Alzbeta Klein
Director and global head of climate business
IFC
Alzbeta Klein is the IFC’s Director and global head of climate business. Her role is to facilitate business growth, provide thought leadership, fundraise and facilitate all work related to renewables, climate-smart agribusiness, green bonds, smart cities and other climate business areas. Prior to her current appointment, she was a Global Co-Head of Industrials for IFC, investing and managing $15bn portfolio of investments in emerging markets. Alzbeta joined IFC from Export Development Canada. She received Master’s degree in Economics from the University of Ottawa, Canada, where she also studied for her doctorate; engineering degree from Prague University, Czech Republic; and executive education from Harvard Business School and INSEAD. She holds a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation. She currently serves on the boards of Hans Merensky in South Africa, Grupo Los Grobo in Argentina, both agribusiness companies, on the New York University Center for Sustainable Business Advisory Board, and on the Nespresso Sustainability Advisory Board.
Andrew McMullen
Environmental impact director
LEGO Group
Andrew is Environmental Impact Director at the LEGO Group. Responsible for their ambition to be a zero impact business by 2032 for issues related to energy, water and waste in their own operations and supply chain.
Through his exposure to the benefits of play whilst working for the LEGO group, Andrew takes an interest in how creativity and innovative thinking can be encouraged through playful activities. He believes these skills are key for individuals of all ages who are passionate about helping to solve sustainability issues.
Previous roles include work on Royal Mail's energy efficiency and data management initiatives and at Tesco PLC delivering CAPEX projects and employee engagement programmes related to resource efficiency.
Before moving to environmental work, Andrew was a building controls and refrigeration specialist.
Annika Ramsköld
Vice president corporate sustainability
VATTENFALL AB
Annika Ramsköld, Vice President of Vattenfall’s Corporate Sustainability department since January 1st 2014. Main task for unit is to coordinate the strategy work related to sustainability within the company on all levels, including target setting, monitoring progress, consolidated sustainability reporting and running stakeholder dialogue,
Annika Ramsköld has worked in Vattenfall for close to 30 years with a wide range of assignments from R&D and business development to sales, trading, marketing and strategy. Her more recent positions are as VP Market Strategy and Business Development, VP CEO Office. As VP Market Strategy and Business Development, she initiated and ran two major business development programs; e-mobility and sustainable cities
Annika has a Master of Science degree from KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. She is chairman of the Joint Venture “Volvo-Vattenfall Plug-in-hybrid company” and Gasnätet Stockholm, and a board member of CSR Sweden, Klimatum and Distriktstandvården.
Ben Ngobi
Global procurement sustainability lead
Accenture
Ben Ngobi leads Accenture’s Global Procurement Sustainability, as well as its Northern Europe Supplier Inclusion & Diversity programs. Ben is responsible for the strategy to embed environmental, social and governance factors into purchasing decisions, working closely with multiple stakeholders in the company.
Ben was responsible for enhancing Accenture’s approach to small and medium enterprise supplier engagement. In addition, he is helping establish initiatives that support reporting of progress on Modern Slavery and human rights, as well as the new corporate goals around Science-Based Targets.
Benet Northcote
Partner and director, corporate responsibility
John Lewis Partnership
Benet Northcote is Director, Corporate Responsibility for the John Lewis Partnership, incorporating John Lewis & Partners and Waitrose & Partners. He is accountable for the delivery of the Partnership's CR objectives across ethical sourcing, sustainability, D&I and Partner wellbeing, as well as the management of operational Health and Safety. He is a Trustee Director of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, a Trustee of Green Alliance and sits on the Board of the Conservative Environment Network.
He joined the John Lewis Partnership in 2013 after nearly five years as Deputy Private Secretary to HRH The Prince of Wales, where he was responsible for HRH's initiatives on responsible business, the natural environment, food and farming. Prior to that he was Chief Policy Adviser to Greenpeace UK, working predominantly on energy and transport policy.
