Simon is a Co-Director of the Inquiry into Design Options for a Sustainable Financial System launched by the United Nations Environment Program in January 2014. He was the founder and CEO of AccountAbility, and Development Director of the New Economics Foundation.
He is a Visiting Scholar at Tsinghua School of Economics and Management in Beijing, Senior Fellow at the Global Green Growth Institute and the International Institute of Sustainable Development, and Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Academy of Business in Society. He is on the Advisory Board of Generation Investment Management, and was Visiting Professor at the Singapore Management University, Senior Visiting Fellow at Harvard`s JK Kennedy School of Government and Senior Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation, Visiting Professor, Copenhagen Business School, and Honorary Professor at the University of Southern Africa.
Simon publishes extensively through academic channels and the broader media, most recently on business, economics and sustainability in China green finance, and public-private partnerships. He is a regular contributor of op-eds through Project Syndicate, and also through China Daily, the Guardian and Huffington Post. His book, ‘The Civil Corporation’, was awarded the Academy of Management’s prestigious Best Book on Social Issues in Management, and his Harvard Business Review article, ‘Paths to Corporate Responsibility’ is widely used as a reference point in understanding emergent sustainability strategies.
Simon has worked with many corporations, governments and multi stakeholder initiatives on their sustainability and broader strategies, including more recently AngloGoldAshanti, Axa Insurance, GE, and Nike; the Chinese and South African Governments, and the Global Network Initiative and the Voluntary Principles for Business and Human Rights.