David Ryfisch is a Senior Manager at Climate Policy Initiative (CPI), where he is setting up and leading CPI’s new office in Vienna, Austria — marking CPI’s return to a continental European presence. The office will connect Europe to CPI’s global work, convene regional climate finance and policy stakeholders, and build out an independent analytical program, drawing on Vienna’s growing ecosystem of international organizations and its position as a gateway to Eastern Europe and the Balkans.

David brings over thirteen years of experience at the intersection of climate policy and finance, spanning multilateral development banks, government advisory, and civil society. His career has taken him from the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, DC, to the UNEP Copenhagen Climate Centre, and to GIZ in Bonn. Most recently, he spent seven years at Germanwatch in Bonn and Berlin, where he led Germanwatch’s International Climate Policy Division and built its Future-Proof Finance division from the ground up. He has been recognized as the number one NGO voice in Germany on international climate policy by table.media in both 2024 and 2025.

David holds a Master’s in International Economics from the Graduate Institute Geneva, specializing in environmental and resource economics, and a Bachelor’s from the University of Tübingen, including an exchange year at the University of São Paulo. David is fluent in German, English, Spanish, and Portuguese.