Climate Risk Asia Week

Chung Keeyong joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) in 1993 and is currently the director-general for climate change, Energy, Environment and Scientific Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA).

He became the first secretary of the Korean Embassy in Japan in 2004, the counsellor, Korean Embassy in the Republic of Bulgaria in 2011 and minister-counsellor, Korean Embassy in the United States of America.

Chung Keeyong has held the position of director, international legal affairs division, International Legal Affairs Bureau, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MOFAT) from 2011-2013. Before taking his current position, he was the director of governance, Global Green Growth Institute, Seoul, Korea.

Hoesung Lee was elected chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2015. He is also Endowed Chair Professor at Korea University Graduate School of Energy and Environment in Seoul. His research encompasses the economics of climate change, energy and sustainable development. Professor Lee is a board member of the Korean Academy of Environmental Sciences, council member of the Global Green Growth Institute, and a member of the Asian Development Bank President’s Advisory Board on Climate Change and Sustainable Development. He was the founding president of the Korea Energy Economics Institute, a government agency for national energy policy development.

Mark Carney is UN special envoy for climate action and finance and prime minister Johnson’s finance adviser for COP26.

Mr Carney was previously governor of the Bank of England (from 2013 to 2020), and before that governor of the Bank of Canada (from 2008 to
2013).

Internationally, Mr Carney was chair of the Financial Stability Board (from 2011 to 2018), chaired the Global Economy Meeting and Economic Consultative Committee of the Bank for International Settlements, and was first vice-chair of the European Systemic Risk Board. He is a member of the Group of Thirty and the Foundation Board of the World Economic Forum.

Mark was born in Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, Canada in 1965. He has a bachelors degree in Economics from Harvard and a masters and doctorate in Economics from Oxford.

After a thirteen-year career with Goldman Sachs, Mark was appointed deputy governor of the Bank of Canada in 2003. In 2004, he became senior associate deputy minister of Finance. He held this position until his appointment as governor of the Bank of Canada in February 2008.

Nor Shamsiah is the ninth Governor of Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), assuming office on 1 July 2018. She chairs the Monetary Policy Committee, the Financial Stability Committee, the Financial Stability Executive Committee and BNM’s Board of Directors. Nor Shamsiah joined BNM in 1987 and has served in various areas including prudential regulations, financial intelligence and enforcement, talent management, finance and supervision. She was involved in the financial sector resolution initiatives during the Asian financial crisis. As Deputy Governor, she also represented BNM in the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and the Financial Action Task Force.

She also served as Assistant Director of the Monetary and Capital Markets Division of the IMF. Ms. Nor Shamsiah graduated from the University of South Australia with a Bachelor of Arts in Accountancy and is a Certified Practising Accountant.

In 2015 Roberto Eugenio T Cadiz was appointed to the CHRP, where he now handles business and human rights, sustainable development goals, crisis and conflict, international humanitarian law, and peace. He also supervises the human rights policy office. 

Prior to his appointment, Mr Cadiz was a private law practitioner, specialising in litigation. He has counselled in judicial-reform and public-interest cases, including in an impeachment case against a chief justice of the Supreme Court. He also served as executive director of a non-governmental organisation for lawyers, where he managed or supervised projects funded by international institutions such as the US Agency for International Development, the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, the European Union and the UN Development Programme. Among the partners in the projects he managed were the Philippine Supreme Court, the Department of Education and the Commission on Elections.

His affiliations and advocacies included leading a campaign finance–monitoring consortium, chairmanship in a transparency and accountability network, and membership in a Supreme Court appointments watch coalition. Mr Cadiz obtained his bachelor’s degree in philosophy and law from the University of the Philippines.

Dr Carr has extensive experience in both public and private sector governance and leadership. He served as Chair and non-executive director of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand and served as Deputy Governor and for a time Acting Governor of the Bank. Dr Carr was the founding Chair of the National Infrastructure Advisory Board and for over a decade was a non-executive director of the Canterbury Employers’ Chamber of Commerce. He led the University of Canterbury as Vice Chancellor for ten years, and holds a PhD in Insurance and Risk Management, an MA in Applied Economics and Managerial Science, an MBA in Money and Finance and honours degrees in law and economics.

Juda Agung is an assistant governor of Bank Indonesia and head of the macroprudential policy department. He was previously an IMF board member (executive director for the South-east Asia voting group) and executive director of the economic and monetary policy department in Bank Indonesia. Mr Agung obtained his PhD in economics from the University Birmingham, UK, in 1999. He also holds a master’s degree in money, banking and finance from the University of Birmingham. He has published articles in the area of monetary policy, banking, and inter-linkage between monetary policy and the financial sector.

Verena Siow is the president and managing director for SAP Southeast Asia (SEA) effective 1st October 2020. Her responsibilities include leading SAP’s sustainable growth in SEA, orchestrating the efforts of more than 4,000 colleagues in Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar and other emerging markets to help businesses and governments run better and improve people’s lives. As the first female Managing Director for SAP Indochina and first local female Managing Director for SAP South East Asia, Verena is an accomplished leader with more than 23 years in sales, business development and start-up experience in the technology sector across Asia and Americas and had played a significant role in building businesses from the ground up with start-ups.

She is a strong advocate of driving diversity and inclusion in the technology sector to promote different perspectives and improve business outcomes.

Prior to her current role, Verena Siow was the Managing Director, SAP Indochina responsible for scaling the business. With her focus on building trust and shared success with employees, partners and customers, SAP Indochina has achieved strong growth and high leadership trust and employee engagement scores. Prior to that, Verena was the Managing Director of Strategic Conglomerates, SAP Southeast Asia, and successfully drive Go-To-Market strategies and the business for the top Conglomerates across Southeast Asia with the vision to build sustainable relationships and transformation roadmaps with these lighthouse customers in ASEAN. Under her leadership, the Strategic Conglomerates team have built executive-level partnerships and innovation roadmaps with the largest family owned conglomerates in the region.

She has a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the Budapest University of Economic Sciences.

Oliver Tonby is chairman of McKinsey’s offices in Asia. He is a core leader of McKinsey’s Digital Capability Centre (DCC) in Singapore, an Industry 4.0–focused model factory, to drive digital transformation of companies in South-east Asia.

Since joining McKinsey in 1997, Mr Tonby has worked across multiple industries including energy and materials, industrials, private equity and technology. He has worked alongside clients on large-scale, integrated transformation and growth including internationalisation, organisational development, leadership development, operational improvement, strategic planning, and mergers and acquisitions.

Mr Tonby also has a significant interest in developing local companies into regional and global champions. He has spoken widely on these issues to business councils and in major international conferences, including the World Economic Forum. He is also a frequent commentator on regional growth, having authored the ongoing McKinsey and McKinsey Global Institute discussion paper series “Future of Asia”.

Mr Tonby holds several leadership and advisory roles. He is a member of Singapore’s Future Economy Council, which is chaired by Singapore’s finance minister and comprises members from government, industry, unions, and educational and training institutions. At McKinsey, he is a member of the MGI Council, which advises the think-tank’s research on global economic, business and technology trends.

Nitin Apte is the chief executive of Vena Energy, a leading independent power producer of renewable energy in the Asia-Pacific region. Prior to Vena Energy, Mr Apte was president and chief executive of Materia, a speciality materials company he positioned for rapid growth through strategic partnerships and expansion of the company’s manufacturing footprint. In the past, he also worked for over 25 years at SABIC and General Electric, in assignments spanning profit-and-loss leadership, marketing, innovation, supply-chain management, Six Sigma, manufacturing and product management. Mr Apte graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai, with a bachelor’s degree in aeronautical engineering. He also holds MS and MBA degrees from Ohio State University in the US.

Jugeshinder (Robbie) Singh has been associated with the Adani Group in various capacities over the last 8 years.  His experience includes all aspects of mergers, acquisitions, strategy, finance and risk, with a particular focus on listed and unlisted infrastructure funds.  Prior to joining the group, Mr Singh spent 16 years in investment banking in Australia, New Zealand, North America, Europe and Asia. He focussed on infrastructure, regulated assets and structured finance for Merrill Lynch, Macquarie Bank and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

Yasushi Fukuizumi is senior executive fellow and vice-president of the energy systems domain at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI). Until recently, he also was senior general manager of the power and energy solution business division, which develops holistic and integrated energy service solutions for the changing energy market. Mr Fukuizumi is an alumnus of the faculty of engineering, department of aeronautics, at Tokyo University.

Michael Salvatico leads environmental, social and governance (ESG) business development in Asia-Pacific for Trucost, based in Sydney and part of S&P Global. He works with investors and companies to consult on industry trends, assess their ESG performance and advise on the integration of tools that help manage ESG exposures and opportunities.

