Speakers

Dr. Alexander Fleischanderl joined Primetals Technologies Austria in 1997 (before SiemensVAI 2005-2014 and VAI 1997-2004).

His current position is Technology Officer Up-Stream and Head of the Environmental Solution Business at Primetals Technologies. He is a recognized expert for sustainable iron and steel production covering waste gas cleaning, carbon footprint reduction, energy efficiency, by-product management and waste water treatment.

Before, Alexander held various positions within the company in technical sales, project management and R&D for the environmental, steelmaking and long rolling business.

He is holding about 100 single patents and was honoured as Siemens Inventor of the year 2013.

Alexander started his career at Austrian Energy and Environment in Vienna as process engineer in the field of emission control and water treatment for waste incineration plants.

He completed his Ph.D. in process engineering in 1997 in the field of advanced gas cleaning for municipal waste incineration plants at the Technical University in Graz, Austria.

In 1994 he obtained his master’s degree in Chemical Engineering and Business Administration at the Johannes Kepler University in Linz, Austria.

Mr. Alvin Tan was elected as a Member of Parliament in July 2020, and was shortly appointed by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong as Minister of State for the Ministry of Community, Culture and Youth, and the Ministry of Trade & Industry. He assumed these appointments on 1 Sep 2020.

Mr. Tan has worked in the private, public and non-profit sectors. Before joining the government as Minister of State, he served as LinkedIn’s Head of Public Policy & Economics for the Asia Pacific, where he and his team help economies prepare for the rapidly changing nature of work using analytics and data solutions.

Before LinkedIn, Mr. Tan was Head of Public Policy and Trust and Safety at Facebook (as well as Instagram and WhatsApp) where he was responsible for strategic investments, helping small and medium businesses digitize, authenticity, cybersecurity and online safety.

Between 2010-2015, Mr. Tan worked in investment banking at Goldman Sachs in Hong Kong and Singapore. Before that, he worked as a speechwriter and on technology projects at the Executive Office of the United Nations Secretary-General in New York. Mr. Tan has also served in the Singapore Armed Forces as an armour officer, and the Ministry of Defence in diplomacy, research and counter-terrorism roles. He has also worked at Oxfam in Australia.

Mr. Tan has been an active community leader in Singapore since 2005, serving youth, seniors and vulnerable families in both the Kreta Ayer-Kim Seng and Moulmein-Cairnhill constituencies. He was also Chair of the Kreta Ayer-Kim Seng Inter-Racial and Religious Confidence Circle (IRCC).

Mr. Tan holds a First Class Honours in Economics from Sydney University and a Master in Public Policy from Harvard University. He was awarded the 2008 Tan Kah Kee Foundation Postgraduate Scholarship, and the International and Global Affairs Fellowship from the Belfer Centre of Science and International Affairs at Harvard.

Andreas Feicht is the State Secretary for Energy at the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. Mr. Feicht was appointed on February 1st 2019. His portfolio includes energy policy with regard to heating, efficiency, electricity and grids.
Most recently he was Chairman of the Board of WSW Wuppertaler Stadtwerke GmbH and Chairman of the Board of WSW mobil GmbH. He had been with the municipal utility since 2007. Previously he worked as Managing Director at BSL Management Consultants GmbH & Co. KG and as Managing partner of BBD Verkehrsconsult GmbH. Andreas Feicht has an academic background in economics, which he acquired while holding various positions at Dresdner Verkehrsbetriebe AG and Technische Werke Dresden GmbH.

Andrew joined the Carbon Trust in 2014 during which time he has developed the company’s energy systems innovation and advisory service into a trusted source of expert knowledge and support for businesses and governments in the UK and internationally.

A key thought leader in the energy system transition, Andrew co-authored the influential report ‘Can storage help reduce the cost of a future UK electricity system?’, which remains one of the most comprehensive reviews of the benefits of storage at a UK-system level.

Andrew is currently leading a joint industry project to refresh the Carbon Trust’s seminal report on the value of electricity flexibility in Great Britain; the refresh considers the wider value unlocked by taking a systems approach across heat, transport and power sectors to reach net zero.

Andrew is a champion of whole systems thinking and applies this to support new approaches and innovation in renewable system integration, local energy systems, consumer engagement and smart grid development.

Prior to joining the Carbon Trust, Andrew spent 16 years with E.ON working across both commercial and strategy roles in the UK, Germany and Europe. He developed E.ON’s energy services business and managed the organisation’s European retail innovation portfolio.

Andrew studied chemical engineering at the University of Strathclyde and completed an MBA at Warwick Business School.

Angela is one of the world’s leading global energy futures experts, an experienced energy executive, a distinguished Oxford scholar and a published author. She has 30 years of experience in leading national, international and global multi- stakeholder transformation initiatives on a wide range of economic, energy, climate and sustainable development related challenges. Angela has worked as a senior executive in the public-, private-, academic- and civic sectors.

Ban Ki-moon (Deputy Chair of The Elders)
Ban Ki-moon was the UN Secretary-General from 2007-2016. He mobilised world leaders around a new set of challenges and sought to give voice to the world’s poorest and vulnerable people. He put Sustainable Development Goals, climate change, and equality for girls and women at the top of the UN agenda; creating UN Women and securing the Paris Agreement. He is a former South-Korean Foreign Minister and diplomat. He is the Chair of the Global Green Growth Institute, Chairman of the Boao Forum for Asia, and Co-Chair of the Ban Ki-moon Centre for Global Citizens.

Bertrand Piccard is an “inspioneer,” inspiring the entrepreneurial spirit and pioneering new directions to build a profitable clean economy – one that replaces old technologies with new ways of doing things, while protecting the environment and building prosperity.

Bertrand is the initiator and visionary behind Solar Impulse, fueled only by the rays of the sun to complete the history-making round-the-world solar-powered flight completed in 2016. It is in his DNA to achieve the impossible; the challenges of our time fascinate him.

Bertrand Piccard is a forward-thinking leader for progress and sustainability. He started the Solar Impulse Foundation and launched the challenge to make what was possible in the air possible on the ground: beginning a mission to find 1000 solutions that protect the environment and are profitable at the same time. Through the Solar Impulse Foundation, Bertrand encourages decision-makers worldwide to take action to adopt ambitious environmental targets and energy policies.

Brian Dean has more than 20 years of experience in energy efficiency and joined Sustainable Energy for All as Head of Energy Efficiency one year ago. Brian was previously an official at the International Energy Agency where he was the lead for Energy Efficiency in Buildings, was head of Energy Efficiency Policy and Analytics at ICF International and has education in engineering, architecture and political science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Brian Gutknecht is the Chief Marketing Officer for GE Gas Power, leading market intelligence, forecasting, and strategy. Brian has 30 years with GE, all of it in the energy space. Before assuming his current position in January 2016, Brian served as the product marketing general manager for the Gas Power Systems business within GE Power. Throughout his career with GE, Brian has held a variety of roles in Application Engineering, Sales and Commercial Operations, Pricing and Marketing. Brian holds a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering from Clarkson University and an MBA from the State University of New York at Albany. He and his wife Julie have three children and live in Guilderland, NY.

Lawyer by profession, politician by choice, and conservationist at heart, Carlos Manuel Rodriguez was elected as CEO and Chairperson of the Global Environment Facility by its governing body, the GEF Council, in June 2020.

The former Costa Rican Environment and Energy Minister was a pioneer in the development of Payment for Ecosystem Services initiatives and strategies for forest restoration, ocean conservation, and de-carbonization, and is an internationally recognized expert on environmental policy, multilateral environmental negotiations, and financing for nature conservation. During his three terms as Minister of Environment and Energy, Costa Rica doubled the size of its forests, made its electric sector 100 percent clean and renewable, and consolidated a National Park System that has positioned the Central American country as a prime ecotourism destination.

