Ursula Wynhoven
Ursula Wynhoven is the General Counsel as well as the Chief of the Governance and Social Sustainability for the United Nations Global Compact, the UN’s corporate sustainability initiative. She is a member of the office’s Executive Team.
In addition to managing legal affairs and governance matters, Ms Wynhoven founded and is overall responsible for the office's work programmes on the various dimensions of social sustainability, including human rights and labour principles, women’s empowerment, business and children, indigenous peoples' rights, and human trafficking, and on business and the rule of law. She joined the UN Global Compact in 2002. She worked in private legal practice and government human rights agencies in both Australia and the US before joining the UN. She has also worked for the Secretariat of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on the Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, the OECD’s corporate responsibility initiative.
Among other academic qualifications, Ms Wynhoven has two Master’s of Law degrees - from Columbia Law School, where she was also a Human Rights Fellow, and from Monash University Law School in Australia. She has been an Adjunct Professor in Corporate Sustainability, Transnational Business and Human Rights at Fordham Law School in New York since 2007. She is admitted to practice law in jurisdictions in Australia, United States (California), and England and Wales. Ms Wynhoven is also a Trustee of the Parker School of Foreign and Comparative Law and a Girl Scout troop leader.