Dr Darian McBain is a sustainable ocean economy advocate. Growing up near the ocean in Australia, Dr McBain is an environmental engineer passionate about the world below the sea. She believes the degradation of the oceans is a tragedy of the commons, in that no one is definitively accountable for the oceans. Darian is the CEO and Founder of Outsourced Chief Sustainability Officer Asia (OCSO Asia). Darian was the inaugural Chief Sustainability Officer for the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the first CSO for a central bank globally. Prior to this, she was the Global Director of Corporate Affairs & Sustainability for Thai Union, a multi-billion dollar listed FMCG company operating globally and headquartered in Asia. Darian is a Visiting Professor in Practice with the London School of Economics and Political Science, a Senior Associate with the University of Oxford, Public and Third Sector Academy for Sustainable Finance, and an adjunct Senior Lecturer with Integrated Sustainability Analysis at the University of Sydney.

Dr McBain’s work has been widely recognised. She received the Edie Sustainability Leader of the Year Award 2018, the Ethical Corporation 2018 Responsible Business Leader of the Year, SeaWeb Seafood Leader of the Year for Vision 2019, CSR Asia’s Sustainability Superwomen 2019, Anti-Slavery Australia’s Freedom Award 2019, Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business for 2020, Harvard Business Council 2020 International Business Excellence Professional Award and was named a United Nations Global Compact Sustainable Development Goal Pioneer for 2021.

‘I look around and I see the destruction of nature, and significant inequality in global supply chains and it motivates me to try to find sustainable solutions to society’s challenges rather than just looking at the problems.’