Our Team

Niels Holm-Nielsen is the Practice Manager for the Global Unit for Disaster and Climate Risk Management at the World Bank. He also is the Head of the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR), which is a multi-donor partnership within the World Bank that funds technical assistance and advisory services to improve climate and disaster risk management (DRM) at country, city, and community levels. Prior to taking up his current position, Niels was the World Bank’s Global Technical Lead for Resilience and DRM, supporting team leads and managers to deliver the highest possible technical quality of DRM services to our clients. He has led and co-led the creation and implementation of a series of global technical assistance and knowledge service partnerships, including risk reduction for education facilities as well as the City Resilience Program. He joined the World Bank in 2006 as Junior Professional Officer in Middle East and North Africa region after working for the Inter-American Development Bank for five years, and has also been Lead DRM Specialist for the Africa region, and the Latin America and Caribbean region for the World Bank. He holds a M.Sc. in Political Science from the University of Aarhus, Denmark.

Emiko Todoroki is a Practice Manager in the Crisis & Disaster Risk Finance Unit at the World Bank Group. Emiko was previously a Senior Financial Sector Specialist in the World Bank’s Finance, Competitiveness and Innovation Global Practice in the Europe and Central Asia region. She leads World Bank lending operation and technical assistance projects in Central Asia. She has more than 20 years of experience in leading policy dialogues, technical assistance and lending operations at the World Bank, combining expertise as a global technical authority and a regional country sector coordinator in Africa and ECA. She brings a breadth and depth of knowledge in financial and private sector development, having worked on issues ranging from financial inclusion, digital finance, SME finance, financial regulation and supervision, financial integrity, infrastructure finance, disaster risk financing, green finance, corporate governance, investment climate and competitiveness, capital market development, venture capital, among others.

Sumati Rajput is a Senior Financial Sector Specialist at the World Bank Crisis and Disaster Risk Finance Group. She leads the overall program management of the Global Shield Financing Facility, as she did for its predecessor, the Global Risk Financing Facility (GRiF). Sumati was involved in the set-up of the program in 2017, when the trust fund was US$5m, and has supported the growth of the program, which is now US$400m+. In this role, she has worked with task teams across all World Bank regions to develop program concepts for embedding financial solutions within broader risk management programs. Sumati has also worked on implementation of disaster risk management and disaster risk finance programs, particularly with a focus Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. She has a track record of engagement with external partners in the DRM and DRF communities, building alliances and collaborations with private sector partners and humanitarian partners on operational, technical, and capacity building engagements targeted to policy makers and practitioners. Sumati holds a BA from Columbia University, an MA from Yale University, and an MBA from INSEAD.

Bianca Adam is a Senior Financial Sector Specialist in the Climate and Disaster Risk Finance team at the World Bank Group and is based in Dakar, Senegal. In her role, she co-leads the overall program management of the Global Shield Financing Facility. Prior to this, she served as the Team Lead and Senior Operations Officer for the Global Crisis Risk Platform from April 2019 to August 2024, leading the development and implementation of a new framework to assess governments' capacity to prepare for and manage crises related to natural hazards and public health emergencies. She also led the in-house compound risk monitoring and analytics program. 
As an economist at the World Bank Group focusing on climate change and resilience, Bianca is also a member of the World Bank Group’s Task Force to Catalyze Climate Action, supporting strategy development for the Low-Carbon Livable Cities Initiative. She previously worked at the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction & Recovery (GFDRR), contributing to initiatives such as the World Bank-EU-Japan Resilience Dialogue series and the joint World Bank-UN report on the economics of disaster risk reduction, “Natural Hazards, UnNatural Disasters.” Bianca holds a degree in European Economics from the University of Rome.
 

Ronette Jordan is a Disaster Risk Management Specialist for the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR), which is housed at the World Bank Group and supports mainstreaming of disaster risk management in developing country policies and investment programs. Ronette supports donor relations and trust fund administration activities for the Canada-Caribbean Resilience Facility and Global Risk Financing Facility (GRiF).  Immediately prior to this role, she worked as an Advisor to the World Bank’s Executive Director for Canada, Ireland, and the Caribbean covering issues related to climate, disaster risk management and resilience.  Before joining the Bank, she worked as an Economist and Project Management Specialist for the Government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines where she was managed the Government’s investment program and provided technical inputs for development policy and strategy formulation.  Ronette holds degrees from Nottingham University, where she completed a master’s in Development Economics and Policy Analysis, and the University of the West Indies, where she completed her undergraduate studies in Economics. She also has post-graduate certifications in Project Planning, Appraisal, and Management from the University of Bradford.

