LSE welcomes Celine Herweijer as Visiting Professor in Practice in Energy, AI and Geopolitics
The Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) is delighted to welcome Professor Celine Herweijer as Visiting Professor in Practice in Energy, AI and Geopolitics, working across the Institute, the Global School of Sustainability (GSoS) and the Earth Capital Nexus initiative (EarthCap).
Professor Herweijer is one of the few business leaders operating at the intersection of energy, AI, finance and geopolitics. Until 2025 Professor Herweijer was a member of the Group Executive Committee of HSBC, one of the world’s largest banks, as its Group Chief Sustainability Officer. There she oversaw the bank’s work on financing the energy transition and the industrial build-out around it. During her tenure, HSBC was named Euromoney’s World’s Best Bank for Sustainable Finance. Prior to HSBC, she was a Partner at PwC for over a decade, serving in global leadership roles including Global Innovation Leader and Global Sustainability Leader. Earlier in her career she was Director of Climate at RMS, the world’s leading catastrophe-modelling firm, now part of Moody’s. A NASA Fellow at Columbia University, she earned a PhD in Climate Modelling and Policy, applying machine learning and supercomputing to large-scale climate and economic modelling.
Professor Herweijer is a long-standing Vice-Chair of the We Mean Business Coalition, Senior Advisor to the Energy Transitions Commission, and advises growth-stage technology and climate companies, including Climeworks and Watershed. She has served on numerous advisory boards and commissions for the UN, World Bank, WEF, G20, EU and the financial sector, and is a regular media commentator on energy, finance and geopolitics, appearing in the Financial Times, Bloomberg and on news channels. She is the author of the forthcoming book, The Power of Power, on how the energy transition and AI are redrawing the geopolitical map.
Professor Herweijer’s work at LSE will examine how the shift to an electrified, AI-driven economy is reshaping geopolitics, economic security and corporate and investment strategy. Working with the Grantham Research Institute and GSoS, Professor Herweijer will develop a programme of research, engagement and public commentary on the political economy of the energy transition and AI. The programme will connect this work to LSE’s strengths in international affairs and trade, exploring how energy security, industrial strategy, geopolitical competition and the surging power demand from AI are together reshaping energy systems and material scarcity, including how governments and businesses can build systems that are secure and resilient as well as low carbon.
Through EarthCap, Professor Herweijer will work with researchers and corporate partners on the practical implications for business and finance: how companies build transition strategies that hold up in a fragmenting world; map the interconnected vulnerabilities across energy, technology and natural-resource supply chains; and invest in the resilience of the natural and physical systems on which they depend.
A further strand will examine AI’s double-edged role: its new demands on energy, water, land and materials, and its capacity to understand and optimise them, including work with EarthCap and partners on how emerging AI tools can help businesses, financial institutions and governments anticipate disruption, map complex dependencies and direct capital towards more durable outcomes.
Professor Celine Herweijer said:
“Power has always fuelled power. Today two forces are rewiring that link at once: electrification, as economies move from fuels to electrons; and the race for AI, whose vast appetite for compute lands on the same electricity system. Control of that system is becoming the new prize – and geopolitical risk is relocated as the chokepoints and dependencies shift. LSE has a unique mix of talent – economics, geopolitics, trade, energy and climate – to make sense of this turbulent time, and to turn it into research and insights that governments and boardrooms can actually use.”
Professor Nicola Ranger, Executive Director of Earth Capital Nexus, said:
“Celine brings an exceptional combination of climate science, corporate leadership and deep practical experience of energy, technology and the global financial system. Her work gets to the heart of a question that is becoming critical for governments and businesses: how do we deliver a rapid energy transition while also managing geopolitical fragmentation, the race for AI and energy, and growing systemic risks? We are particularly excited to work with her on translating these insights into stronger corporate transition and resilience strategies, and on harnessing AI to better understand and invest in the natural systems that underpin economic security. Warmest congratulations to Celine on her appointment.”