Cassie Flynn has provided strategic advisory services to UN bodies and other international organizations, national, state and local governments, multi-billion dollar companies, and civil society groups on climate change and sustainability issues. As a Climate Change Policy Specialist with the United Nations Development Programme, Cassie supported countries in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations and provided technical advice to countries on finance, capacity building, adaptation and technology. In 2011, Cassie authored “Blending Climate Finance through National Climate Funds,” a guidebook on designing and establishing national funds.

Cate Hight leads Rocky Mountain Institute’s efforts to elevate the importance of industrial decarbonization in the global climate action system. In collaboration with partners in business and civil society, Cate brings leading industrial actors together to seek agreement on decarbonization pathways and take action to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.

Cate also leads RMI’s work to develop a first of its kind product standard for natural gas differentiated according to its upstream methane emissions. Leveraging her deep expertise in climate policy and market mechanisms, Cate works with oil and gas operators, regulators, purchasers and consumers to build the market for differentiated gas and improve the industry’s climate performance.

Cate spent ten years at the US Environmental Protection Agency where she led the agency’s work on carbon market development, played lead roles in the development of key greenhouse gas regulations, and co-authored the annual US Inventory of GHG Emissions and Sinks. Before joining RMI, Cate managed the oil and gas program of the Global Methane Initiative, a public-private partnership of 45 countries and private-sector actors dedicated to methane abatement, recovery, and use.

Prior to EPA, Cate worked for the Mission Climat of the Caisse des Depots in Paris (now I4CE), where she co-authored Pricing Carbon, a book assessing the performance of the European Union Emission Trading Scheme. She has also held positions at the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES) and as committee staff in the US House of Representatives.

Charles is a green entrepreneur and sustainability expert. He is the Founder of Sustainable Future for All and Co-founder of SecondNature, now part of Anthesis Group, as well as Co-founder of GRIDSERVE Sustainable Energy. Post his MBA, he joined BP where he co-led the global rebranding to beyond petroleum and then led the renewable energy business. He left to become Director of GreenOrder (now part of Cleantech Group), Managing Director of Good Energy and then co-founded SecondNature, a leading sustainability consultancy for blue-chip clients such as Tesco. Charles has a BA from Brown University and an MBA from Cranfield School of Management. He is also on the UN’s COP26 climate champions team.

Christian Pho Duc is heading the hydrogen activities of Smartenergy and is also in charge of solar projects in Germany. His many years of international management experience, his marked technical background and, last but not least, his multicultural roots make him ideally suited for this task. After over 5 years of expanding E-Mobility on the water as SVP Sales at market leader Torqeedo he is now eager to provide clean energy to the installations worldwide. Christian spent already 5 years in the Solar Industry at Smartenergy Renewables, Nanosolar and Solyndra developing solar projects as managing director and VP Sales in EMEA and India. Prior to his engagement in the renewable energy space, Christian worked for 15 years in the semiconductor industry, always at the leading edge of technical innovations launching what were then the most highly integrated memory chips. He marketed high-end products for Infineon, Giesecke & Devrient and Siemens on the international stage, holding a number of management positions. Christian holds a master’s degree in semiconductor physics and microelectronics engineering from Cambridge University and master’s degree in physics from the Ludwig-Maximilian-University of Munich and showed an early interest in the market potential of new technologies. He undertook research at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics into high resolution detectors that today orbit the earth in satellites.

Claire O’Neill entered politics in 2007 after a transatlantic career in consulting and finance, initially as a policy advisor to George Osborne, the then Shadow Chancellor and then as the Conservative MP for the Devizes Constituency from 2010 – 2019.

She served in several Ministerial positions before becoming Climate Change Minister and then attending the UK Cabinet as Minister for Energy and Clean Growth. Claire wrote and implemented the UK’s Clean Growth Strategy; formed the Green Finance Taskforce; launched the global Powering Past Coal Alliance to end coal-powered electricity generation and negotiated the UK’s Offshore Wind Sector Deal that dramatically dropped the cost of this vital renewable energy source. In 2019 she brought forward the ground-breaking legislation that committed the UK to be a Net Zero emissions economy by 2050 and she also formulated the UK’s successful bid to host the United Nations 2020 Climate Change Conference known as COP26. She served as COP26 President-Designate until she left politics in 2020.

Ranked as one of Bloomberg’s global “Green 30 for 2020”, Claire has now joined the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) as the Managing Director for Climate and Energy,  and Natural Climate Solutions. WBCSD is the leading voice for business sustainability and is a global CEO-led organization drawn from all business sectors and all major economies, representing a combined revenue of more than USD $8.5 trillion and 19 million employees.

Clover Hogan is a 20-year-old climate activist, youth spokesperson, and the founder of Force of Nature. After graduating from the Green School in Indonesia, she worked in Silicon Valley with Impossible Foods founder Pat O’Brown to develop national youth strategy, led marketing campaigns for Leaders’ Quest in London, and consulted big business at Volans alongside John Elkington – global authority on corporate social responsibility. In March 2019, she launched Force of Nature to help young people realise their potential to create change. Through consultancy, thought leadership, and targeted campaigns, they’re supporting the emerging generation of leaders to become custodians of a future by their own design.

Dorothée leads the sustainable business agenda at Vodafone Group. The sustainable business team supports the delivery of Vodafone’s Purpose and its contribution to the SDGs, as well as ensuring sound responsible business practices and transparent reporting. Dorothée is also a trustee at Earthwatch Europe, an environmental charity with science at its heart.

Before joining Vodafone, she spent 10 years at McKinsey & Company where she most recently was director of sustainability and social impact, overseeing the firm’s responsible business practices and its contribution to society. Dorothée joined McKinsey in 2009 as head of external relations for the Sustainability and Resource Productivity Practice.

Before McKinsey, she worked in politics, public affairs and communications: for the Belgian deputy prime minister, in the European Commission’s spokesperson service and at a public affairs agency.

She studied literature and linguistics in Ghent, Madrid and Nijmegen and European Studies at the College of Europe. She speaks English, Dutch, French, Spanish, Italian and basic German, and loves spending time with her daughter, exploring new places, teaching and dancing.

Binyam Reja is the Transport Practice Manager for Central Asia, China, and Mongolia based at the World Bank Office in Beijing. Mr. Reja is responsible for overseeing the World Bank’s transport lending program in these countries, covering highways, railways, urban transport, intermodal freight transportation and logistics, and for leading policy dialogue with client government countries in those countries. In his capacity as Practice Manager Transport Cluster Leader, Mr. Reja leads a team of technical professionals and analyst based in Washington and various Country Offices in the delivery of a large and diversified lending portfolio, and an active knowledge exchange and technical assistance program. Mr. Reja holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, Irvine, and attended the Executive Education program at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Dr Fatih Birol has served as Executive Director of the IEA since September 2015. Under his leadership, the IEA has undertaken its first comprehensive modernisation programme since its creation in 1974. This effort focuses on three pillars: opening the doors of the IEA to include major emerging countries, broadening the IEA’s security mandate to natural gas and electricity as well as oil, and making the IEA the global hub for clean energy technologies and energy efficiency.

Prior to his nomination as Executive Director, Dr Birol spent over 20 years at the IEA, rising through the ranks to the position of Chief Economist. Dr Birol has been named by Forbes Magazine as among the most influential people on the world’s energy scene and was recognized by the Financial Times as Energy Personality of the Year. He chairs the World Economic Forum’s (Davos) Energy Advisory Board and serves on the UN Secretary-General’s Advisory Board on ‘Sustainable Energy for All’. 

Dr. Florian Weig is the Senior Vice President for Corporate Strategy at the BMW Group and based in Munich. Before joining BMW Group in 2020, Dr. Weig worked for 20 years with McKinsey & Co. Inc. in the Munich and Los Angeles offices. As a Senior Partner he was the Global Leader of McKinsey’s Product Development Practice und since 2016 the Managing Partner of the Munich office. Dr Weig holds a diploma in Physics from Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich. In 2003, he earned a PhD in Economic Geography at Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.