Anja Robakowski is the Gender Coordinator of the World Bank Group’s Equitable Growth, Finance and Institutions (EFI) Vice Presidency. She focuses on women’s economic empowerment across a range of sectors and topics. Anja’s work includes project design and delivery, conceptualization of learning events, and the creation of cross-cutting knowledge products, taking into account EFI-wide lessons and convening staff to share experiences. Anja has been part of the WBG since 1997 when she joined a team to develop the institution’s Education Sector Strategy. Subsequently, Anja worked in MIGA’s technical assistance (TA) unit, building counterpart capacity to attract foreign direct investment, applying adult-education principles in curriculum design and training delivery. She also developed systematic approaches to monitor results achievement - following a merger of MIGA's TA with IFC, Anja was part of an incubator team that developed and piloted various iterations of an innovative monitoring and evaluation framework which is still applied to IFC’s advisory projects today.

Dr. Claire Simon is a senior consultant supporting the Global Shield Financing Facility (GSFF), as she did with its predecessor, the Global Risk Financing Facility (GRiF), in the design and use of tools to monitor, evaluate, and learn (MEL) from GSFF investments. Claire has two decades of international experience working with complex programs to measure, learn, and adapt based on emerging quantitative and qualitative evaluation research and data.

Lisa Roberts is a senior consultant supporting the Global Shield Financing Facility to develop strategies to help countries apply a gender lens when designing and implementing financial solutions to manage shocks. Lisa has over twenty years of international experience working for bilateral donors, the United Nations, and NGOs on policy and programs addressing disaster risk management, human rights and humanitarian action.

Xiaofeng Li is an Operations Officer for the Global Unit for Disaster and Climate Risk Management. Since joining the World Bank through the China country office in 2007, she has served on a variety of assignments in disaster risk management, including managing trust funds at trustee and grant levels, overseeing trust fund portfolios, and serving as task team lead for advisory services and analytics including joint initiatives with GFDRR in Zanzibar and the Resilience Academy in Tanzania. She previously worked in the Bank's Urban, Disaster Risk Management, Resilience and Land Global Practice (GPURL). Before joining the Bank, Xiaofeng worked for the Chinese Government.

Djamilya Salieva, a national of the Kyrgyz Republic, transitioned from the Europe and Central Asia FCI Global Practice to the FCI Crisis & Disaster Risk Finance (CDRF) global team as Financial Sector Analyst in August 2024. Djamilya supports CDRF Trust Fund portfolio as well as analytical work on CDRF. Djamilya began her journey with the World Bank Group in 2005, working closely with Financial Sector and Procurement teams. With over 14 years of operational experience, she has gained extensive knowledge working at both the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development HQ and the World Bank Country Office in the Kyrgyz Republic. Djamilya has hands-on experience with lending products, advisory services and analytics, and trust-funded programs as well as portfolio and budget monitoring. She holds a master’s degree in Business Administration from the Academy of Management under the President of the Kyrgyz Republic.

Sonal Chinchwadkar is a Learning, Capacity Building, Knowledge Management and Communications Consultant with the World Bank’s Crisis and Disaster Risk Finance (CDRF) in the Finance, Competitiveness and Innovations (FCI) Global Practice. Sonal brings with her 13+ years of global experience leading strategic knowledge management and communications initiatives aligned with organizational vision and business objectives in varied domains e.g., public sector transformation (capacity building, skill development, university education, executive education, edtech), financial services (insurance, banking), and management consulting. Within the World Bank, as a core team member of knowledge and communications team, Sonal is responsible for program management of full-stack capacity building programs, webinars (40+) and e-learning programs including all aspects of planning, design, stakeholder / vendor management, and smooth execution. She is also responsible for managing community engagement, communications planning and execution for Disaster Risk Financing and Insurance Program’s (DRFIP) Community of Practice which has 10,000+ members. Sonal has previously worked with Accenture Consulting, Tata Group Companies and KPMG amongst others. Academically, she is a Gold Medalist, Master in Mass Communications from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Michelle Porvaznik is a freelance strategic communications expert with more than 15 years of experience helping mission-driven organizations demonstrate impact and connect more meaningfully with their stakeholders. She has been a consultant for the Global Shield Financing Facility since 2021 and currently works exclusively with clients who focus on sustainability issues. Michelle draws from a wide-ranging career that includes ten years with the World Bank, where she led anticorruption messaging, as well positions with a government consulting firm and a fine arts museum. Michelle has a MPA from the George Washington University and a BA in Foreign Affairs and French from the University of Virginia. In her spare time she is a volunteer urban farmer and food policy advocate.

Anusha Vincent, a Communications and Knowledge Management Consultant, contributes her expertise to the World Bank Crisis and Disaster Risk Finance team within the Finance, Competitiveness, and Innovations Global Practice. Her primary objective is to expand the team's global reach and maximize the impact of their projects. Anusha undertakes a wide range of responsibilities, including the creation of technical notes, annual reports, year-in-review mailers, videos, newsletters, and news releases, among other essential tasks. She also helps manage her team’s websites. Anusha played a pivotal role in conceiving the 'In the Spotlight' interview series, a platform designed to showcase noteworthy projects and champions of Disaster Risk Finance. She has more than 10 years of experience as a journalist and has worked with esteemed Indian newspapers such as the Times of India and Deccan Chronicle. Her transition from journalism to the world of Disaster Risk Finance reflects her passion for making meaningful impact.