Adair Turner chairs the Energy Transitions Commission, a global coalition of companies, investors, environmental NGOs and experts working to limit global warming and stimulate economic development and social progress. He was the first chair of the Committee on Climate Change, an independent statutory body, set up to advise the government.

His combined careers cover business, public policy, and academia. From 2008-13, he chaired the UK's Financial Services Authority, playing a leading role in the post crisis redesign of global banking and shadow banking regulation. Adair has held high profile roles in public policy, including Director General of the Confederation of British Industry and chairman of the UK Low Pay Commission. He became a cross bench member of the House of Lords in 2006.

A Senior Fellow at the Centre for Financial Studies, Frankfurt and a Visiting Fellow at the People's Bank of China School of Finance, Tsinghua University, he is currently chair of insurer group Chubb Europe, a non-executive director of AESC, a battery company headquartered in Japan, and a board member of the entrepreneur neobank, OakNorth.

Adair is a Trustee Emeritus of the British Museum, an honorary fellow of The Royal Society, and received an Honorary Degree from Cambridge University in 2017. He writes regularly for Project Syndicate and has published Economics after the Crisis (2012) and Between Debt and the Devil (2015).