Kristina Elinder Liljas is Senior Director of Sustainable Finance & Engagement at Apparel Impact Institute (Aii), where she works to mobilize and deploy capital to accelerate decarbonization across the global apparel and textile supply chain. Her work focuses on bridging the gap between climate ambition and implementation by bringing together brands, manufacturers, financial institutions, development partners, and philanthropic capital.
Kristina brings more than 30 years of international experience spanning the apparel and textile industry, sustainable finance, trade and investment, and public-private partnerships, with extensive experience across Asia. Earlier in her career, she held global and regional roles with IKEA and H&M, working closely with textile and apparel manufacturers in markets including India, Bangladesh and China. This experience gave her a first-hand understanding of the operational realities, investment needs and commercial dynamics of global manufacturing supply chains.
Prior to joining Aii, Kristina also served as Sweden’s Trade Commissioner to the Philippines, representing the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Business Sweden. In this role, she worked across government, business, development finance institutions and multilateral partners, including the Asian Development Bank, to advance sustainable investment and low-carbon infrastructure.
At Aii, Kristina draws on this combination of industry, finance and emerging-market experience to develop partnerships and financing approaches that can unlock investment in supplier decarbonization. Her work includes identifying factory-level investment barriers, developing blended-finance and risk-sharing approaches, and strengthening collaboration between manufacturers, brands and capital providers.
Kristina holds an MSc in Business and Economics from Uppsala University in Sweden.
