Despoina Kouria is a Supplier Diversity and Sustainability analyst with Corporate Procurement at the World Bank Group (WBG), which she joined in 2020. She is part of the team that mainstreams sustainability considerations into over $1.7 Billion of annual purchases for the World Bank Group’s global offices and leads Corporate Procurement’s efforts in promoting and increasing the participation of women- and other diverse-owned businesses within WBG procurement processes and across its supply chain.
Prior to joining the Bank, she worked for more than 5 years as a Sustainable Procurement expert for UN Environment’s Sustainable UN (SUN) program, supporting the operationalization of sustainable procurement across the UN system as well as the management of the One Planet Network Sustainable Public Procurement program. In the past, she has been part of UNOPS sustainable procurement team and has also worked with the International Training Centre of the ILO on procurement training delivery. Despoina holds a BA in Economics from the Democritus University in Greece, an MA in Development Studies from the University of Manchester in the UK and an MSc in Public Procurement Management from the University of Turin in Italy.