He started his career with the BBC as a journalist, before moving to corporate communications agency CTN Ltd., where he advised many FTSE 100 firms.
Bridget Jackson
Chief sustainability officer
PwC
Bridget is the Chief Sustainability Officer at PwC UK with responsibility for the firm’s internal corporate sustainability strategy.
A strategist by background, with a degree in languages from Oxford, an MBA from INSEAD and an MSc in Environmental Technology from Imperial, she held multiple leadership positions in industry and in a global management consultancy.
She joined PwC in 2010, where she focuses on innovation and behaviour change for better sustainability performance. As a result, PwC is now a recognised leader in tackling its carbon footprint and applying circular economy principles in its operations and procurement.
Against ambitious targets to reduce its carbon footprint in line with the Paris Agreement, the firm has successfully decoupled energy consumption and carbon emissions from commercial growth. And it has offset using verified credits, in biodiversity hotspots, to remain carbon neutral each year since 2007. Having achieved zero to landfill since 2012, PwC has since pioneered circular solutions, adopting reuse and remanufacturing treatments for waste streams including IT, furniture and textiles.
Bridget has shared what works and what does not in two ‘10 Years of Lessons Learned’ reports – available at www.pwc.co.uk/goingcircular and www.pwc.co.uk/actingoncarbon.
She is a Fellow of The Marketing Society and the ICRS, a former commissioner of the London Sustainable Development Commission, and a member of BITC’s Environmental Leaders Group and Circular Economy Taskforce.
Chris Daly
Supply chain VP, Europe nutrition
PepsiCo
Chris has worked for PepsiCo for 27 years, predominantly in Supply Chain and Financial leadership roles.
Having worked as a supply chain leader over the last decade, sustainability has been a critical part of Chris’ role and three years ago he formally took ownership of leading the sustainability agenda as part of his responsibilities to transform PepsiCo’s Europe’s supply chain. In this role, Chris leads PepsiCo’s work to embed sustainable thinking, practices and technology into the European supply chain.
A key area he is driving is to establish end to end sustainability thinking into core decision making and processes across our business, alongside partnering with all stakeholders to make sustainable choices more accessible.
Chris Harrop
Group marketing and sustainability director
Marshalls
Chris Harrop is Group Marketing Director and Director of Sustainability at Marshalls plc. An accomplished marketer with a proven global track record, Chris’ persistent contribution has ensured that Marshalls not only leads the hard landscaping sector but is also a world-class sustainable business. He drives the organisation to leverage its United Nations Global Compact signatory status for competitive advantage by working to uphold the principles of human rights, labour rights, Environment and Governance. Under Chris’ guidance, the business has won numerous awards for commitment to the environment and supply chain ethics, including BITC, Business in the Community Awards for Excellence and the PLC Awards on 3 occasions.
Chris was Chairman of the United Nations Global Compact UK Network for 4 years from January 2013 and has been a Non-Executive Director of the Ethical Trade Initiative since January 2011. In addition, in June 2017 Chris became Chairman of Made in Britain.
Chris was rated 5th in Ethical Corporation’s Heroes of Sustainability in 2007 and named a Business Game Changer’ by BITC in 2012 and was named as one of the Top 100 Modern Slavery Business Influencers in 2018. Chris rounded off 2018 by being named BtB Marketer of the Year by BtB International.
One of Chris’s proudest moments came in the 2019 New Year Honours List, when Her Majesty the Queen appointed Chris as an Officer of the British Empire, OBE for services to the Prevention of Modern Slavery and Exploitation.
The strategic combination of experience allows Chris to fully understand the dynamic complexities of ethical trade, supply chains and international commerce. Its potent combination affords him great insights which he is then able to recognise and activate in practical terms within his own organisation; he doesn’t just say it he does it.
As a small example Chris made a personal journey to the North Pole in April 2017 to see the effects of climate change himself and to become a better advocate for action on climate change.