Maria Mendiluce was appointed as CEO of the We Mean Business coalition in 2020, at the start of a critical decade for climate action. The We Mean Business coalition brings together seven international organizations: BSR, B-team, CDP, Ceres, CLG Europe, The Climate Group and WBCSD, which together catalyze business leadership and policy ambition to accelerate the transition to a zero carbon economy.
Maria will use her 25 years experience in sustainable development, energy and climate action to deliver an ambitious five-year strategy. This includes mainstreaming climate action across all businesses, both large and small, and advocating for climate policies to accelerate the green recovery and deliver an inclusive transition to net zero emissions before 2050.
Formerly Managing Director at the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) covering Climate & Energy, Circular Economy, and Cities & Mobility, Maria played a pivotal role in guiding over 200 member companies to take transformative action on climate policy, energy transition, plastic waste and urban mobility. She has also held senior positions at the Economic Bureau of the Spanish Prime Minister, in the CEO’s office of Iberdrola and at the International Energy Agency.
Throughout her career Maria has a track record of establishing transformative projects. These include the Alliance to End Plastic Waste which pledged $1.5 billion to address plastic leakage to the environment; the Transforming Urban Mobility project to drive clean, safe and efficient mobility for all and WBCSD flagship Low Carbon Technology Partnership initiative which was recognised as a key contributor to the Paris Agreement. She has also focused on working to achieve greater representation of women in leadership roles through the Leading Women Awards and the LEAP education project.
Maria is a board member of the Science Based Targets initiative, a Commissioner on the Energy Transition Commission, a Co-Chair of the Global Environment Outlook Business Advisory Board (UNEP), a board member of the Centre for International Environmental Studies
(CIES) in Geneva, and a member of the BMW Mobility Council and Telefonica Sustainability Advisory Board.
She has a PhD in energy economics, regularly teaches at universities and publishes in academic journals and media.

Musonda Mumba is the new Chief of the Terrestrial Ecosystems Unit since 1 June 2018. She joined UN Environment in October 2008, as a programme officer in Climate Change Adaptation Unit based in Nairobi, requested to lead the work on the development of the Global Adaptation Network (GAN) and also develop new proposals for the unit. She eventually secured resources to lead and coordinate the Ecosystems based Adaptation (EbA) Mountain Programme, a programmatic alliance with UN Environment, IUCN and UNDP (2011 – 2016) working in Peru, Nepal and Uganda. She has also been UN Environment’s focal point on Mountains. She has over 20 years experience working at both scientific and political levels on climate change adaptation, conservation, protected areas management and wetlands ecology. And before working for UN Environment, Musonda worked for the Zambian Government, Ramsar Convention, WWF (at International, UK and East Africa Regional Offices). Her professional experience led her to work with several governments across the world cutting across Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Dr. Nancy Vandycke is an Economic Advisor of the Transport Global Practice in the World Bank. She led the creation of and currently heads “Sustainable Mobility for All”—a global advocacy platform that unites 56 international organizations and private companies to transform the future of mobility.

Qu Dongyu, who took office on 1 August 2019 as Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, has spent his life working on how to make sure the world is fed.

Born in 1963 to a rice-growing family in China’s Hunan Province, Qu studied horticultural science at Hunan Agricultural University and then plant breeding and genetics at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. He later added environmental science to his knowledge portfolio while earning a PhD at Wageningen University, in the Netherlands.

He then progressed through a range of national and international activities, engaged simultaneously in science and management, all during a time when China’s reform and opening-up process led the country to dramatically reduce poverty and hunger in a country with 20 percent of the global population, 9 percent of the world’s cultivated land, and where over 90 percent of the rural population is engaged in small holder farm operations working less than 3 hectares.

His vision is founded on the belief that freedom from hunger is a basic human right, and that in the 21st century we have the capability to eradicate chronic food insecurity. While challenges loom, Qu’s cardinal principle is that “problems can also be the source of progress”.

Before coming to FAO, Qu served as China’s Vice Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, where one of his achievements was to promote inclusive and innovative development and make sure information and communication technologies (ICT) were available in rural areas so that more than 400 million farmers could use their smartphones as a new farming tool.

That vision has been consistent across a professional career that includes periods in central and local government, in and leading research institutes, and as a human resources leader at the China Three Gorges Project Development Corporation, a $40 billion investment project.

Among his national initiatives has been to improve reporting of wholesale prices for agricultural products in China and foster the establishment of more than 100 specialty production areas geared to making local comparative advantages work to the benefit of local farmers. As Vice Governor of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, one of China’s landlocked and poorest areas, Qu formulated action plans aimed at poverty reduction, disaster reduction and prevention, women empowerment, agritourism and mutual learning platforms designed to boost trust between ethnic groups.

Qu says he represents the combination of an “Asian soul” and a “global mind”. Recognized for scientific innovation as a young scholar, Qu has for 30 years been involved in international exchanges and orchestrated major events including the World Potato Congress, the International Rice Congress and the International Conference on Plant Protection, and participated in multilateral initiatives such as the World Trade Organization and the G20 as well as numerous bilateral initiatives involving Asia, Africa and Latin America. He has also directly helped design flagship South-South Cooperation projects with FAO and the World Bank.

His motto is “Simple life, but not simple work”.

He is married, and has one daughter.

Dr. Rabia Ferroukhi joined IRENA in 2011. She is currently the Director of the Knowledge, Policy and Finance Centre where she oversees the Agency’s work on knowledge, policy and finance, including: efforts to produce up-to-date and authoritative renewable energy data and information; analysis to identify best practice in renewable energy policies and finance; and advice and support to countries, tailoring policy and investment analysis to renewables deployment in the field.

Dr. Ferroukhi brought to this position over 25 years of experience in the fields of energy, development and environment. She worked in both public and private sectors, including with energy companies and governments globally, international institutions, and research centres.

Dr. Ferroukhi holds a Masters in Applied Economics and a Ph.D. in Economics from the American University in Washington DC.

Dr. Lacy holds a Doctorate Degree in Environmental Science and Engineering from the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (Mexico), a Master’s Degree in Urban Studies and Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a Bachelor’s Degree in Environmental Engineering from the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (Mexico) and a certificate in Leadership on Environment and Sustainable Development from El Colegio de México.

Dr. Lacy has been Vice Minister of Environmental Policy and Planning at the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources of Mexico (2012-2018), Chief negotiator of Climate Change (COP19-COP23), Co-chair of the Global Methane Initiative, Member of the High-Level Group of the Global Environmental Outlook (GEO6), and Board Member of the Climate Action Reserve in California, USA.

Dr. Thomas Becker is Vice President Sustainability, Mobility at the BMW Group in Munich. He supervises the integration of the sustainability dimension into the corporate strategy, including. Defining the implementation of the objectives of the Paris Climate Agreement at corporate level, the Group’s strategic approach to circular economy and the role of individual mobility in the urban environment are part of his portfolio.

Prior to this role, Thomas Becker held the position Vice President Governmental and External Affairs at the BMW Group in Munich since joining the company in 2007. In this position he was responsible for the worldwide representation of the BMW Group’s political interests, oversaw the company’s approach to integrate political topics into the product and business communication of the BMW Group, and steered the sustainability communication of the company.

Thomas Becker started his career as a Consultant in the department of environmental policy at the Association of the German Industry (BDI) in Berlin. He later held several leadership positions at the Association of the Automobile Industry (VDA) in Frankfurt. Before his current role at the BMW Group, he held the position of Deputy Managing Director of the VDA. Thomas Becker also served as a reserve officer with the rank of Captain from 1988 until 2003 for the German Air Force.

As the Assistant Deputy Minister, Energy Technology Sector at Natural Resources Canada, Drew Leyburne serves as Canada’s senior representative on the Mission Innovation Steering Committee. Prior to his current position, Mr. Leyburne served as Director General in various roles at NRCan, worked at the Privy Council Office, and was an Associate with McKinsey & Co.  He holds degrees from Oxford University and Bishop’s University.