Prior to joining Trucost, Mr Salvatico was an executive director at MSCI and oversaw the company’s ESG research in Australia and New Zealand. His career experience involves working in portfolio analytics, quantitative investment analysis and ESG research. Before MSCI, he was part of the highly rated research team at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, where he was head of emerging-markets quantitative analysis.

Mr Salvatico was a co-founder in the Climakind initiative to reduce global carbon emissions by promoting a price on carbon and a thought leader in solutions to the rising levels of global carbon emissions.

He received a master of applied finance and investment from the Securities Institute of Australia, and a bachelor of commerce with merit from the University of New South Wales.

Amit Puri is currently managing director and global head of environmental and social risk management, sustainable finance, at Standard Chartered Bank, and is responsible for setting and implementing the Bank’s Environmental and Social (“E&S”) policies and standards (“Position Statements”) globally.  He works closely with clients to ensure E&S risks are managed in line with the Bank’s appetite for sensitive sectors.  

Mr Puri has two decades of experience in banking and financial services across a variety of disciplines – ESG risk, corporate finance, tax & legal, COO and general management.

Since joining Standard Chartered Bank in 2004, he has held senior roles in corporate finance, group tax and also as the head of the group CEO’s office.  

Mr Puri is a qualified Chartered Tax Advisor, Attorney at Law (New York) and the current chair of the Equator Principles Association.

An active advocate for sustainability for over two decades, Esther An has been instrumental in establishing CDL’s leadership in integrating ESG (environmental, social and governance) best practices into its business. Key ESG initiatives Ms An has spearheaded include publishing the first sustainability report using GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) standards in Singapore in 2008; issuing the first green bond by a Singaporean company in 2017; and pioneering a Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Innovation Loan in Singapore in 2019. As a forerunner in embracing the UN SDGs, Ms An was named the 2018 SDG Pioneer for Green Infrastructure and a Low-Carbon Economy by the UN Global Compact. She sits on the boards or advisory platforms of several organisations, including the World Green Building Council; Singapore Green Building Council; UNEP Finance Initiative Property Working Group; GRI Corporate Leadership Group; Asia-Pacific Real Estate Association, Singapore chapter; Global Compact Network Singapore; and Urban Land Institute, Singapore chapter. An advocate for women’s empowerment, Ms An founded the Women4Green Network to engage women to drive sustainable practices at home, at work and at play.

David Barnden is the principal lawyer and director of Equity Generation Lawyers, an Australian law firm specialising in climate-change risk. Mr Barnden represents Katta O'Donnell in the world’s only claim against a sovereign nation for failing to inform investors about climate-change risks. He also represents Mark McVeigh in a claim against a trustee of a US$40bn pension fund for failing to act in members’ best interests by not adequately considering climate risks. Both cases are in the Federal Court of Australia.
Prior to establishing the firm in 2019 Mr Barnden was a principal lawyer at Environmental Justice Australia, where he represented Guy and Kim Abrahams in Federal Court proceedings against CBA, Australia's largest bank, for failing to disclose climate-change risks to investors. He is also experienced in litigating complex commercial class actions.

Entela Benz is the chief executive and co-founder of Intensel, an AI-powered climate science for predicting risk related to weather extremes and climate change. She also serves as an adjunct associate professor in the department of finance of HKUST Business School. Through her consultancy and on behalf of HKUST Business School, she has delivered several ESG (environmental, social and governance) training programmes for companies such as Tencent Holdings, Citibank India and Intesa Sanpaolo Bank, as well as executive-education courses on ESG for Hong Kong–based asset managers. She is a frequent speaker at conferences and seminars covering ESG investing and green finance. Before co-founding Intensel, Ms Benz was a consultant, adviser and executive trainer on impact and ESG investing. Previously, she worked for UBS Investment Bank in Hong Kong, for a Geneva-based hedge fund and for the Securities and Exchange Commission in Albania. Ms Benz is a member of the Hong Kong Green Finance Association ESG integration working group, the board of advisers of International Care Ministries, as well as the advisory board of Friends of the Earth. She graduated with a PhD in financial asset management and engineering from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. She also holds an MPhil in international economics from the Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva, and a certificate of finance from Linacre College, Oxford University.

Adam Blight currently leads sustainability and business stewardship for Bayer’s crop science division in Asia-Pacific. Mr Blight has spent the past ten years in the agriculture sector supporting the innovation and partnerships essential to producing more food with fewer natural resources. He has held roles in the public, private and non-profit sectors in Australia, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States. This professional experience is supported by academic study in sustainability, business management and international relations.

Pascal Brun has more than 15 years of experience in the apparel and textile industry within multinational corporations such as H&M and Camaieu, with experience spanning across execution and strategic management roles. After having worked in Europe, China and Bangladesh, across a variety of roles such as country manager, and global supply chain manager, he is now responsible for leading and managing H&M’s Global Sustainability for Production and is currently based in Hong Kong.

Brun’s expertise lies in his experience from integrating key business performance indicators with those of sustainability. Under his leadership, H&M has achieved and implemented several key sustainable initiatives. Formerly, he sat on the Board of International Cotton Association and Better Cotton Initiatives as the brands representatives for the industry. Currently, in addition to sitting on the board of the SAC, he is also a board member of the Organic Cotton Accelerator and ZDHC Roadmap to Zero.

Andrew Buay is vice-president for corporate sustainability at Singtel Group. Mr Buay has led the Singtel Group’s corporate sustainability practice since 2013 to expand its role and scope to cover all elements of environmental, climate action, product stewardship, social impact and innovation, sustainable supply chain, and people strategy for diversity and inclusion. He was involved in a global sector-based task-force to align the global mobile industry towards a 2050 net zero carbon target and pathway subsequently approved by the Science Based Targets Initiative in 2019.

Archawat Chareonsilp is the environmental sustainability policy and innovation director, Asia Pacific at PepsiCo. Archawat ‘Ohm’ Chareonsilp is a veteran corporate executive, turned angel investor and subsequently Southeast Asia’s Startup and Innovation Ecosystem Builder.

Ohm started his career in Washington DC with Coca Cola. He has led corporate teams of regional public affairs professionals and implemented successful advocacy and brand programs across Southeast Asia.

Ohm joined HUBBA, Thailand-based ecosystem builder, as its first Chief Strategy Officer and Corporate Innovation Director. At HUBBA, Ohm helped large corporations to make sense of the fast changing world, effectively innovate to remain relevant, and grow.

Yuito leads McKinsey's Chemicals and Agriculture sector in Japan and is the leader of the Sustainability Practice in Asia. Coordinating McKinsey's activity in the Specialty Chemicals, Agriculture/Food and material sectors

He serves clients in the global energy-and-materials sector and provides expertise in the agriculture/food and chemicals space.

His recent engagements in the agricultural sector include supporting the development of a long-term strategy for an agricultural-chemicals firm and conducting due diligence and supporting M&A activities in emerging markets such as Africa, Brazil, and Southeast Asia for agricultural-commodities companies

Yuito also supports sustainability topics and issues related to water, solar, and hydrogen energy in Asia’s private and public sectors.

He joins other McKinsey colleagues in maintaining ongoing research to help the Japanese government’s transformation efforts in the agricultural industry.

Sophia Cheng is the chief investment officer of Cathay Financial Holdings and also teaches at National Taiwan University. Ms Cheng has 25 years of experience in research and investment. In her previous position she was chairman and head of research of Merrill Lynch Taiwan.

Ms Cheng is well known for her work in financial sector research and her proactive participation in forming government policies, including promoting banking reform and tax reform. She has served as government affairs consultant of the Executive Yuan and as an advisory committee member of the National Development Council since 2012 and 2015, respectively. She also acts as a fellow of the Asia-Pacific Industrial Analysis Association (APIAA) and serves on the board of directors of the Taiwan M&A and Private Equity Council (MAPECT). She has also been actively promoting corporate sustainability and socially responsible investment in Taiwan. Ms Cheng was appointed chair of the Asia Investor Group on Climate Change (AIGCC) in 2018 and was selected as one of Asia’s Top Sustainability Superwomen in 2019.

She holds master of science degree in finance and banking from Golden Gate University, San Francisco, and a bachelor’s degree in atmospheric sciences from National Taiwan University.

