Julien Bastrup-Birk was appointed as Secretary General of the Socfin Group in January 2026, having previously served as an independent director on the board of the Okomu Oil Palm Company Plc. Prior to joining the private sector, Julien worked as an adviser to multilateral institutions, including the United Nations (UN) and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). This followed a career with the British Government, including in senior roles in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). He holds a Master’s degree from King’s College, London, and pursued his doctoral studies at Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs at Leiden University in the Netherlands.