Diego Lopez

Diego is a unique individual, who has excelled in both business and sports at global level, and shows a strong personal commitment to serve society. He has lived in 8 countries and traveled to 84 of them in the seven continents.

As a finance professional, he accumulates 13 years of experience in the world’s main financial centers. His last full-time position was Director and COO of PwC’s Global SWF practice, based in Abu Dhabi and in New York. In July 2018, and after 12 years working for Big 4 Audit firms, he decided to set up his own Consulting business. Since then, he has almost exclusively served multilateral organizations, including the World Bank Group and the United Nations. He is one of the few global experts in Sovereign Wealth Funds, and his work focuses on linking institutional investment capital with sustainable development.

As a sportsman, Diego has transitioned from an average pool swimmer to one of the world’s best open water and ice swimmers. He has completed the Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming (Swim Around Manhattan, English Channel, Catalina Channel); holds a World Record for being the first individual to complete the most challenging swim of each of the seven continents (including Antarctica); and became World Champion of Ice Swimming in the Arctic Circle in March 2019. He does all of these swims as an Ocean Ambassador for Ocean Recovery Alliance, pursuing fundraising and giving talks along the way.

He uses his passion and specialities to spread the word about the environment and about sustainable development. He is a passionate motivational speaker / author, and is currently publishing his first book on how to transfer skills from sports to professional life and how to combine them both in a successful manner.