Professor Amrita Daniere is a full professor of geography and planning. She served as co-director of the Urban Climate Resilience in South-east Asia Partnership (which is funded through the IPaSS programme, a co-operative initiative of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the International Development Research Centre). In March 2016, Ms Daniere was appointed vice-principal, academic and dean at the University of Toronto Mississauga for five years (2016–21). She has worked for over 20 years on issues related to infrastructure provision, urban environmental issues and community governance in South-east Asian cities, including Bangkok, Jakarta and Ho Chi Minh City. Her current research project involves bringing together scholars and city builders from across North America and South-east Asia to study how to better plan for urban climate change impacts, particularly in the rapidly growing secondary cities of Asia. Ms Daniere holds a PhD in public policy from the John F Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Pratima Divgi leads CDP’s regional efforts in Hong Kong, South-east Asia, Australia and New Zealand. In her role as director, she engages with corporates, investors and cities in their efforts to measure and manage environmental impact. In her previous career, Ms Divgi spent 17 years in finance, most recently in private equity with Aberdeen Standard Investments. Besides her investment role at Aberdeen Standard, she was also part of the private equity environmental, social and governance (ESG) working group, which involved formulating ESG policy and leading the policy implementation for Asia-Pacific private equity investments. She remains an active member of the Hong Kong Venture Capital Association.

Mr Downs is the investment officer for the Dutch Fund for Climate and Development (DFCD). The DFCD is a Euro 160 million development fund focused on climate change adaptation. Mr Downs has experience investing across the emerging markets including China, Southeast Asia, and Africa.

Pang Yee Ean is chief executive of Surbana Jurong Capital, the investment platform of Surbana Jurong Group that focuses on the financing of infrastructure and urban development.

Prior to this appointment, Pang was Director-General of Investment Operations at Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), where he was responsible for identifying and financing infrastructure investments in the sovereign and private sectors. As one of AIIB’s pioneering staff, he grew its operations from inception and opened new markets in China, Southeast Asia, South Asia and Central Asia. With a passion for renewable energies, Mr Pang championed AIIB’s support of solar, wind and hydropower projects. He also initiated the use of equity funds and commercial financial institutions as channels to participate in infrastructure projects.

Pang has also held senior positions at Ascendas, including Senior Vice President in charge of Real Estates Funds. When he was Assistant CEO, Ascendas Services, he oversaw the asset management of industrial and commercial developments. Mr Pang setup Ascendas’ offices in Hyderabad and Gurgaon and held several roles while he was stationed in India, including Head of North India.

Mr Pang graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering and attained a Master of Business Administration from the National University of Singapore. He started his career at JTC Corporation, the Singapore government agency responsible for developing industrial estates. It was there that he founded Abecha Pte Ltd, a startup providing an aggregated e-procurement platform to industrial businesses.

Stefanos Fotiou is an expert on the environment and sustainable development and currently serves as director of the environment and development division at the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia-Pacific. In this capacity, Mr Fotiou is responsible for the planning and implementation of the UN ESCAP work on natural resources management, climate change, sustainable urban development and green economy. Prior to this, he worked for ten years at the UN Environment Programme in various roles in the economy division and in the Asia-Pacific office. 

Throughout his career, which began in academia and included assignments in non-governmental organisations, the private sector and the last 14 years in the UN system, Mr Fotiou has taken leading roles in international forums and has conceptualised and led the development of regional and national strategies on environment and sustainable development. He holds a PhD in natural resource economics, a master’s degree in information systems and a master’s degree in forestry and natural environment.

Eileen Gallagher guides companies to integrate sustainability into business strategy and take action on climate change. Ms Gallagher leads BSR’s climate-change practice in Asia, working closely with companies to assess and disclose climate risk in alignment with the Task-Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures, set science-based targets to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and build climate resilience throughout the value chain. Before joining BSR, Ms Gallagher was vice-president at Edelman, where she implemented strategic sustainability plans for companies to optimise resources, source responsibly, and build community engagement programmes. While at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, she advanced policy solutions on climate change, sustainable development and urban resiliency. Ms Gallagher holds a master of environmental management from Duke University and a BS in business administration from the University of Connecticut.

Ajay Gambhir’s research focuses on many aspects of the coming low-carbon transition, including the costs, benefits and other economic implications, the technologies and measures required, and the transition risks. He has led research studies on low-carbon transitions at a global level, as well as with a particular focus on specific regions, including India and China. His research has resulted in numerous academic publications and presentations, including at the 2015 Paris UN Climate Conference. He has been at Imperial College London for ten years, before which time he was the team leader for EU and international climate-change economics at the Department of Energy and Climate Change in the UK.

Peter Godfrey is the chief representative of the Energy Institute (EI) in the Asia Pacific region. Despite a long career in the oil and gas industry, mainly with BP in upstream oil and gas, Peter is now a strong advocate for the energy sector’s need to transition towards a cleaner, greener future with particular focus on promoting resource and operational efficiency within the context of creating a more Circular Economy. In addition to his role with the EI, Peter also works as an independent consultant and executive coach for a number of international organisations on these subjects and their strategic implications.

Mangal Goswami is currently the executive director at The SEACEN Centre in Kuala Lumpur. He was the deputy director at the IMF South Asia Regional Training and Technical Assistance Centre in New Delhi. He also served as the deputy director of the IMF’s Singapore Regional Training Institute (STI) from June 2010 to December 2016. Mr Goswami has a range of experience with IMF macro and macro-financial capacity-development work in Asia. Prior to joining the STI, he was a senior economist in the monetary and capital markets department of the IMF. Notably, he was a member of selected IMF working groups during the global financial crisis. He participated in the IMF’s surveillance work on large, complex financial institutions and was part of several financial-sector assessment programmes. Before joining the IMF, Mr Goswami was an economist at ABN AMRO Bank in Singapore during the Asian financial crisis, and he served in the research department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City in the US.

Bill Hare is a physicist, climate scientist and chief executive of non-profit science and policy institute Climate Analytics. He has contributed to the development of the international climate regime since 1989. Mr Hare was a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report, led the influential World Bank Turn Down the Heat report series in 2013–14 and is one of the leaders of the Climate Action Tracker. He has been described as the “go-to climate adviser” of the most vulnerable countries, particularly the small island states and least-developed countries.

U Thadoe Hein is the founder and chairman of Myanma Awba Group, a leading group of companies in Myanmar with a focus on the agriculture sector. The group seeks to increase the agricultural output of farmers, lower their costs, increase efficiency and enable market access through agricultural inputs, finance and extension services. Every year, Myanma Awba sets aside a large percentage of its net profit for shared-value initiatives, including the building of rural infrastructure and public utilities. U Thadoe Hein is currently chairman of the Myanmar Fertilizer, Seed and Pesticide Entrepreneurs Association (for a second term) and serves as joint secretary-general of the Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry. He holds a BSc from the University of Yangon and an executive MBA from the University of California, Los Angeles, and the National University of Singapore.

Daryl Ho holds a Bachelor of Social Science degree in Economics and a Master of Philosophy degree in Economics from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He joined the HKMA as a Senior Manager in 2001 and was promoted to the rank of Division Head in 2009. Before he took up his present position on 1 April 2017, Mr Ho had worked in various functional areas of the HKMA including financial stability surveillance, economic research, monetary operations and market development.

Brenda Hu is deputy director-general in department of planning
and deputy executive-Secretary of the Fintech Center, Financial
Supervisory Commission. She takes charge of planning overall policies
and strategies of the FSC and coordinating relevant implementation.
Major policies under her current responsibilities include Green Finance
Action Plan, Fintech Development Roadmap, and financial inclusion
projects. She also supervises the work of gender equality in financial
industry, administrative plans, fintech development services carried out
by the Fintech Center such as giving guidance and advice to startups
aiming to use fintech to provide services in the market, reviewing
applications for a regulatory sandbox, making sure smooth operation of the
FintechSpace (incubator), and promoting fintech related policies and
measures to maintain a friendly ecosystem.

Before those roles, she was Assistant Director of the Corporate Finance
Division in the Securities and Futures Bureau, FSC. Her prime
responsibility was to review and propose policies on the corporate
governance and social responsibility of listed companies. She was also in
charge of reviewing and giving advices on fund-raising cases submitted
by listed companies for effective registration, following up their financial
and operational status, and safeguarding market integrity and shareholder
rights. Ms. Hu has overseen listed companies, securities firms, futures
commission merchants, and foreign banks for 20 years. She helped the
market to grow by deregulation and completed legislations governing
futures trust funds, offshore structured products and financial consumer
protection. Her commitment to internationalize the market also brings the
commission and exchanges to actively participate in various international
organizations and to closely collaborate with foreign regulators.

Seth Tan Keng Hwee is the executive director of Infrastructure Asia, a project facilitation office under the Singapore government. Set up by Enterprise Singapore and the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the office aims to harness the network and collective capabilities of public-sector agencies, private-sector firms and partner stakeholders across the region to meet Asia’s infrastructure needs. Over his 23 years of involvement in the infrastructure sector, he has worked across various infrastructure sub-segments. Prior to his role as head of Infrastructure Asia, he held leadership roles in DBS Bank, BNP Paribas, Standard Bank and Babcock & Brown, and was based in China, Australia and Hong Kong.