Eric Usher currently heads the UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative, UNEP FI, a global partnership bringing together the UN with 230 banks, insurers and asset managers working to develop the sustainable finance and responsible investment agendas. Eric oversees governance, strategy and day-to-day management of UNEP FI’s work programme and global network development. Over the years UNEP FI has established some of the most important sustainability oriented frameworks within the finance industry, including the Principles for Responsible Investment (2006), the Principles for Sustainable Insurance (2012) and work now underway on the establishment of Principles for Responsible Banking. Since joining in 2015, Mr. Usher has focused on accelerating the deep integration of sustainability risks into financial practice, including addressing climate change, natural capital loss and human rights abuses, as well as building out the frameworks for positive impact finance needed to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Eric sits on several industry bodies including as UN representative on the Board of the Principles for Responsible Investment, as a member of the Evaluation Council of the French sovereign green bond, as Director for the impact fund REPP Africa and founder of the Seed Capital Assistance Facility.

Prior to leading UNEP FI, Mr. Usher has over twenty years of experience in the low carbon sectors, spanning technology commercialisation in Canada, solar rural electrification in Morocco and financial sector development across emerging markets. During 2011, Mr. Usher worked on the establishment of the Green Climate Fund and led efforts to create its Private Sector Facility. Eric has been an editor of the Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment report published annually with Bloomberg and was lead author for finance of the IPCC Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources. Before joining the UN, Eric was General Manager of a solar rural electrification company based in Morocco.

Eugene is managing director of Green Hydrogen at Johnson Matthey. He has been with JM for four years and recently moved from his role leading business development, strategy and innovation within JM’s Efficient Natural Resources Sector, where he focused on a pipeline of innovative low carbon technologies including those for clean hydrogen. Prior to joining JM he spent more than 20 years in Shell in a variety of roles including technology, commercialization and strategy.

Eva Zabey leads Business for Nature, a global coalition aiming to unify the business voice to call for action to reverse nature loss and restore the planet’s vital natural systems on which economies, wellbeing and prosperity depend. Previously, Eva led multiple projects at the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) for 15 years, including leading work on natural, social and human capital measurement, valuation for business decision-making towards integrated performance management, and reporting for investors. She led the development of the Natural Capital Protocol on behalf of the Natural Capital Coalition, as well as the establishment of the new Social and Human Capital Coalition.

Eva holds a bachelor’s degree in Ecology from Imperial College London and a master’s degree in Environmental Management from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). In 2012, she completed a University of London on-line course on Environmental Valuation Techniques and delivered a TEDx Talk on valuing nature in business.

Prof. Federico Cinquepalmi (PhD) holds a degree in Architecture and Planning from the IUAV University of Venice – Italy (1994) and a PhD in Engineering (Science and Technology for Industrial innovation) from the Sapienza University of Rome – Italy (October 2005 – March 2008). Since April 2009 he is a full time researcher/technologist of the Italian National Agency for Environmental protection and Research in Rome (Italy) presently posted at the Ministry for University and Research (MUR) as director of the Office for Internationalization of Higher education (since 2015). Previously got the position of Director of the office for promotion, programming and coordination of international research (2010-2015)

François Austin is a Partner at Oliver Wyman leading the Global Energy Practice and co-leading the Firm’s Climate & Sustainability Practice; with 25 years industry and consultancy experience specializing in Oil & Gas and Utility clients, working globally across North America, Europe and the Middle East.

He advises on a range of climate related initiatives, including portfolio alignment, capital allocation and operational decarbonization projects across energy and related industries, climate related risk strategy projects and the shaping of climate related narratives addressing the needs on broad stakeholder communities.

François has contributed to various management books, including The Discipline of Market Leaders, Surfing on the Edge of Chaos  and co-authored Strategic Thinking in Tactical Times with Joe Divanna. He is a frequent conference speaker and commentator in the press. And in 2020, he was named one of Business Insider’s Top 100 People Transforming Business.

Prior to Oliver Wyman, François was a founding Director of Corven, a global management consulting and financial advisory firm acquired by Oliver Wyman in 2013. He is a Non-Executive Director of the Yattendon Group and a Board member of the World Energy Council.

Gavin Newsom is the Governor of California, former Lieutenant Governor of California, and former Mayor of San Francisco.
Newsom is widely recognized for his willingness to lead – repeatedly developing, advocating, and implementing innovative and groundbreaking solutions to some of our most challenging issues. On a wide range of topics including same-sex marriage, gun safety, marijuana, the death penalty, universal health care, access to preschool, technology, criminal justice reform, and the minimum wage, Newsom stuck his neck out and did the right thing, which often led to sweeping changes when his policies were ultimately accepted, embraced, and replicated across the state and nation.
Newsom’s top priorities for his administration are tackling our state’s affordability crisis, creating inclusive economic growth and opportunity for every child, and standing up for California values — from civil rights, to immigration, environmental protection, access to quality schools at all levels, and justice.
Governor Newsom is married to Jennifer Siebel Newsom. They have four children: Montana, Hunter, Brooklynn, and Dutch.

Gregor is a leader and entrepreneur in politics and business who’s committed to building a healthy, biodiverse world with vibrant, green, inclusive cities. He is Global Ambassador of @Mayors4Climate, helping the 10,000+ cities in the Global Covenant of Mayors tackle climate and energy challenges. Gregor served three terms as Mayor of Vancouver from 2008-2018. During his tenure Vancouver’s economy led the country and the city achieved record-setting years for building housing, childcare and job space, growing public transit ridership and investment, and achieving the lowest carbon emissions in North America.

Gregor chaired Canada’s Big City Mayors Caucus, the Mayors Council on Regional Transportation, and was Host Mayor of the 2010 Olympics. Prior to his decade as Mayor, he was elected to the BC Parliament from 2005-8, and he was an organic farmer and entrepreneur, co-founding and leading Happy Planet Foods, Canada’s leading fresh juice, smoothie and soup brand. Gregor is a father of four, an avid adventurer in the great outdoors, and loves arts, culture and team sports.

Dr. Yasmine Fouad was appointed Minister of Environment of the Arabic Republic of Egypt on 18 June 2018. She was previously Assistant Minister of Environment since 2014.holds MSc in Environmental Science and PhD in Political Science – Euro Mediterranean Studies. She has more than 20 years’ experience in Environment and International cooperation, working in Government, UN organizations, NGOs and Universities.

Haldis Holst is Deputy General Secretary of Education International where she is responsible for EI’s work in the areas of human and trade union rights, equality, and solidarity programs. Haldis was born in Oslo, Norway in 1960. She graduated as a teacher in 1983, after majoring in English and Physical Education. She has worked as a teacher in primary and secondary schools and has been a union representative at local, regional and national level. In 2001, she became Vice-President of Norsk Lærerlag (NL). After the merger of the two largest teacher unions in Norway in 2002, she was an Executive Board member and later Vice President of Utdanningsforbundet (Union of Education Norway). Haldis has also served as Norway’s representative on the ETUCE Committee and been a member of the Executive Board of Education International. She was Vice President of EI from 2009 – 2012. Equality issues and minority rights are close to her heart and she strongly believes in the role trade unions can play in building and sustaining, democratic and inclusive societies. Human rights are the basis for such societies and every child’s right to quality education at the core of it all.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Environment and Climate of Sweden Ms. Isabella Lövin has served as Minister for International Development as well as a Member of the European Parliament. Together with the Indian Minister for Environment, Forests and Climate Change, Mr. Prakash Javadekar, Minister Lövin heads the Leadership Group for Industry Transition (LeadIT). The group gathers countries and companies that are committed to reaching net zero carbon emissions from industry by 2050.

