustainability as part of Indonesia’s 2022 G-20 Presidency, a member of the World Economic Forum’s Future Agenda Council on Transparency and Anti-Corruption and a board member of Seeds of Peace, an international youth leadership development organization committed to transforming legacies of conflict. She is a frequent writer and speaker on public-private partnerships, technology and innovation and inclusive globalization