In March 2019, Satoshi Ikeda was appointed as the first chief sustainable finance officer of the Financial Services Agency of Japan (JFSA). In this capacity, he covers a wide range of issues concerning sustainable finance including, among other things, leading the Sustainable Development Goals project team within JFSA and promoting climate-related financial disclosure in line with recommendations of the Task-Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures in Japan.

Having joined Unilever in 1989, Dave Ingram has worked in the UK, Mexico, Shanghai, Singapore and the Netherlands during his 30-year career with the company. His extensive experience spans supply chain operations, including procurement, manufacturing, logistics and planning.

Mr Ingram was appointed chief procurement officer in April 2019, based in Singapore, and also assumed the role as head of Unilever Asia. He is responsible for the procurement of all goods and services globally, supporting the creation of over 400 brands sold in over 190 countries. He is also tasked with delivering ambitious sustainable sourcing strategies as part of Unilever’s Sustainable Living Plan.

Prior to these appointments, Mr Ingram was a member of the Unilever European executive and the global supply chain leadership teams, responsible for the European supply chain. Additionally, he was responsible for the global planning organisation and in developing the strategy for the digital re-wire of the supply chain function. In 2013, he led the supply chain for China and North Asia, supporting the doubling of the business, and ultimately took responsibility as the head of supply chain Asia in laying the foundations for e-commerce. Mr Ingram holds a bachelor of mechanical engineering from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, UK.

Andrew Jarvis is currently associate director-general for research strategy and innovation in the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, based in Cali, Colombia. He is also co-founder of the CGIAR Platform on Big Data in Agriculture, a six-year initiative to make agricultural development faster and more efficient and have impact at greater scale through the use of information and communications technology and big data approaches. Mr Jarvis is a science leader and big-picture thinker with over 70 articles, book chapters or books published, including in Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nature Climate Change and Proceedings of the Royal Society. In 2003 he won the Crop Science Society of America C-8 Genetic Resources Award for best research paper stemming from work on conservation prioritisation research for wild peanuts in Latin America, and in 2009 he received the prestigious Ebbe Nielsen Prize for innovative research in bioinformatics and biosystematics.

Mushtaq Kapasi is ICMA’s chief representative for the Asia-Pacific region. He has been based in Hong Kong since 2002, engaged in senior strategy, capital market and legal roles covering the region at international banks active in Asia. He has worked as a lawyer in debt capital markets and derivatives, a structurer in equities and fixed income, a manager of complex trades with regulatory and accounting considerations, and an adviser to top executives on emerging-market strategy. He has also served as a consultant on financial structures of renewable-energy projects in frontier markets. He is a member of the New York State Bar, and studied mathematics at the University of Texas and law at Yale University.

Seiji Kawazoe is a senior stewardship officer at Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Asset Management, with strong global experience based in Tokyo, New York City, London and Luxembourg as a global equities portfolio manager. Mr Kawazoe is building ESG (environmental, social and corporate governance) capabilities at Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank and is responsible for stewardship oversight of global institutional investment assets such as public funds and private pension funds. He is also a part-time lecturer at the graduate school of Tokyo University and a visiting fellow at Reading University, Henley Business School.

Jomkwan Kongsakul joined the SEC in 1996. In 2019, she was promoted to assistant secretary-general of fundraising supervision. Her duties encompass oversight of equity and bond financing, corporate monitoring and fintech development. She also lectures for several universities, regulatory organisations and course providers.

Previously, Ms Kongsakul supervised mutual fund offerings. She was responsible for drafting regulations relating to permissible investment and investment limits for mutual funds, and sales conduct rules for capital market intermediaries, including risk management and internal control guidelines for asset management companies.

Prior to joining the SEC, she worked for Citibank Bangkok as a mutual fund supervisor. Ms Kongsakul earned a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from Thammasat University and Sasin Graduate Institute of Business Administration of Chulalongkorn University, respectively. She is a chartered financial analyst (CFA) and a chartered alternative investment analyst (CAIA).

Jonathan Labrey is a global expert in corporate governance and reporting with over 16 years’ experience in the accountancy profession, regulation and corporate reporting. He joined the IIRC at its outset in 2012 and today leads its work on formulating the organisation’s strategy and global public policy to ensure that integrated reporting becomes the norm. Mr Labrey has particular expertise in Asia, and has lived in Singapore and travelled widely across Asia, developing a deep understanding of capital market and corporate governance issues, successfully delivering a mandate to create awareness and build support for integrated reporting, working closely with businesses, investors, regulators and accountancy professional bodies.

He has a background in government relations, policy and regulation; he led the public affairs and policy team at the ICAEW from 2004 to 2010, and from 2010 to 2012 he was head of communications at the Financial Reporting Council in the UK, the accounting, audit and corporate governance regulator. He started his career as a political adviser in the UK parliament, having read law at King’s College, University of London.

Christopher Lee is the chief executive of Climate-KIC Australia. Its purpose is to help bring innovative climate-change solutions to market by connecting key players across the whole innovation pathway. It focuses on systemic change, education, entrepreneurship and innovation. Mr Lee has extensive climate-change project and programme experience, and from 2009 to 2017 he led the development and implementation of climate-change adaptation programmes for the New South Wales government. He has experience in delivering complex, multi-stakeholder programmes across government and the private sector. He has degrees in economics and environmental management, and has worked across public, private and university sectors

May leads Sustainability and Open innovation for SP Group. She leads the drive for SP Group towards achieving UN Sustainability Development Goals.

May is a strong believer in driving Sustainability through Innovation. She seeks cutting edge solutions from start-ups and other ecosystem partners, to lead transformational changes in the energy sector for a more sustainable future for Singapore and regionally.

May is the Founder and Director of SPX, incubating and launching innovative business models including the world’s first blockchain-powered Renewable Energy Certificate Marketplace.

Prior to SP Group, May was an investment banker with JP Morgan in New York and Hong Kong.  Previously, she was an investment manager with Temasek Holdings.

Lawrence Loh is Director, Centre for Governance, Institutions and Organisations (CGIO) at the NUS Business School, National University of Singapore (NUS). He is also Associate Professor of Strategy and Policy.

He received a PhD in Management from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His thesis on technology governance was awarded first prize in the worldwide doctoral dissertation competition in the field of management information systems.

At CGIO, Professor Loh leads the Sustainability Reporting initiative covering ASEAN and Singapore corporations. He also steers the Singapore Governance and Transparency Index and the ASEAN Corporate Governance Scorecard projects. Professor Loh heads the studies on board and workplace diversity and business integrity.

He is a regular commentator on governance and sustainability for many leading global and local media. Over the years, he serves as a judge for various prestigious sustainability awards in Asia and Singapore.

He teaches Governance and Sustainable Business for NUS Executive MBA program. He regularly conducts executive development programs in governance, sustainability and strategy for board directors, senior management and business professionals. He is a recipient of the NUS Business School Teaching Excellence Award.

Prateek Maheshwari is head of Asia for infrastructure investments and leads the team in the Singapore office of OMERS Infrastructure. Mr Maheshwari joined the firm in 2019 as a managing director based in London and initially led investment efforts in transport and renewable-energy infrastructure. He currently serves on the boards of Associated British Ports and London City Airport and IndInfravit.

Prior to joining OMERS, Mr Maheshwari spent 12 years as a senior principal with Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), where he has worked in the power, energy and transport sectors across the US, Europe, Asia and Australia. Before joining GIP, he worked as an investment banker with Dresdner Kleinwort, Barclays Capital and ICICI Bank in mergers and acquisitions, leverage and project finance, debt capital markets, and derivative structuring.

Mr Maheshwari has a bachelor of engineering with a specialisation in electrical and industrial electronics from Pune University. He also has a master’s degree in finance from London Business School and an MBA from HEC Paris.

Darian McBain is the global director of corporate affairs and sustainability at Thai Union, one of the largest seafood processors in the world. Ms McBain is on the global leadership team and the risk management committee, and she serves as chair of the sustainable-development committee. Her previous work includes serving as the sustainable procurement lead for the National Health Service in the UK, advising the United Nations, working with WWF on palm oil and supply risk analysis, and heading her own strategy and sustainability consultancy.

Her work has been highly recognised. She is the recipient of the Edie Sustainability Leader of the Year Award 2018, Ethical Corporation 2018 Responsible Business Leader of the Year, SeaWeb Seafood Leader of the Year for Vision 2019 and Anti-Slavery Australia’s Freedom Award 2019. She is also one of CSR Asia’s Sustainability Superwomen 2019, one of Intrafish’s Seafood Power 100 Most Influential Executives 2020 and among Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business for 2020.