Mr. Jan Vapaavuori became the Mayor of Helsinki in June 2017. From 2003 to 2015 Mr. Vapaavuori was a Member of Parliament. From 2012 to 2015 he served as Minister of Economic Affairs and in 2007 – 2011 as Minister of Housing. From 2015 to 2017 he worked as Vice President of the European Investment Bank. Mr. Vapaavuori graduated as Master of Law from the University of Helsinki. He holds an Honorary Doctoral Degree from Hanken School of Economics.

Jennifer Layke is the Global Director, Energy Program at World Resources Institute. Jennifer leads a team of over 40 energy specialists around the world demonstrating approaches to deploying energy efficiency, renewable energy and energy access solutions. Her work has focused on innovative energy procurement paths for corporate and city use of clean energy.

Jennifer co-founded the Building Efficiency Accelerator (BEA), a public private collaboration of over 35 partners supporting 30 cities implementing efficiency policies and projects in support of the Sustainable Energy for All Initiative (SEforALL). Her pioneering U.S. Green Power Market Development Group created in 2000 was an early foundation for nearly two decades of corporate renewable energy procurement efforts. She led WRI’s work on U.S. cap and trade design from 2006-2009 in the U.S. Climate Action Partnership.

From 2010-2014, Jennifer created and directed Johnson Controls’ Institute for Building Efficiency, a global initiative to provide information and analyses on the technologies, policies, and practices to deliver high performance buildings.

Jennifer’s international experience includes consulting for the World Bank and the U.S. EPA on technology transfer for ozone layer protection under the Montreal Protocol. In 1990, she was awarded a Thomas J. Watson Foundation fellowship for a year of sociology research in Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan.

She has an A.B. in Asian Studies/Political Studies from Pitzer College in Claremont, CA, and was a student at Nanjing University, China during her undergraduate years. She also has an M.S. and MBA from the University of Michigan’s Erb Institute for Sustainability.

Jennifer Morgan took the helm of Greenpeace International in April 2016. She was formerly the Global Director of the Climate Program at the World Resources Institute. A climate activist, she has been a leader of large teams at major organisations, and her other ports of call have included the Worldwide Fund for Nature, Climate Action Network, and E3G.

John has worked in each of the world’s principal financial centers advising senior management in financial services and the public sector on critical matters of strategy, regulation, and risk and capital management.

He is a co-leader of Oliver Wyman’s Climate and Sustainability platform while also serving on Marsh & McLennan’s Climate Risk and Sustainability Task Force and Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance Committee.

John led our project team assisting the United Nations Environment Programme – Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) and a working group of 16 leading banks to develop a framework to assess and disclose climate-related risk factors.  He serves as a member of the Climate-Related Market Risk Subcommittee (Climate Subcommittee) of the CFTC’s Market Risk Advisory Committee (MRAC). John worked closely with this expert subcommittee in helping to author the report,  Managing Climate Risk in the U.S. Financial System.  He also serves on the GARP Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR) Advisory Committee.

He is a member of The Economic Club of New York, The Foreign Policy Association, the AFS-USA President’s Council, and an Advisory Board member of the Huntsman Program at the University of Pennsylvania. John graduated magna cum laude from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He also studied at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris (SciencesPo) as a Rotary Foundation Scholar.

Karine Hertzberg is Special advisor for international climate cooperation for the City of Oslo. She has worked in climate and policy for several years, previously being a senior advisor for the ministry for climate and environment in Norway and Counselor for climate and environment in Norway’s embassy to the US.

LI Yong, Director General of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), has had an extensive career as a senior economic and financial policy-maker. As Vice-Minister of Finance of the People’s Republic of China and member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Central Bank for a decade, Mr. Li was involved in setting and harmonizing fiscal, monetary and industrial policies, and in supporting sound economic growth in China. He pushed forward financial sector reform, and prompted major financial institutions to establish corporate governance, deal with toxic assets and strengthen risk management. Mr. Li gave great importance to fiscal and financial measures in favor of agricultural development and SMEs, the cornerstones for creating economic opportunities, reducing poverty and promoting gender equality. He played a key role in China’s cooperation with multilateral development organizations, such as the World Bank Group and the Asian Development Bank.

Education : Electrical Engineer and Diploma in Executive Management Programme 

Tata Steel : Nearly 28 years of experience of working in numerous profiles across Tata Steel including Information Technology Services Department, Executive Officer to ex-Managing Director of Tata Steel. Chief Infrastructure Planning & Development for Tata Steel Plant in Jamshedpur and now in current role of Chief of Corporate Sustainability, Tata Steel India since July’ 2016.  

Representing Tata Steel in various forums (Worldsteel, TERI, UNGC India Network ) and Industry associations (Confederation of Indian Industries) on subjects related to Sustainability. Elected as Vice President Eastern Region for UN Global Compact India Network for 2nd time. Leads the CII Jharkhand’s sub committee on Environment and Sustainability. 

Recognized as one of the top 25 Sustainability Superwoman in Asia by CSR Works, Singapore in 2019

Magdi Batato is a Swiss national. He joined Nestlé in 1991 as engineer and moved to Germany, Lebanon and South Africa as factory manager. He was transferred to Malaysia as Executive Director of Production and moved to Nestlé UK & Ireland as Head of Group Technical. Later on, he was appointed CEO of Nestlé in Pakistan & Afghanistan. Since October 2015, Magdi is Executive Vice President Nestlé S.A. and Head of Operations. Magdi is representing Nestlé on the executive committee of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, is a member of the Swiss Academy of Technical Sciences and is Chairman of IDH.

Marco Lambertini is Director General of WWF International, having first worked with WWF as a youth volunteer in his native Italy. As the head of the largest and most respected nature conservation organization, he works with world leaders, corporate executives and civil society to forge a future in which people and nature thrive. He sits on the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED) chaired by the Ministry of Environment, is an international ambassador of the Food and Land Use Coalition (FOLU), a founding member of the Nature Action Agenda and Friends of Ocean Action of the World Economic Forum (WEF), Business for Nature Coalition (BfN) and the Global Commons Alliance.

He leads a global Network with nearly 60 years of environmental conservation successes, five million supporters, 35 million followers on social media and activities in over 100 countries, running around 3,000 local projects per year as well as global initiatives like Earth Hour engaging millions and reaching billions of people annually.

Prior to joining WWF, he served as Chief Executive of BirdLife International where he coordinated a global partnership of over 120 civil society organizations based in countries and territories in all continents. Marco’s experience and career ranges from ecological field research to international policy, nature reserve management, integrated conservation and development projects, environmental education, NGO development communications and campaigning, in many countries all over the world.

Margaret is currently serving as the Interim Global Conservation Director for WWF, International. This role is critical in driving the organization’s strategies, developing and implementing key initiatives, and ensuring conservation impact globally. Prior to this she led WWF’s Finance Practice, providing strategic direction and leadership to WWF’s global engagement with the finance sector. Before joining WWF, Margaret was Vice President of Investment Policy at the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and was a member of the team that established and implemented the U.S. Government’s Millennium Challenge Corporation. She has broad sectoral experience in sustainable investment, project finance, and grant making. Margaret is based in Washington DC.

Mark Gough is the CEO of the Capitals Coalition, a global collaboration of business, governments and civil society that is transforming the way that decisions are made by including the value provided by nature and people. 

Previously, Mark led the Natural Capital Coalition and was on the board of the Social and Human Capital Coalition. He championed and delivered the bringing together of these two communities, creating a unified, systemic, collaborative approach.

Mark has worked extensively in the private sector, leading programs and strategy for the Crown Estate and Reed Elsevier (now RELX), as well as advising many more. 

Among other board and advisory positions, Mark is on the Advisory Board for TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity), a member of the Steering Committee of the United Nations CEO Water Mandate and an advisor on the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy.

Passionate about social, economic and environmental justice for human development, Maruxa specialises in integrated urban and territorial development. Over the past 18 years, Maruxa has worked with multilateral institutions, national and sub-national governments, NGOs and philanthropy in more than 30 countries across continents to develop public policies, capacity projects, and multi-stakeholder partnerships that advance sustainability and equitable prosperity.

