John Hendra

President JD Hendra Strategic Consulting & former UN ASG

John Hendra (Canada) provides strategic advice on multilateral effectiveness, institutional reform, development financing, transformative leadership and gender equality through his consultancy practice. He served the United Nations for 32 years, most recently as UN Assistant Secretary-General (ASG), helping prepare the UN Secretary-General’s two seminal UN Development System (UNDS) reform reports and substantively supporting intergovernmental negotiations which led to the UN General Assembly’s landmark reform of the UNDS in 2018. Other roles included serving as UN ASG and Deputy Executive Director at UN Women, and as UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative in Vietnam, Tanzania and Latvia. In his consulting capacity he serves as a part-time Senior Advisor to the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation. He is also an Associate Researcher with the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS) and a member of FinDev Canada’s Advisory Council. John has an MA in Development Studies from the University of Toronto and has served as a Yale World Fellow. He has published numerous articles on multilateralism, UNDS reform, SDG financing, gender equality and development effectiveness.