Astrid Schomaker is Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Prior to her appointment as Executive Secretary of the CBD, at the level of Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations, Astrid was the Director for Green Diplomacy and Multilateralism with the European Commission in Brussels. There she promoted a global transition to resource-efficient, low emission, nature-positive circular economies. She also focussed on increasing the EU's effectiveness in addressing international environmental challenges, strengthening multilateralism and international environmental governance, and working towards the full implementation of multilateral environment agreements, among other priorities. Astrid also worked as the Director for Global Sustainable Development at the European Commission's Directorate-General for Environment. In this role, she oversaw international and interinstitutional relations, as well as environment policy strategy, supervising the implementation of the EU's 7th Environment Action Programme. Astrid studied English, history and law in Hamburg and Norwich and has an LLM in international legal cooperation from Brussels' Free University. After briefly working at the law schools of the Universities of Hamburg and Ann Arbor (Michigan), she joined the European Commission in 1992, working on EU - US relations. Astrid is fluent in English, French and German.