Nadja Skaljic is a distinguished legal executive, experienced board director, and systems thinker, recognised for her leadership at the forefront of green innovation, finance and technology.
Skaljic’s career spans senior roles across government, international organisations and the corporate sector.
Legal, Governance and Justice Leadership
Skaljic served as Senior Policy Adviser to the British delegation at the European Union in Brussels before and during Brexit, where she played a pivotal role in shaping the EU’s green and digital policy frameworks, while also managing strategic portfolios in foreign affairs and defence.
She served on the prosecution team at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, working on the landmark genocide case against Radovan Karadzic that culminated in his conviction. This groundbreaking prosecution remains one of the most complex and high-profile in international criminal law, setting key precedents for holding heads of state and senior officials accountable for mass atrocities.
She also served as Senior Fellow for Europe at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs in New York, developing global initiatives at the intersection of ethics, governance, and international law. As General Counsel of a Swiss-headquartered multinational trading company with multi-billion-dollar annual revenues, she directed legal strategy across its global operations.
Demonstrating her ongoing commitment to international justice, Skaljic serves on the advisory board of InterJust—a Clooney Foundation for Justice spin-off advancing universal jurisdiction to ensure survivors can access justice and perpetrators face accountability, regardless of location or rank.
She is a Fellow of the European Law Institute (ELI), representing Switzerland on digitalisation and justice, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), and holds memberships with the International Bar Association (IBA) and the European Society of International Law (ESIL).
Sustainability, Innovation and Strategic Leadership
As Chief Legal and Strategy Officer of a privately held, lab-based Swiss company, Skaljic strategically leverages policy, capital and technology to pioneer innovative product typologies and platforms designed to catalyse a new socio-economic paradigm that fosters inclusive, sustainable prosperity within planetary boundaries.
A seasoned board director, she holds directorships in both corporate and non-profit spheres across Europe and the United States. Her corporate governance roles include a clinical-stage biotech firm in Sweden and a Silicon Valley longevity company founded by former Google AI engineers.
Among her leading non-profit roles, Skaljic serves on the boards of the Weidenfeld-Hoffmann Trust and the Oxford Sustainable Law Programme—a collaboration between Oxford’s Faculty of Law and the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment—among other initiatives. She is an early supporter of The Fifth Element programme at The Club of Rome.
Skaljic is also a member of the World Economic Forum’s invitation-only Global Foresight Network, where she contributes to shaping strategies for global future preparedness.
Thought Leadership and Education
Her forthcoming publication, Quo vadis Europa?, introduces a new volume exploring the political and economic dimensions of the EU Climate Pact.
She has authored thought leadership pieces for the World Economic Forum, Bloomberg, Devex, the Huffington Post, and the International Chamber of Commerce. Skaljic contributed substantively to Rescuing Human Rights: A Radically Moderate Approach (Cambridge University Press, 2019) with Hurst Hannum and The Ordinary Virtues: Moral Order in a Divided World (Harvard University Press, 2017) with Michael Ignatieff.
Skaljic studied law at the University of Oxford and Harvard Law School, and pursued advanced studies in international relations and political systems at The Fletcher School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