Ms McBain holds a PhD on social indicators for global supply chain analysis from the University of Sydney, where she serves as an adjunct senior lecturer of integrated sustainability analysis. She is also a director and board member of the not-for-profit Be Slavery Free and a non-executive director for M.P. Evans.

Thong Chie Shang is the Head of Enterprise Strategy at GIC Pte Ltd, the Singapore Government’s sovereign wealth fund. He is responsible for GIC’s long-term strategic planning and enterprise-wide initiatives, reporting to the CEO. In this capacity, he drives the development of GIC’s Sustainability strategy across the environment, social and governance (ESG) dimensions, and implements measures to integrate Sustainability into all aspects of the firm’s investment portfolio and corporate decision-making. This includes initiatives such as negative screening, carbon emissions monitoring, thematic investments, and active engagement with companies.

Thong Chie has over 20 years’ experience in financial services. Before GIC, he worked in the Singapore Government, McKinsey & Company, and Standard Chartered Bank. He graduated from Stanford University with degrees in economics and political science.

Dharisha Mirando hails from the finance industry and leads CWR’s engagements related to water risk valuation. She joined the team because she believes that the financial sector downplays climate and water factors. Since joining CWR, Ms Mirando has published reports with Manulife Asset Management, the Asia Investor Group on Climate Change and CLSA on how water and climate risks could impact investment portfolios and how to take action to tackle these issues before it is too late. She has also spoken at multiple finance conferences and conducted meetings with investors on water and climate risks in Asia. Ms Mirando hopes to help build consensus on how to value water risks, bridge the gap between finance and science, and engage with investors to incorporate these risks. This could also lead to innovative green finance instruments becoming more prevalent.

Prior to joining CWR, Ms Mirando worked in the investment team of a long-only public equities fund. She has also worked in the impact investment space in London and Singapore, where she provided technical assistance to social enterprises, helped them raise equity investments and managed a debt portfolio.

Vivek Pathak is IFC’s Regional Director for East Asia and the Pacific,
leading advisory and investment operations across 18 countries, which in
fiscal year 2020 reached US$4.2 billion in long-term investments,
including funds mobilized from other investors. He has extensive
emerging markets experience in principal investments, restructuring and
risk management.

Mr. Pathak was Director for Investment and Credit Risk, responsible for
global coverage of credit risk, investment risk, integrity risk, pricing and
credit/equity training. Prior to that he oversaw IFC’s portfolio in the
Middle East and North Africa and led business development in frontier
markets like Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran.
Before IFC, Mr. Pathak worked at Bank of America and ABN AMRO Bank
in new business and risk management.

Carroll Muffett is president of the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), a non-profit organisation that uses the power of law to protect the environment, promote human rights and ensure a just and sustainable society. Mr Muffett is a recognised expert on international environmental law and a leader in the emerging fields of climate litigation and climate-related financial and legal risks. He is lead researcher on CIEL’s Smoke and Fumes investigation into the deep history of oil industry engagement on climate science. He is co-author of CIEL’s Fueling Plastics series, which examines the linkages between fossil fuels and the global plastics crisis, and a contributor to CIEL’s reports on the climate and health impacts of the plastics life-cycle. Most recently, he co-authored Pandemic Crisis, Systemic Decline, which examines how the covid-19 pandemic has accelerated and exacerbated the long-term decline in the oil, gas and petrochemical sectors. Mr Muffett is a member of the Commission on Environmental Law of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). He serves on the board of trustees for the Climate Accountability Institute and the steering committee for the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Tom has over fifteen years’ experience in executive search, specialising in C-suite, senior management and Board appointments. He has worked with a multitude of global and domestic Australian clients across the private and public sectors, and he prides himself on being open, insightful and candid.

Prior to joining Odgers Berndtson, Tom worked for a large Australian search firm as a Partner covering the Public Sector (Federal, State and Local Government), as well as forming part of the firm’s Financial Services and Board Practices.

Before executive search Tom spent over ten years in academia, completing his PhD in Physics and Climate Change before working as a Post Doctoral Research Associate for two years, then as Chief Scientist on a US-run university program for another two years, based in the Caribbean.

Pradeep is the global head, structured solutions and development, trade for transaction banking. He is also responsible for the leading the sustainable trade finance proposition within the bank. In the structured solutions and development role, he is responsible for providing clients with structured or bespoke trade-based financing solutions. He works with a team of highly qualified and experienced transactors who are based regionally. This team consults clients on their financing, risk mitigation or working capital efficiency needs and finds ways to provide solutions by leveraging on the availability of liquidity, risk appetite and mitigations within and/or outside the bank. This global team works on agile methodology to provide syndicated and/or bespoke cross border solutions. 

He has 21 years of banking experience across various roles and regions. His earlier roles included heading teams within Corporate Finance based in Hong Kong and India. In Corporate Finance his scope included originating sell side private equity mandates, origination and execution of leveraged finance transactions and origination of convertible bond mandates, for local corporate clients. Since 2009 he has been responsible for origination and structuring of Structured Trade Finance transactions.

He started his career in Standard Chartered Bank in 2001 as a credit analyst and then as a relationship manager covering corporate clients. He also worked with First Gulf Bank in UAE between 2006 and 2008 and headed client coverage teams for clients in Dubai and Northern emirates

He is trained as an Electrical Engineer from Regional Engineering College, Silchar, India and has a MBA from Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussees, Paris. 

Katherine Ng is the chief operating officer and head of policy and secretariat services department in the Listing Division.  Ms. Ng joined Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (“HKEX”) in 2013.  Prior to that, Ms. Ng had served as Political Assistant to the Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury of the Hong Kong Government, worked in an international investment bank and an international law firm in Hong Kong and London.  Ms. Ng holds a Master of Arts in Law from Trinity College, University of Cambridge and is a qualified lawyer in both Hong Kong and England & Wales.  Ms. Ng has been the Chairman of Hong Kong Securities and Investment Institute since December 2018.  She is an Advisor to Our Hong Kong Foundation, a Director of the World Wide Fund for Nature Hong Kong, a fellow of the Aspen Institute and a Member of the Hong Kong Academy of Finance.

Datin Sunita Rajakumar is a professional independent director and a strong advocate of the importance of governance in general, and risk management in particular. She founded Climate Governance Malaysia, which is the country chapter of the World Economic Forum’s Climate Governance Initiative. Ms Rajakumar is a fellow of the Institute of Corporate Directors Malaysia, promotes gender diversity on boards with the 30% Club, is a member of the global advisory board of Nottingham University School of Business and sits on the advisory panel of the UN Global Compact Malaysia Sustainability Centre of Excellence. She is chair of Caring Pharmacy and independent director of Bursa-listed Dutch Lady Milk Industries, MCIS Insurance (a member of the Sanlam group) and Zurich General Insurance, as well as trustee of five charitable foundations.

Since 2017 Luc Rémont has served as Schneider Electric’s executive vice-president of international operations, in charge of South America, Africa and Middle East, India, and East Asia, and Japan and Pacific. He has been a member of the executive committee since 2015.

Mr Rémont began his career in 1993 as an engineer at the French Defence Procurement Agency (DGA). In 1996, he joined the French Ministry of the Economy, Finance and Industry. He held several positions there, first in the treasury department where he supervised relationships with multilateral development banks and government equity interests in transportation companies. He then served as an adviser, then deputy chief of staff to French ministers of economy, finance and industry from 2002 to 2007, covering shareholding, financial markets and industrial matters. He joined Merrill Lynch in 2007 and became country executive and managing director of the corporate and investment bank at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in France in 2009. In 2014, he joined Schneider Electric as president of Schneider Electric France.

From 2015 to 2018, Mr Rémont was chairman of Gimélec, which brings together 230 French companies providing power and automation solutions for the energy, building, industry and infrastructure markets. He graduated from École Polytechnique. He holds an engineering degree from École Nationale Supérieure des Techniques Avancées (Ensta) and a master of science in artificial intelligence from Paris VI University.

As director of group sustainability for CLP Group, Hendrik Rosenthal is responsible for the group’s sustainability-related strategy, reporting and communications. He supports the senior management in sustainability and climate change–related risk management and advises on sustainability matters of the group’s power business in the Asia-Pacific region. With 20 years of experience in environmental management across the public, private and non-governmental sectors, Mr Rosenthal previously led research and consulting projects in Canada, Hong Kong and Singapore. He began his career in natural-resource management and environmental policy through various positions at Canadian government agencies in environment and development. After moving to Hong Kong in 2008, he promoted sustainability practices via private-sector projects and through policy engagement for industry associations. Prior to joining CLP, Mr Rosenthal was a senior manager of applied sustainability in Singapore working for a multinational company.

