Josh Sawislak is an internationally recognized expert on climate and disaster resilience and sustainable development and is the principal of Clio Strategies LLC. He advises governments, corporations, international organizations, and NGOs on building sustainable and resilient infrastructure and business opportunities in both the developed and developing world. His expertise includes the emerging efforts around assessing and pricing climate and disaster risk in financial portfolios and corporate facility assets as well as continuity planning and disaster risk reduction for communities and the private sector. He holds concurrent appointments as a professional affiliate of the Center Urban and Environmental Solutions (CUES) at Florida Atlantic University and a Senior Advisor to the Honolulu-based Hawaii Green Growth.

Mr. Sawislak served briefly in the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden as a senior advisor on executive actions and the COVID-19 response during the first 120 days of the administration. He also served in the Biden-Harris presidential transition team working on agency review and climate and economic issues. Previously, in the Obama administration, he was the Associate Director for Climate Preparedness at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, where he developed U.S. federal policy on climate adaptation and resilience and worked with foreign governments and international organization on multilateral efforts. He led the development of the infrastructure recommendations for President Obama’s Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force. In a previous federal role, Mr. Sawislak supported the development and execution of the National Continuity Policy as well as the federal response, recovery, and mitigation frameworks. He also served on the White House response coordination team for the H1N1 influenza pandemic in 2009-2010.

 

 

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