Sustainable Investment Forum Europe 2023

Anna Hyrske is the Principal Responsible Investment Specialist at The Bank of Finland since July 2020. She has over 20 years of finance industry and ESG experience from various positions such as credit analyst, portfolio manager, ESG specialist and Head of Asian Operations (Hong Kong) at Ilmarinen, a Finnish multi-asset pension insurance company where she used to work before joining the Finnish central bank. She has co-authored three responsible investment books. The most recent, ”The Responsible Investor, An Introductory Guide to Responsible Investment”, was published by Routledge in late 2022. She has also written her master thesis on integrating ESG considerations into investment decision making (2004).

A former graduate in Maths (Ecole Normale Supérieure) and Political Sciences (Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris), Claire Tutenuit is an Ingénieur au Corps des Mines.

As such she started her career in the Ministry of Industry in 1982. She joined business in 1987, first in the sector of environment (Compagnie Générale des Eaux, now Veolia) and later in the aerospace sector (Matra, now Airbus), where she spent 10 years with business development and strategy responsibilities. Since 2001 she has been an independent consultant in strategy, organisation and environment in these same sectors.

She has been the Chief representative (Déléguée Générale) of Entreprises pour l’Environnement (EpE) since the end of 2005. The French partner of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), EpE is a think tank of some 60 companies that share the vision of environment as a source of progress and opportunities, and work together to better take it into account in their management and strategies.

Claire Tutenuit has written a book and various articles; she is a member of the Board of Fondation pour la Nature et l’Homme, of Ineris and of GRDF.

David Atkin was appointed CEO of the Principles for Responsible Investment in December 2021. The PRI is a UN-supported organisation, with more than 5,000 signatories who collectively represent over US $121 trillion in AUM. He is responsible for the PRI’s global operations.

Most recently, David served as the Deputy CEO for AMP Capital and prior to that spent almost 13 years as the CEO for Cbus Superannuation Fund where he saw membership grow from 500,000 to over 750,000 and AUM rise to AUD $55 billion.

David has received the Distinguished Alumni Award from La Trobe University for his work in the sustainable finance field, was awarded the Fund Executives Association Ltd (FEAL) Fund Executive of the Year in 2017 and was presented with an Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) Life Membership in 2020. He served on the board of the Climate Council until December 2021.

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.

Günther Thallinger joined Allianz Group in May 2009.

He has been a Member of the Board of Management of Allianz SE since 2017, responsible for Investment Management and the Center of Competence Life & Health.

In 2018 he additionally assumed responsibility for steering ESG topics within Allianz. He is the chairman of the United Nations-convened Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance (AOA).

Until his appointment to the Board of Management, Günther Thallinger acted as CEO, and before that as CFO, of Allianz Investment Management SE and was Chairman of the Allianz Investment Management Board.

Before joining Allianz, he was principal at McKinsey&Company. Born in Austria, Günther Thallinger graduated with a BSc from the Technical University Graz and a MSc from the Technical University Vienna in technical mathematics. He holds a PhD in applied mathematics from the Technical University Vienna.

Joël PROHIN (56) heads the investment management department of Caisse des Dépôts (CDC) within the Asset Management Division. He is responsible for ca. 225 bn€ of AuM, invested in fixed income, equities, real estate, private equity, infrastructures and forestry, mostly managed internally. He manages 5 asset management teams (85 people in staff). He is also member of the French institutional investors association (Af2i) Strategic Committee on behalf of CDC and head of the Responsible investment commission of this association.

Before joining CDC in 2011, Joël was head of investment strategy division in Allianz France. He worked beforehand in ALM, both in the insurance sector (AGF) and in the banking sector (Crédit National).

Joël studied economics, finance and statistics; he graduated in 1988 from ENSAE (Ecole Nationale de la Statistique et de l’Administration Economique) and from University Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne.

Nathalie Lhayani, President of the French SIF (FIR)

Nathalie is also Director of Sustainable Policy for the Caisse des Dépôts Group. In this capacity, she coordinates the responsible investment policy, climate, biodiversity, SDGs and ESG reporting of all CDC Group entities.

She is a member of Novethic‘s Strategic Committee and a director of CDC Biodiversité and of ORSE (French CSR association).

Aged 46, she is a graduate of the Institut de Hautes Études Internationales in Geneva and the University of Paris IX Dauphine, in applied economics and development.

She has held various positions in European and international civil society (at the International Center for Trade and Sustainable Development, Confrontations Europe, EurActiv France as founder) and in European and national institutions. In France, she was notably advisor to the Minister of Ecological Transition and Solidarity (2017-2019), to the Minister Delegate in charge of European Affairs (2012-2014) and head of the parliamentary sector of the General Secretariat for European Affairs at the Prime Minister’s Office (2014-2016). During the COP21, she participated, as part of a mission at Caisse des Dépôts, in the creation of Climate Finance Day and the mobilisation of sustainable finance actors to redirect capital towards a low-carbon economy.

Olivier Rousseau is executive director at Fonds de réserve pour les retraites (FRR), France’s pension reserve fund, where he also chairs the asset manager selection committee. Before joining FRR in 2011, he was attached to the French Embassy in Sweden as an economic advisor, a position he took up after two years on the board of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Rousseau began his career at the French Treasury, eventually joining BNP Paribas where he spent 11 years working in international banking and finance in Paris, Tokyo, London, Singapore, Hong Kong and Sydney offices. He graduated from the French National School of Administration (ENA) in 1986. He also holds a degree in political sciences and master degrees in law and economics from the University of Aix-en-Provence. 

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres appointed Mr. Simon Stiell of Grenada as Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on 15 August 2022.  The appointment was made after consultation with the Conference of the Parties through its Bureau.

Mr. Stiell served as senior minister in the Government of Grenada from 2013 until June 2022, holding the portfolio of Minister for Climate Resilience and the Environment for five years. He previously served as Minister for Education and Human Resource Development, Minister of State with responsibility for human resource development and the environment and as a Parliamentary Secretary within the Ministry of Agriculture, Lands, Forestry and Fisheries.  He also served as a member of Grenada’s Upper House of Parliament, the Senate, where he served as Leader of Government Business.

Prior to joining government, Mr. Stiell’s career spanned some fourteen years within the technology sector, holding senior executive positions in a number of industry leading companies, from Silicon Valley based technology start-ups to major corporations, including Nokia and GEC Plessey Telecommunications.

Mr. Stiell originally trained as an engineer at London Metropolitan University and College of North West London, and holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of Westminster in the United Kingdom.

Dr Tony Rooke is Executive Director and Head of Transition Planning at GFANZ. He is GFANZ’s technical lead across work in corporate transition, co-ordinating insight and guidance with financial institutions and civil society representatives, ensuring that financial institutions can understand the scale and timing that specific sectors need for transition finance, including aviation, steel, and oil and gas.

Prior to GFANZ, Tony was Senior Director for Transition Risk at WTW, where he led net-zero transition, TCFD and decarbonisation strategy advisory, and helped formulate the principles and methodology for the transition plan accreditation scheme: Climate Transition Pathways.

Tony has over 25 years of global experience in climate change, sustainability, strategy, advisory and programme delivery. Prior to WTW, he was global Director for Disclosure at CDP (formerly Carbon Disclosure Project) responsible for defining, delivering and assessing climate disclosures from over half of the world’s companies by market capitalisation, and thousands of cities globally. He has led sustainability consulting practices, and conceived and led an award winning environmental programme at Logica.