Sacha Sadan is director of investment stewardship and on the board at LGIM, one of the world’s largest asset managers. At LGIM Mr Sadan has responsibility for investment stewardship, including ESG (environmental, social and corporate governance) areas, collaborating with other investors as well as governments and regulators. He regularly speaks at major global industry events on topics such as diversity, climate change and shareholder rights. Mr Sadan was previously a senior UK equity manager at Gartmore, where he co-managed a range of UK equity hedge, retail and institutional funds. In 2016 he was recognised in the Financial Times as one of the “30 most influential people in the City of London”, crediting him as one the leading architects of the 2012 “shareholder spring”. He was voted the top-rated pan-European fund manager in the Thomson Reuters Extel awards (known as the “City Oscars”) in 2010. He started his career at Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS). Mr Sadan holds a BA (economics) from Manchester University and is a fellow of ICSA. He is a founding member and still on the board of the UK Investor Forum.

Ho Hern Shin is the assistant managing director of the banking and insurance group, overseeing the licensing and supervision of all banks, merchant banks, insurance and finance companies in Singapore. Prior to this, Ms Ho also served in different functions in MAS, including overseeing the policy formulation for, and supervision of, financial institutions in the areas of anti-money-laundering, technology risk and cybersecurity, financial risks, and payments systems. Ms Ho was also head of human resources and organisational development for some years in MAS. She holds a BSc degree in monetary economics from the London School of Economics in the UK.

David Smith is Head of Corporate Governance, a role in which he supports Aberdeen’s Asian Equities and Fixed Income Teams through research and engagement. David joined Aberdeen in 2011 from ISS, where he was Head of Asia (ex-Japan) Research.

David has a PhD in corporate governance and an MA in Corporate Strategy and Governance from the University of Nottingham and a BSc in Business Economics from the University of Wales. He is a CFA Charterholder.

Geoff Summerhayes is a purpose- and values-driven leader who has made significant contributions in a breadth of economic sectors including property and the built environment, wealth management, banking, insurance and now prudential regulation as an executive board member of the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA).

Mr Summerhayes has been a forthright leader on raising awareness of climate-change financial risk in Australia and globally. In Australia, he chairs the Council of Financial Regulators working group on climate change. Internationally, he is a member of the executive committee of the global standard-setting body for insurance, the International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS), and chairs its audit and risk committee. He chairs the UN Environment Programme’s Sustainable Insurance Forum (SIF), a global body of insurance regulators collaborating on sustainability and climate change, and represents IAIS and SIF at the Network of Central Banks and Supervisors for Greening the Financial System (NGFS).

Prior to his appointment at APRA, Mr Summerhayes was chief executive of Suncorp Life, held a number of senior executive roles at National Australia Bank in strategy, asset finance and distribution, was chief executive of retail investment at MLC and started his career in commercial property development at Lendlease.

As Global Resilient Cities Network's acting executive director, Lauren Sorkin oversees global efforts to strengthen cities in the face of the complex and interconnected challenges they face. Leading a team of urban resilience professionals in London, Mexico City, New York and Singapore in collaboration with chief resilience officers in more than 40 countries, her work builds on the unique capacity, breadth and legacy of the 100 Resilient Cities programme to enhance the resilience of communities and critical infrastructure. She also serves as an adviser and spokesperson on urban resilience, sustainable finance, climate risk, stakeholder engagement and urbanisation trends.

Previously with the Asian Development Bank, Ms Sorkin led the bank's first ever climate-change investment plan before moving to the ADB's Vietnam office to mainstream climate risks and opportunities in the country's US$7bn portfolio. Before joining the ADB, she led knowledge-management efforts for two USAID programmes: the Eco-Asia Clean Development and Climate Programme in China, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam; and the Initiative for Conservation in the Andean Amazon in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. She has published work on biofuels, climate change, infant mortality and HIV/AIDS.

Ms Sorkin holds a bachelor of arts in international relations from Tufts University and a master of science in environment and development from the London School of Economics.

Elim Sritaba is the chief sustainability officer of Asia Pulp & Paper (APP), one of the leading forestry, pulp and paper companies globally. She was responsible for leading the implementation of APP’s forest conservation policy at Sinar Mas Forestry since its launch in 2013. Ms Sritaba was previously the director of strategic corporate relation and human resources at Sinar Mas Forestry, which manages APP’s pulpwood suppliers. She also led the co-ordination of three large divisions consisting of communications strategy, government relations and sustainability. She has over 20 years of experience across finance, forestry, and supply-chain and business-process management..

Based in Singapore, Azmar Sukandar is the head of communications and society, Asia-Pacific for Diageo, providing strategic counsel and support to Diageo's Asia-Pacific business. Azmar was previously Asia-Pacific director of strategic communications and marketing for The Nature Conservancy (TNC) where she engaged key stakeholders and increased awareness and visibility of TNC’s Asia Pacific projects to tackle climate change; protect lands and waters; build healthier cities, and provide food and water sustainably. Azmar has also worked with the Financial Times, Time and FORTUNE magazines as well as Microsoft. She holds a B.A. in International Relations and B.Sc. in Communications from Boston University and a master’s degree in media and communications from the London School of Economics. She is a founding board member and current President of the Asia Pacific Association of Communications Directors.

Maria Victoria A Tan is head of the group risk management and sustainability unit of Ayala Corporation. Ms Tan devises strategies and implements policies and programmes designed to increase risk and sustainability awareness within the group, with the support of the chief risk and sustainability officer. She also manages the group insurance optimisation programme, the conglomerate-wide annual sustainability reporting process and the annual Integrated Summit.

Ms Tan was named one of Asia’s Sustainability Superwomen in 2019 by CSR Works for her contributions to the field. She was also recognised as one of Asia’s most influential executives and was included on the Sustainability A-List by Eco-Business. In 2018, she also garnered an award in the risk management field and received the Asia-Pacific Risk Management Team of the Year award from Strategic Risk. In 2017, the Ayala Group received the Top CSR Advocates in Asia Award by ACES Awards and the Asia-Pacific’s Best Enterprise Risk Programme under her leadership. In 2016, she received the CSR Leadership Award from CMO Asia. Ms Tan graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in accountancy from the Polytechnic University of the Philippines.

Deepali Gulati has 20 years of experience in driving growth and navigating complex supply chains for a portfolio of high technology, mobile technology and telecommunication accounts. She is currently leading the Technology sector at DHL Supply Chain for the Asia Pacific region with a focus on business development, supply chain management, strategy development & solution excellence.

In her previous roles, she has managed national Telecommunications accounts in India, where she sought to create value through complex supply chains and account management. Since then, she has had the experience of managing of large hi-tech multinational companies across the Asia Pacific, working with a variety of technology companies at different stages of supply chain maturity to achieve excellence through long term partnerships.

As chief representative since November 2018, Siddharth Tiwari heads the Bank for International Settlements office for Asia and the Pacific, based in Hong Kong. For over three decades, Mr Tiwari has been a thought leader, global policymaker and member of senior management teams in large, complex, global financial institutions, including the IMF, and his work has spanned five continents. At various phases during his career, he has been responsible for leading the strategy and design of global financial architecture; directing policy and lending operations; managing a large international board of directors; implementing deep institutional restructuring; heading multi-billion-dollar investment committees; managing billion-dollar budgets; and serving a term in a senior academic appointment. With substantial experience in Asia, Mr Tiwari has led engagement between and within international bodies, the public sector, think-tanks, philanthropies, civil society, financial markets and academia, guiding institutions and designing public policy to adapt to changing global needs. He holds degrees in economics from the University of Chicago, the London School of Economics and the University of Delhi.

Nuki Agya Utama was appointed as the executive director of the ASEAN Centre for Energy (ACE) in August 2019. He reports directly to the governing council, consisting of leaders of the senior offices on energy from the ASEAN member states.

Mr Utama has extensive experience in the energy industry as well as in academics. Before taking the assignment as executive director, he worked at Baryon HP as director. He has also worked in international organisations such as the UN Development Programme and UN Environment Programme as a consultant. He started his international career with ENVIMA, a German-Thai consulting firm, working on renewable energy, energy efficiency and environmental consulting. He has also served as the head of the environmental engineering department at Surya University, Indonesia, and as a senior lecturer at Swiss German University, Indonesia.

Mr Utama has also served as chief editor and editorial board member, as well as reviewer, for several international journals. His interests include renewable energy, green buildings and energy efficiency. He has a background as a post-doctoral researcher at the Graduate School of Energy Science, Kyoto University, in energy scenario planning in South-east Asia. He holds a PhD on life cycle energy analysis from King Mongkut’s University of Technology, Thailand.

