Ben Ramalingam

Ben Ramalingam is the Chief Strategic Development Officer at UNICEF UK, where he leads efforts in innovation, design, strategy, and people to maximise the organisation's impact on children's lives globally. With over twenty years of experience in sustainable development and humanitarian response, Ben has held leadership roles at the British Red Cross, UK Humanitarian Innovation Hub (UKHIH), UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), OECD, FCDO, and more.

He has designed and led programmes that combine cutting-edge technology and science through innovative partnerships to tackle global challenges. Notable initiatives include the Humanitarian Innovation Fund (the world’s first fund dedicated to innovation in disaster response), the £1.5 billion Grand Challenges Research Fund, and Frontier Technologies Livestreaming, which won the UK Civil Service Innovation Award for its impact.

A recognised thought leader in innovation and design, Ben is the author of Upshift, which explores creativity under pressure, and Aid on the Edge of Chaos, which advocates for systems approaches in sustainable development, and was endorsed by four Nobel Laureates and leaders from the UN and Red Cross. As a lead author for the IPCC, he helped establish the first robust evidence linking climate change to the increasing frequency and severity of disasters. In 2020, Ben was named a Humanitarian Changemaker of the decade for his contributions to collective innovation in global crisis response.