Speaker profile
Kay Williams, MBE
Kay currently works with the United Nations Environment Program as Head of the Global Framework on Chemicals secretariat, based in Geneva Switzerland.
The majority of her career was spent at the UK Department of Food, Environment and Rural Affairs where she was latterly the Head of International Chemicals, Pesticides and Hazardous Wastes hub. She was a lead negotiator for the Minamata Convention on Mercury, the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants and the Basel Convention on Hazardous Wastes in addition to the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management - SAICM.
Externally, she has chaired the Chemicals and Biotechnology Committee of the Environmental Health and Safety program at the OECD; co-chaired the UNEP Special Program Executive Board in addition to playing an active role in the UN Beyond 2020 intersessional process to develop the new Global Framework on Chemicals.
Kay has a PhD from Imperial College, London and began her career carrying out applied research at the Central Science Laboratory before moving to Government policy in 1999. She has held a wide variety of policy posts ranging from the Common Agricultural Policy through to sustainable procurement.