Mindy Lubber is the CEO and President of the sustainability nonprofit organization Ceres. She leads an all-women executive leadership team and 125 employees working to mobilize the most influential investors and companies to tackle the world’s biggest sustainability challenges: climate change, water scarcity and pollution, and inequitable workplaces.  She has been at the helm since 2003, and under her leadership, the organization and its powerful networks have grown significantly in size and influence.

As a well-known global thought leader, Lubber has inspired coalitions of institutional investors, corporate boards, C-suite executives and other capital market leaders to factor environmental, social and governance issues into decision-making. She is frequently quoted in top business and financial news outlets and pens a regular column for Forbes.com on a variety of sustainability topics that have strengthened the business case for action and elevated concepts, such as climate and water risk. She also regularly speaks to high-level world and national political leaders on clean energy and water policies, and has helped to change the political conversation around tackling climate change to one focused on jobs and the economy. And in 2015, Lubber helped catalyze the necessary business support to get the historic Paris Agreement across the finish line, leading Vogue Magazine to name her a “Climate Warrior.”

Lubber has received numerous awards for her leadership including the Climate Visionary Award from the Earth Day Network, William K. Reilly Award for Environmental Leadership from American University, and the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship from the Skoll Foundation. She has been recognized by the United Nations and the Foundation for Social Change as one of the World’s Top Leaders of Change. In 2019, Ceres was named a top 100 women-led businesses in Massachusetts by the Globe Magazine and Commonwealth Institute, and in 2020, Lubber made Barron’s Magazine’s inaugural list of the 100 most influential women in U.S. finance.

Prior to Ceres, Lubber served as a Regional Administrator at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under former President Bill Clinton. She also founded Green Century Capital Management and served as the director of the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group (MASSPIRG).

She resides in Brookline, Mass., with her husband Norman Stein. She has two children, Abe and Jessie.

Morten Nordskag is appointed Political Adviser to Ms Lan Marie Berg, Vice Mayor of Environment and Transport, representing the Green Party. Before this appointment, he was Special Adviser in the Climate Unit at City Hall where he was in charge of the City of Oslo’s international engagement on climate and environment. Among his previous positions he has been Chief of Staff to two Norwegian Ministers of Environment, Policy Director for Climate Finance with the Norwegian International Climate and Forest Initiative, Deputy Permanent Representative for Norway to the UN Environment Programme and UN-Habitat. In total Morten has been working with climate change and environmental issues for nearly 20 years. He has a MSC in International Relations, specializing in Environmental Politics.

Nick (Nicholas) Nuttall is currently the International Strategic Communications Director of EarthDay.org and TV presenter/Communications Director for social climate platform We Don’t Have Time.

He is the former Director of Communications and Outreach, Speechwriter and Spokesperson for the UN Environment headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change headquartered in Bonn, Germany. Nick was the official UN spokesperson for the landmark Paris Agreement of 2015.

Before joining the United Nations, he was the Environment and Technology correspondent at The Times from 1989 to 2000, having worked for various newspapers and magazines including The Daily Telegraph, The Independent the Evening Standard and London Evening News, Woman and Cosmopolitan.

After leaving the UN in 2018, Nick became Director of Communications and Spokesperson for the Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS) which took place in September 2018.

Nick participated in the New American Road Trip which left San Francisco at the of the Summit and took the outcomes of GCAS in an electric car journey across the United States to the UN in New York in September 2019.

Nick is a member of the advisory board of the environmental arts initiative ArtPort; chair of the jury for the TVE Global Sustainability Film Awards; visiting professor at the University of Tongji in Shanghai, China; a backing vocalist with the German Bernadette La Hengst band and a passionate fan of English premier league football team Burnley.

Nick joined the Grantham Research Institute in February 2018 as Professor in Practice for Sustainable Finance. Nick leads the sustainable finance research theme. The focus of his work is on how to mobilise finance for a just transition, the role of central banks and regulators in achieving sustainable development and how the financial system can support the restoration of nature.

From 2014 to 2018, Nick was co-director of UN Environment’s Inquiry into a Sustainable Finance System. As part of this, Nick led country activities in Brazil, the EU, India, Italy and the UK, as well as thematic work focused on investors, insurance and green banking.

Before joining UNEP, he was Head of the Climate Change Centre of Excellence at HSBC. Prior to HSBC, Nick was head of Sustainable and Responsible Investment (SRI) funds at Henderson Global Investors. Nick has also worked at the International Institute for Environment and Development, the European Commission and the Business Council for Sustainable Development.

Nick has a BA in History from Cambridge University and an MSc in International Relations from LSE.

Founder at Thinking the Unthinkable. International broadcaster. Moderator of public/private conferences (corporate/government). http://www.thinkunthink.org/

35 year analytical expertise in diplomacy, defence, international security.
– Main news presenter, the BBC’s international 24-hour news channel BBC World News 1996-2014.
– presented The Hub with Nik Gowing, BBC World Debates, Dateline London , plus location coverage of major global stories.
– 1979-1996 ITN : bureau chief in Rome/Warsaw’
– Diplomatic Editor Channel 4 News (1988-1996).
– BAFTA award for coverage of Martial Law in Poland 1981

Councils/boards
– Chatham House (1998–2004)
– Royal United Services Institute (2005–present)
– Overseas Development Institute (2007-2014)
– Westminster Foundation for Democracy inc vice chair (1996-2005)
– Wilton Park (1998-2012 )
– Hay Festival

Much sought-after analytical expertise on failures to manage information in new transparent environments of conflicts, crises, emergencies and tension. Peer-reviewed study at Oxford University is “Skyful of Lies and Black Swans”. Predicts new vulnerability, fragility and brittleness of institutional power in the new all-pervasive public information space.

Ongoing “Thinking the Unthinkable” study reveals candidly why so many leaders face new difficulties identifying what looms in the disruptions of the “new normal”. The findings are scary. Based on hundreds of interviews, inc 60 top level confidential interviews of corporate/public service leaders, plus new generation of millennials.

2014- Visiting Professor, Kings College, London in School of Social Science and Public Policy.

Member World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Geo-Economics.

Honorary Doctorates – Exeter University 2012; Bristol University 2015 for ongoing cutting edge analyses and distinguished career in international journalism.

1994: Fellow Kennedy School of Government, Harvard.

Oliver Johnson is Head of Climate, Energy and Society Unit at SEI Headquarters in Stockholm. He is also Head of Secretariat for the Leadership Group for Industry Transition, an initiative led by the Governments of India and Sweden that brings together countries and companies committed to reaching net zero carbon emissions from industry by 2050. Oliver has over 12 years’ experience in the field of sustainable energy and climate change, focusing on low-carbon innovation, energy sector governance and industry decarbonization.

He has undertaken work in research, policy advice, consultancy, teaching and development project management across the globe and at many levels, from grassroots NGOs to international organizations. Oliver’s research interests lie in understanding complexities associated with transitioning to more sustainable energy systems and how different actors seek to shape and frame the process. In particular, he is concerned with how new technologies and services are diffused within society and how to address deeper barriers to diffusion associated with technologies, infrastructures, markets, government policies and regulation, user practices, social norms and cultural meaning.

Oliver joined SEI in August 2013, spending four years at the SEI Africa Centre in Nairobi and one and a half years at the SEI Asia Centre in Bangkok, before moving to SEI HQ in Stockholm in December 2018. Prior to joining SEI, Oliver worked for the German Development Institute (DIE) in Bonn and at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Geneva.

Oliver has a Ph.D. in Science and Technology Policy Studies from SPRU (Science & Technology Policy Research) at the University of Sussex. His doctoral work focused on ownership and knowledge in electricity reform in Ghana and Tanzania. He also has an MA in International Studies from the University Leeds and a BSc (Hons) in Physics from the University of Nottingham.