Dan Chi Wong is the Asian Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Specialist at Schroders. Based in Singapore, she supports the company's ESG integration and policy engagement on ESG in APAC. In addition, Ms. Wong serves as the Vice-Chair of the Asia Investor Group on Climate Change (AIGCC). She is also an Adjunct Faculty at Singapore Management University, teaching sustainability at postgraduate level.

Dan Chi Wong has specialized in ESG in Asia since 2010, when ESG was in its nascent stages regionally. She received training at the United Nations University on global change and sustainability by leading practitioners from institutions such as The World Bank and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). She started her career at KPMG before joining a dedicated sustainability consultancy, where she worked with corporates and investors on integrating sustainability into strategic decisions. Prior to joining Schroders, she served as the global ESG specialist for one of the largest asset managers headquartered in Asia.

Ms. Wong majored in Accountancy and Environmental Economics for her Bachelor's and Master's degree respectively.

Azreen is a Deputy General Manager in the Markets & Products department of the Securities Commission Malaysia (SC), and leads the SC’s Sustainable and Responsible Investment (SRI) initiatives. Azreen is instrumental in the SRI strategy formulation and implementation in Malaysia since 2014, including the development of the SRI Roadmap for the Malaysian Capital
Market. Azreen is also the Chair of Sub-committee 3 (Product and Innovation) of the Joint Committee on Climate Change (JC3), an initiative established to pursue collaborative actions for building climate resilience within the Malaysia financial sector.

At the regional level, Azreen leads the ASEAN Capital Market Forum’s Sustainable Finance Working Group, which spearheads the sustainable finance initiatives in the ASEAN region including the introduction of the ASEAN Green Bond Standards, ASEAN Social Bond Standards and ASEAN Sustainability Bond Standards, and the Roadmap for the ASEAN Sustainable Capital Markets.

Azreen regularly represents the SC at various speaking engagements on SRI regionally and internationally. Azreen joined the SC in 2010 where she was involved in the formulation and implementation of the Capital Market Masterplan 2, the 10-year strategy blueprint for the Malaysian capital market.

Azreen started her career in PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2002 until 2010 prior to joining the SC. She is a registered member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) and the Malaysian Institute of Certified Public Accountants (MICPA).

Marc Allen is a chemical engineer with over 20 years' experience. He has spent the last 12 years specialising in sustainability and climate change in Australia and now in Singapore. He is currently technical director of Engeco, a Singapore-based consulting company that helps businesses identify and analyse their exposure to climate-change risk and develop climate-change strategies using a scenario-based approach to examine potential physical and transition risks. He has significant experience in decarbonisation and energy strategies, including renewable-energy studies, energy efficiency, and large-scale abatement and offsets for carbon emissions.

Naina Subberwal Batra joined AVPN as chief executive in 2013 and was appointed chairperson in May 2018. Her leadership over the past six years has quadrupled the AVPN membership and elevated the organisation into a truly regional force for good. Under her direction, AVPN has grown from focusing only on venture philanthropy to supporting the entire ecosystem of social funders, from philanthropists to impact investors and corporate social responsibility professionals. She was instrumental in developing AVPN’s innovative services that connect, empower and educate the now 600+ members of AVPN. In 2019, she was named one of Asia's Top Sustainability Superwomen by CSRWorks.

Prior to joining AVPN, Ms Batra was a member of the senior leadership team of a purpose-driven unit of The Monitor Group, a leading global strategy consulting firm, aimed at catalysing markets for social change. She has a master’s degree in industrial and labour relations from Cornell University, where she graduated at the top of her class. She also holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and international relations from Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts, USA, and a general course diploma in economics from the London School of Economics.

Jessica Cheam is the founder and managing director of Eco-Business, as well as an award-winning journalist, TV presenter, director, producer and social entrepreneur. She has more than a decade of experience in media, journalism and sustainable development and is a columnist for national newspapers. Ms Cheam is on the board of directors for Singapore-listed ComfortDelGro, one of the world's largest land-transport companies; serves as strategic adviser to Blue Planet Environmental Solutions; and is founding director of EB Impact, a non-profit organisation dedicated to positive sustainable-development impact in Asia. She is also a member of the Singapore Institute of Directors and currently chairs the Climate Action SG Alliance, an initiative supported by the Ministry of Environment and Water Resources to advocate for climate action and raise public awareness on climate issues. A Singapore Press Holdings scholar, she has won many journalism awards. In March 2018, Ms Cheam was announced as the winner of the Woman of the Future South-east Asia Award for the media and communications category. She was also named as one of LinkedIn's Power Profiles for Singapore for 2018.

Briony Eales is a climate change and environmental lawyer working in the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) Law and Policy Reform program. She has spent the last few years leading detailed research into climate change law, policy, and litigation in Asia and the Pacific. ADB will publish the results as a 4-part report series, Climate Change, Coming Soon to a Court Near You. The reports discuss climate science, Asian and Pacific climate litigation, and regional and international climate law and policy. In her work with ADB, Ms Eales also supports a Southeast Asia government with its climate law and climate change strategy update.

Ms Eales previously worked as in-house counsel for Xstrata plc on a mining development project in Asia. She advised on environmental and social compliance, project risk, sustainable development, resettlement, and indigenous people’s engagement. Before moving to Asia, Ms Eales worked in Australian law firms as a solicitor specializing in administrative and insurance law.

Rachel Fleishman brings a systems mindset to recalibrating business models to be circular, low-carbon, and resilient. She is founder of Insight Sustainability, a Hong Kong-based advisory firm, and The Breakfast Club, an informal grouping of senior sustainability executives in Hong Kong. Ms Fleishman has helped develop and mainstream sustainability in contexts as diverse as U.S. defence and intelligence policy, U.S. business advocacy in the E.U., Hong Kong property management regimes, and corporate risk assessment in the Pearl River Delta. As head of sustainability for German chemicals firm BASF in the Asia Pacific, she promoted BASF as the innovation partner of choice for firms pursuing sustainable materials for a low-carbon, resilient future.  Ms Fleishman also performs research, thought leadership and advocacy on the intersection of climate change and national security as a Senior Fellow at the Center for Climate and Security in Washington, D.C. 

Mark Florance has 35 years of experience in the finance sector, with 30 of those years in Asia, based in Singapore and Indonesia. Much of that time was spent with Rothschild, where Mr Florance headed their investment banking business (mergers and acquisitions and capital raising) in South-east Asia and was the co-head for Asia.

Much of his career has revolved around the energy sector. Mr Florance is now a member of the investment committee for a blended finance fund for renewable energy called Climate Investor One. The fund is backed by the EU as well as by institutional investors. It has committed funding of $850m, and its focus is to promote the construction of renewable projects in Asia and Africa where funding would be otherwise difficult to source. He is also a member of the investment committee for Climate Investor Two, a similar vehicle but focusing on water-related projects in Asia and Africa.

Mr Florance sits on the board and is the audit chairman of a UK-listed Aberdeen closed-end fund and chairs the Asian arm of a trust company, Butterfield Trust. He is also the co-chairman of BritCham Singapore’s energy and utilities committee as well as co-chairman of BritCham’s sustainability committee.

As regional head of the ASEAN hub for Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), Michele Lemmens works across businesses, governments, regulators, stock exchanges, investors and academia in the region to advocate sustainability reporting and to build capability. She engages stakeholders in dialogue around ESG (environmental, social and governance) disclosure that enables better decisions, based on information that matters, to drive more sustainable outcomes.

Ms Lemmens is currently seconded from Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), where she is the APAC head of business sustainability and chief technology officer. She has extensive experience in business model transformation, often led by strategies such as new-market entry, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, start-ups and strategic alliances. This experience has been built across multiple business functions and industries spanning APAC, ASEAN, Middle East and UK geographies. Ms Lemmens is passionate about the opportunities for business to embrace more sustainable business models by harnessing the power of innovation and digital in the way they operate and champion change for a better triple bottom line.

Dawn McGregor leads CWR’s work to help corporates navigate increasingly disruptive and material risks from water and climate threats, as well as transitional risks in the supply chain arising from new regulations in China. Ms McGregor engages extensively with the global fashion industry, delivering on-ground workshops in China to keynotes and strategic input at European headquarters. She has written at length on the end of dirty and thirsty fast fashion, and her report to overcome gaps between brands and manufacturers for a clean and circular future inspired the industry to create a new wastewater tool.

Ms McGregor also works closely with the property and tourism sectors, where she not only conducts strategic assessments of their exposure but also builds collective action towards resilience via closed-door working groups and invitation-only events. Having helped build CWR, she is a frequent keynote speaker, panellist and moderator at events, including being twice selected as the lead rapporteur at World Water Week. Her articles are cited in various industry publications, including the UN’s World Without Water. Ms McGregor previously worked in a global investment bank assessing geopolitical risk, crisis management and business resiliency.