Pradyumna has over 20 years’ experience in the engineering and technology sector, working in a number of roles, ranging from new business development to operations. Pradyumna joined Mitie from Schneider Electric, where he served as Vice President of Digital Energy for UK & Ireland, responsible for developing energy management and optimisation services. Prior to this, Pradyumna worked for The Tata Group and Honeywell Building Solutions, where he held commercial and operational roles for advanced software engineering services, covering the manufacturing and construction sectors.

Rana is the Chief of the Energy Systems and Infrastructure Division at UNIDO where she is oversees the organization’s strategy and programmes in promoting a low carbon infrastructure powering industrialization and the decarbonization of industry. She has a long standing experience of 20 years in designing and implementing programmes in the energy sector in Africa and the MENA region. She also leads on behalf of UNIDO global initiatives such as the industrial energy accelerator.

Sean Kidney is the CEO of the Climate Bonds Initiative (CB), an international NGO working to mobilize global capital to finance climate solutions. Projects include a green bond definitions and certification scheme with $34 trillion of assets represented on its Board and some 50 organisations involved in its development and governance; advising the EU; and working with China’s central bank on how to grow green bonds in China.

Working with Climate Bond Partners in the investment and banking community in 30 countries around the world, CBI aims to reduce market friction and improve risk differentiation for green investments. That includes advocacy around standards; issuer support for bond market development; and policy interventions that promote green finance solutions. Partners include major investors such as BlackRock, SSGA, PIMCO, Allianz GI and PGGM; major banks such as HSBC, Standard Chartered, Citi, Barclays, BNP Paribas and RBC; and Government Ministries in Switzerland and France.

Shiva is currently working at the European Investment Bank (EIB) in Luxembourg, where she is heading the Research, Development and Innovation Advisory Services, a new joint initiative with the European Commission (DG R&I). She has been at the EIB since 2003, first in its Risk Management Directorate, then in its EU Lending Directorate where she was responsible for financing of R&D projects using the Risk Sharing Finance Facility (RSFF).

Before joining the EIB, Shiva worked at Fitch as Director of High Yield where she was responsible for developing the agency’s European High Yield rating business. Prior to Fitch, Shiva worked from 1993-1999 at the M&A Advisory of J.P. Morgan in New York and then in its Investment Banking Group in London. She was also co-founder of the European High Yield Association in 2000 which is now part of the Association of Financial Markets in Europe (AFME).

Shiva graduated from Columbia University (NY) in Economics with Magna cum Laude and holds an Executive MBA from London Business School (LBS).

Simon King is Director of Sustainability and Social Value at Mitie, the UK’s leading facilities management company. Simon is responsible for leading Mitie’s industry-leading ‘Plan Zero’ commitment to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2025. This includes a pledge to switch its entire fleet of 5,500 cars and vans to ultra-low emission vehicles by the same date.

Prior to joining Mitie, Simon held many senior roles in procurement and fleet management, including Global CPO for Tata Global Beverages, Group Procurement Director for Dairy Crest and across multiple areas for Coca-Cola Enterprises.

Sonja leads the IIF’s work on sustainable finance and sovereign debt policy, focusing on research and advocacy for the Institute’s global membership across the financial services industry.  Her research interests include the economic impact and financial market pricing of climate and ESG risks, debt sustainability and market development in emerging markets, and sustainable investment.  She oversees the IIF Weekly Insight, which offers a concise perspective on global financial markets with an ESG lens, and the IIF Global Debt Monitor, which looks across mature and emerging economies for debt-related vulnerabilities such as the rapid buildup in EM corporate debt levels.  Her policy work on behalf of the IIF includes advocacy and liaison efforts vis-à-vis the G20, the multilaterals, global regulators and standard setters, and the Central Banks and Supervisors Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS).

Sonja has spent over 20 years in banking and financial markets, most recently with Nomura International in London, where she was Chief Equity Strategist. Previously she was Head of East European Economics and Senior European Bond Analyst, also for Nomura.  Earlier positions include stints as a U.S. economist and bank credit analyst in New York and Los Angeles. She has an MBA and BA from the University of California, Berkeley.  Sonja’s work is widely cited in the financial press; she is a regular speaker on sustainable finance and global debt issues at industry conferences and in the media. She also hosts the popular series of IIF Climate Finance Workshops and ESG Webinars.

Sonja’s aim in life is to show that the sustainable choice is the better choice, rather than the “green” one. With a background in psychology, she specialises in the design of behaviour-change programmes that reduce environmental impact. Intent on closing the gap between research and practice, Sonja founded a Behaviour Change working group with four universities (The Real-World Sustainability Research Team) and has authored papers on motivating environmental behaviour. Follow Sonja @Sonja_tweets

Stephane Germain is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of GHGSat whose technology provides actionable greenhouse gas emissions data and insights to various industries. Stéphane founded GHGSat in 2011 to answer a market need for consistent, high quality measurements of greenhouse gas emissions from industrial facilities worldwide. Mr. Germain has been passionate about applying space technology for the good of the Earth for over 25 years.

Prior to founding GHGSat, he held senior management positions in SMEs and large Canadian aerospace corporations. He started his career as an engineer and project manager at Spar Aerospace, and had then the opportunity to work for several years as a consultant at Bain & Company, a leading international strategy consulting firm, working for Fortune 500 companies in industries ranging from forestry to aerospace.
Mr. Germain holds a bachelor’s degree in Engineering Physics from Queen’s University in Canada and an MBA from INSEAD in France.

Steve Kukoda joined the International Copper Association in 2004 and is currently the Executive Director and Corporate Secretary. Steve develops and maintains relationships with organizations external to the copper industry, including governments, NGOs, the UN, Sustainable Energy For All, and more. ICA is the co-founder of United For Efficiency (U4E, www.united4efficiency.org), which is transforming developing world economies towards energy efficiency. Steve is based in Washington, DC. 

Tati is Vice President of Marketing for Unilever largest Home Care business – Dirt For Good, a federation of brands and a coalition of projects which aim at delivering uncompromised top cleaning performance to meet people’s laundry needs, while powering them up to act on the issues they care the most.

Currently based in London, UK, she leads the Dirt For Good equity, design, and innovation programme across the world. Her ambition is to ensure that people shouldn’t have to sacrifice sustainability for top performance, and vice-versa – the two should be synonymous. 

Tati has worked internationally in a wide range of Marketing and Consumer Insights roles, for both Home and Personal Care. In Brazil, she led the Home Care value brands business, making laundry products accessible to millions of low-income consumers across Latin America. In India and the Netherlands, Tati headed the Consumer Insights dept., where she designed and implemented a Strategic Insight Plan for the Unilever Sustainability Plan – including the development of products that significantly reduce the amount of water required in the laundry process.

When working in Personal Care, Tati looked after the Nexxus New York Salon Care business – one of the most sophisticated hair salons in Tribeca, New York; and a range of prestige hair care products. She also led the Naturals Strategy for the Hair Category, which was the starting line for new sustainable brands and variants, including ‘Love, Beauty and Planet’. More recently, Tati led the extension of Dove into the fast-growing therapeutic segment, with Dove DermaSeries with one of the most purposeful-led Dove campaigns – Make peace with your skin.

Tati’s formal academic training is in Marketing and Social Communication at ESPM in Sao Paulo, where she also completed her post-graduation in Customer Relationship Management and Design.

The Honorable Kevin Rudd served as Australia’s 26th Prime Minister (2007-2010, 2013) and as Foreign Minister (2010-2012). He is also a leading international authority on China. He began his career as a China scholar, serving as an Australian diplomat in Beijing before entering Australian politics. As Prime Minister, he led Australia’s response during the Global Financial Crisis, reviewed by the IMF as the most effective stimulus strategy of all member states. Australia was the only major developed economy not to go into recession. Mr. Rudd co‑founded the G20 to drive the global response to the crisis, which in 2009 helped prevent the crisis from spiraling into depression.

Kwasi Kwarteng was appointed Minister of State at the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on 24 July 2019.

Kwasi was Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Department for Exiting the European Union from 16 November 2018 to 24 July 2019.

Kwasi read classics and history at Trinity College, Cambridge, and then attended Harvard University on a Kennedy Scholarship. He earned a PhD in economic history from the University of Cambridge in 2000.

Before becoming a Member of Parliament, Kwasi worked as an analyst in financial services.

Kwasi was elected the Conservative MP for Spelthorne in 2010. From 2010 until 2013 he was a member of the Transport Select Committee, and in 2013 he joined the Work and Pensions Select Committee where he was a member until 2015.

In October 2016 Kwasi joined the Public Accounts Committee, where he was a member until May 2017.

In 2015 Kwasi was appointed as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Leader of the House of Lords, and in 2017 he became Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Thomas Bohner has been CEO of Mitsubishi Power Europe GmbH since April 2019, following on from his role as acting CEO since September 2018. He received his BSc in Mechanical Engineering from Institute of Technology, Biel, Switzerland and MSc in Industrial Economics (BWI) from Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, Switzerland. He started his career at ABB Power from 1993 to 2001, last in the US. He worked at Alstom Power from 2001 to 2009, where he became the factory director. He was transferred to China to assume the role of general manager at Alstom Beizhong Power JV from 2009 to 2014, from 2014-2015 he served as managing director of Wuhan Boiler Company. Upon his return, he became managing director at GE Boiler Deutschland

Thomas Saueressig is a member of the Executive Board of SAP SE. He leads the Board area SAP Product Engineering and has global responsibility for all business software applications. This includes all functional areas from product strategy and management to product development and innovation as well as product delivery and support. He is responsible for a portfolio that includes the SAP S/4HANA suite, SAP Digital Supply Chain, SME, and industry solutions. In addition, SAP Product Engineering is responsible for cloud offerings such as SAP Ariba, SAP Concur, SAP Fieldglass, SAP SuccessFactors, and SAP Customer Experience. Saueressig is also in charge of all development cross-functions at SAP, comprising the global SAP Labs Network, SAP Knowledge & Education, Globalization Services, and SAP User Experience, as well as the overall quality of SAP software products. In addition, the Board area covers SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud as well as SAP’s global cloud infrastructure ensuring a consistent level of scalability, reliability, performance, security, and data protection across all solutions for SAP’s customers.

Before being appointed the head of SAP Product Engineering, Saueressig was chief information officer (CIO) and global head of IT Services at SAP. As CIO, he was responsible for SAP’s IT strategy and execution following a cloud-first approach. Under his leadership, the IT organization pioneered new business models. Prior to that, he led the enterprise mobility efforts including all cross-functions, followed by global responsibility for the IT project delivery and the client IT organization.

Saueressig started his career at SAP in consulting for CRM implementations. He spent several months in SAP Labs North America in Palo Alto, California (USA) and was a Board assistant for several years.

He was included on Fortune’s 40 Under 40 list in 2016. As global sponsor for the SAP Business Women’s Network, the largest employee network at SAP, and for the Women in Tech@SAP initiative, Saueressig supports corporate initiatives for gender equality.

Saueressig has a degree in Business Information Technology from the University of Cooperative Education in Mannheim (Germany) and a joint executive MBA from ESSEC (France) and Mannheim Business School (Germany).

Tim Brooks is Vice President of Environmental Responsibility and the Sustainable Materials Center at the LEGO Group. Based in Billund, Denmark, he heads a global team responsible for the company’s global environmental responsibility strategy, performance and impact of the LEGO Group’s products.

Prior to joining the LEGO Group, Tim worked for Tesco developing new environmental technologies, processes and systems. He has more than 20 years of experience in sustainability with a focus on corporate sustainability strategy with particular knowledge of renewable energy technologies, sustainable buildings and product manufacturing.

Tim started his career in sustainable mechanical & electrical engineering with the Building Research Establishment and has worked for engineering consultancies, FTSE 100 companies, the Carbon Trust, and as an environmental policy advisor to the Mayor of London. He is a trustee of a number of environmental charities and was voted by Fast Company as 15th in the 100 most creative people of 2019.

Urban Angehrn joined the Executive Committee as Group Chief Investment Officer in July 2015. Before taking his current position, he served as Head of Alternative Investments and prior to that, from 2010 to 2012, as Head of Strategy Implementation in Investment Management. He joined Zurich in 2007 as Regional Investment Manager for Europe. Before joining Zurich, he held various positions in capital markets-related roles in the insurance and investment banking industries, including as Head of Allocation & Strategy in asset management at the Winterthur Group. He also served as an adviser to Swiss institutional clients in the use of derivatives, and held positions in derivatives marketing and fixed income sales at Credit Suisse and J.P. Morgan.

Will joined Drax in 2015 as CFO and was appointed as CEO in January 2018. He has a wealth of experience in finance and technology, having held CFO and divisional Finance Director roles at a number of major companies, including CSR plc (acquired by Qualcomm, Inc in 2015) and Sky. Will has a track record of creating value and building well-managed companies. He has been a key architect of our purpose and strategy, driving the sustainability agenda from the top, including Drax’s response to the climate change crisis, and ensuring that we are delivering for our stakeholders. He provides leadership of the executive team and takes responsibility for important external relationships and stakeholder management. Will is also a non-executive board member of the Sustainable Biomass Program.

Will Marshall is the Co-Founder and CEO of Planet. He leads the overall company strategy and direction. Prior to Planet, Will was a Scientist at NASA/USRA where he was a systems engineer on lunar orbiter mission “LADEE”, a member of the science team for the lunar impactor mission “LCROSS”, served as Co-Principal Investigator on PhoneSat, and was the technical lead on research projects in space debris remediation. Will received his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Oxford and his Masters in Physics with S pace Science and Technology from the University of Leicester. Will was a Postdoctoral Fellow at George Washington University and Harvard.

Zack Parisa is the co-founder and CEO of SilviaTerra, a climate tech company bringing gigatons of new forest carbon credits to market. SilviaTerra partnered with Microsoft AI for Earth to create the first high-resolution forest map of the US. By measuring every acre of forest every year, they are pioneering data-driven markets for carbon and other types of natural capital. Zack developed SilviaTerra’s core technology during his research at the Yale School of Forestry, and has spent a decade working with America’s largest landowners. He is a forester and biometrician by training. Mission-driven companies can buy forest carbon credits from American landowners through SilviaTerra’s Natural Capital Exchange (NCAPX).

Dr. Ould-Dada is currently Deputy Director in the Office of Climate Change, Biodiversity and Environment at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome. Before joining FAO, he worked as Head of Technology Unit at UNEP in Paris for 5 years. Prior to that, he worked for the British Government for 15 years holding several senior positions at Department of Energy and Climate Change; Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Food Standards Agency; Environment Agency; and Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food. He also worked for the French Government on international climate change during France Presidency of the European Union in 2008.

His 23 years international work experience covers a wide range of fields including climate change; energy policy; technology and innovation; agriculture and food security; environmental policy; radiation protection; and the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development.

Dr. Ould-Dada is renowned internationally for his strong diplomatic and moderating skills and ability to build collaborative partnerships. His international responsibilities include UK Lead Negotiator on technology and Chair of climate change negotiations under the UNFCCC; Chair of European Union Expert Group on Technology; Chair of IRENA’s Policy and Strategy Committee; Member of International Energy Agency’s Renewable Energy Working Party; Member of UN Inter-Agency Task Team for implementation of Technology Facilitation Mechanism under the 2030 Agenda; and Member of UN Inter-Agency Task Team to develop a UN System-wide Approach to Climate Action for the UN Secretary General’s Climate Action Summit 2019.

Dr. Ould-Dada has a BSc in Environmental Engineering from Institut Universitaire de Technologie, Perpignan, France; Master Degree in Environmental Management and Planning, Université de Rennes, France; and PhD in Radiation Protection from Imperial College, London, UK.