Nneka Chike-Obi is a Director in the ESG Research team based in Hong Kong. She covers thematic ESG topics with a special interest in emerging markets, agriculture, and natural resources. She joined Fitch Ratings in April 2020 following eight years’ experience in emerging markets impact investing and private equity, focusing on the natural resources, agricultural and industrial sectors. She previously worked as a commodities analyst at Barclays Investment Bank and ICAP in London. Nneka holds a BA in International Relations from Stanford University and an MSc in Global Politics from the London School of Economics.

Mervyn Tang is a Senior Director and Global Head of ESG Research in Fitch
Ratings’ Sustainable Finance division, based in Hong Kong. Mervyn oversees a global research team of 5 which primarily focus on thematic and cross sector ESG research.

Mervyn re-joined Fitch Ratings in March 2019 from MSCI Inc., where he was Head of Fixed Income in their ESG Research department, based in Hong
Kong. Mervyn has worked with fixed income investors globally supporting
them on integrating ESG into their investment process. Prior to joining MSCI in 2017, Mervyn was a Director in Fitch’s Sovereign Group, with the Asia-Pacific team. Mervyn has also worked as an international economist at the

Bank of England in London, a diplomat at the British Embassy in Washington DC, and an equities analyst at Citigroup.
Mervyn earned an MSc in Economics with distinction from Birkbeck College, University of London, and a BA in Economics and Management from Oxford University. He is a CFA Charterholder.

Helena Wright is vice president at WWF Singapore where she is the Global Lead on infrastructure finance in the WWF network. Prior to joining WWF, Helena worked for think tank E3G on sustainable finance and has also worked for the UK Government on international climate finance. Helena has previously worked for the United Nations based in Bangkok, and has advised businesses on renewable energy and resource efficiency. She has published several book chapters and articles on sustainability in peer-reviewed journals, and was a contributory author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Helena completed her PhD and Masters degree at Imperial College London, and holds an undergraduate degree from Cambridge University.

Xin Yi is the South East Asia Green Finance Lead in the Carbon Trust Singapore office.

She previously spent five years at a leading independent think tank, the Singapore Institute of International Affairs (SIIA), as a Senior Policy Research Analyst (Sustainability) where she focused on environmental sustainability in ASEAN’s resource sector. She is actively involved in engagement with corporations and the financial sector with a view to drive sustainability and deepen cross-sector partnerships.

Prior to this, Xin Yi worked at Sustainalytics where she evaluated and benchmarked the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) practices of publicly-listed companies in three industries: Consumer Discretionary, Food and Utilities.

Xin Yi holds a Bachelor of Science (Economics) with a second major in Political Science (Public Policy, Development and Management) from the Singapore Management University.

Zanny Minton Beddoes is the Editor-in-Chief of The Economist. Previously she was the business affairs editor, responsible for the newspaper’s coverage of business, finance and science.

Prior to this role, she was The Economist’s economics editor, overseeing the newspaper’s global economics coverage from her base in Washington DC. Before moving to Washington in April 1996, Ms. Minton Beddoes was The Economist’s emerging-markets correspondent based in London. She travelled extensively in Latin America and Eastern Europe, writing editorials and country analyses. She has written surveys of the World Economy, Latin American finance, global finance and Central Asia.

Ms. Minton Beddoes joined The Economist in 1994 after spending two years as an economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), where she worked on macroeconomic adjustment programmes in Africa and the transition economies of Eastern Europe. Before joining the IMF, she worked as an adviser to the Minister of Finance in Poland, as part of a small group headed by Professor Jeffrey Sachs of Harvard University.

Ms. Minton Beddoes has written extensively about international financial issues including enlargement of the European Union, the future of the International Monetary Fund and economic reform in emerging economies. She has published in Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy contributed chapters to several conference volumes and, in 1997, edited “Emerging Asia”, a book on the future of emerging-markets in Asia, published by the Asian Development Bank. In May 1998 she testified before Congress on the introduction of the Euro.

Ms. Minton Beddoes is a regular television and radio commentator on BBC, MSNBC, PBS, NPR, CNN and CNBC.

She holds degrees from Oxford University and Harvard University.

Cailin Birch is the global economist on the Economist Intelligence Unit’s global forecasting team. She is responsible for the unit’s political and economic forecast for the US, as well as the five-year oil-market forecast. Ms Birch also provides regular analysis on key issues shaping the EIU’s global forecast. Before assuming this role she was senior commodities analyst, responsible for the EIU’s supply, demand and price forecasts for 25 of the most frequently traded global commodities, and a senior analyst on the Middle East and Africa team. Before joining the EIU, Ms Birch worked as an Africa economics analyst for Oxford Business Group.

 Simon Cox is the Emerging Markets editor at The Economist, based in Hong Kong. He has spent over ten years with the newspaper, including stints in London and Delhi. In 2014, he left journalism to become Managing Director and Asia-Pacific Investment Strategist for BNY Mellon, before returning to the paper in 2016.

During his career at The Economist, Mr Cox has written a variety of special reports and white papers. He has explored the world’s arduous recovery from the global financial crisis (“The Long Climb”, 2009), China’s surprisingly resilient economy (“Pedalling Prosperity”, 2012), the technological ambitions of India and China (“High-tech Hopefuls”, 2007) and Korea’s social and geopolitical divisions (“Parallel Worlds”, 2013).

In 2008, he edited “The Growth Report”, published by the Commission on Growth and Development, chaired by Nobel laureate Michael Spence. He was a contributor to the Oxford Companion to the Economics of China (OUP, 2014) and the originator of the “Li Keqiang index”, an unofficial proxy for China’s growth. He has contributed pieces to the FT’s Alphaville blog and Foreign Policy magazine on the economies of China, Japan and India. He has also been a frequent guest on television and radio, including CNBC, Bloomberg, the BBC and CNN.

He studied at Cambridge, Harvard and the London School of Economics.

Charlotte McCann is South-east Asia correspondent for The Economist. Based in Singapore, she covers politics, business and society in Indonesia, Myanmar, Vietnam and Laos. Previously she was deputy digital editor and assistant editor at 1843, The Economist's lifestyle and general interest magazine.

Janet Pau is the director of The Economist Corporate Network in Hong Kong. She brings her experience working with top executives throughout Asia, coupled with economic knowledge and industry insight, to help organisational leaders and their teams gain a holistic, practical appreciation of the opportunities and challenges in greater China and across Asia.

Before joining The Economist Corporate Network, Ms Pau was programme director for the Asia Business Council, developing and delivering content for private forums for an all–chief executive membership in Asia for more than a decade. Prior to that, she was manager at the Global Business Policy Council at consulting firm Kearney in Washington, DC, where she led consulting projects and intellectual capital publications for senior executive clients in both business and government.

Her publications include Through the Eyes of Tiger Cubs: Views of Asia’s Next Generation (Wiley, 2012) and Building Energy Efficiency (Encyclopaedia of China Publishing House, Chinese edition, 2008). She was an op-ed contributor and columnist for the South China Morning Post from 2011 to 2019. She has also contributed opinion pieces and book chapters and has spoken at various local and regional business conferences.

Ms Pau received a bachelor of arts degree in international studies and psychology with honours from Yale University and a master in public policy specialising in economic policy and competitiveness from Harvard University.

Based in Hong Kong, Jason Wincuinas is a senior editor of thought leadership research for Asia. He covers the region from Australia to India but has a background of business in China and Hong Kong.

Mr Wincuinas has worked and travelled in Asia since the 1990s, settling permanently in Hong Kong in 2009. Before joining The Economist Group, he was managing editor for Campaign Asia, covering all aspects of the marketing industry—from the implementation of technology to ad creative, to consumer research.

Prior to that, his professional focus was in finance and technology, working in both investment and engineering firms. Mr Wincuinas also spent a decade of his career heading a manufacturing and import company, bringing goods from China’s factories to the US retail market. Some of his most formative work has been as a freelance writer and stay-at-home dad.

He received a BA in English from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, with study at the University of Sheffield in Yorkshire, UK.

Dominic Ziegler is The Economist‘s senior Asia correspondent and Banyan columnist. He joined the newspaper in 1986 as a financial reporter. He went on to become Finance Editor, then Washington Correspondent from 1991-94. He was the newspaper’s China Correspondent from 1994-2000, based first in Hong Kong and then Beijing. He went back to London as Finance and Economics Editor in 2001. In 2004 he returned to the United States as an acting Washington Correspondent, and after that stood in for half a year as editor of the Books and Arts section, before serving as Deputy Editor of Intelligent Life, an Economist publication. Mr Ziegler was Tokyo Bureau Chief from 2005-09 and then founding author of The Economist‘s Banyan column on Asian affairs, before returning to London in late 2010 to take up the position of Asia Editor.