Claire Elsdon
UK director, investor initiatives
CDP
Claire started her career broking Pan-European Equities to UK based Institutional Investors for 8 years for HSBC, Merrill Lynch and JP Morgan before moving to Tanzania to establish a pioneering new grassroots social enterprise initiative called Pikilily, tackling the escalating public health issue of avoidable crashes amongst Africa’s motorcycle-dependent communities. Claire now leads CDP’s UK Investor Initiatives team, helping investors discover critical climate, water and forest impact data from their investee companies through our global disclosure process.
Dr. Darren Moorcroft
CEO
The Woodland Trust
In 2017, Darren joined the Woodland Trust as its Director of Estates & Woodland Outreach before becoming its Chief Executive in September 2019. Prior to this, Darren gained his PhD from Oxford University before joining the RSPB, where he held a variety of roles including responsibility for their UK Conservation Programmes.
At the Trust, Darren has been responsible for: the Trust’s acquisition strategy – growing the estate to c29,000 hectares across the UK; expanding our woodland creation with schools, local communities and partners to over 4 million trees/annum; and our restoration of over 2,000 ha/year of ancient woodlands. He now leads the UK’s largest woodland nature conservation charity, with over 500,000 members and supporters.
Darren is also Chair of the Northern Forest Board and a member of the BBC Rural Advisory Committee.
David Saddington
Senior executive officer
BEIS
David Saddington is a climate change policy maker & environmentalist. Since experiencing extreme flooding as a teenager he has communicated the importance of climate change action to millions, pioneered innovative policy change and worked with business on bold sustainability strategies. David’s first intervention was heading up a high profile public awareness campaign featuring BBC, Sky, ITV and working with then UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair, to get climate change on the school curriculum. David has spread climate education to other countries and his work to re-energise communication of climate change to the public has been featured by United Nations as an example of best practice. After leading education reforms David has pursued his own academic work first studying climate science before going on to investigate the economic, security & health risks of climate change.
David has shared the stage with heads of state and CEO’s, talked at venues from the Hong Kong Science Museum to a beach festival in Ibiza and his TEDxTeen talk ‘Why I Don’t Care about Climate Change’ is one of the most watched climate talks on Youtube. David speaks about the opportunities and challenges from tackling climate change from his international consulting experience implementing carbon policies under the Paris Agreement and on sustainability initiatives with multinational corporations.
David now works as a Senior Policy Advisor at the UK Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy on climate policy, including engaging youth voices and reaching beyond the 'climate bubble' at events during Green GB Week.
David has been named by WWF as an Earth Hour Hero for his now 15 years of continued work as an environmental change maker and he is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and Durham Energy Institute. David is also on the UK Board of Trustees for Nile Rodgers' 'We Are Family Foundation' which supports game-changing young entrepreneurs working on innovations to meet the Sustainable Development Goals.
David Symons
Future ready leader
WSP
David Symons leads WSP’s global innovation and sustainability programme, Future Ready. Future Ready helps WSP’s people see the more future clearly, and to advise and design for this future as well as today. He’s a director of Aldersgate Group, a Commissioner on IPPR’s Environmental Justice Commission and was awarded BusinessGreen.com’s Leader of the Year. Outside work he’s a keen distance runner and a rather less accomplished photographer.
Erin Meezan
Vice president & chief sustainability officer
Interface
As chief sustainability officer, Erin gives voice to Interface’s conscience, ensuring that strategy and goals are in sync with its aggressive sustainability vision established more than 20 years ago. Today, Interface has evolved its thinking to go beyond doing less harm to creating positive impacts, not just for Interface and the flooring industry, but for the world at large. Erin led the company to unveil a new mission in 2016 – Climate Take Back, tackling the single biggest threat facing humanity: global climate change. This mission is focused on creating a path for Interface and others to reverse global warming, not just reduce carbon emissions. As CSO, Erin leads a global team that provides technical assistance and support to this audacious goal and the company’s global business, addressing sustainability at all levels – from operations and management, to employees and customers, and in policy forums. Erin and her team also develop industry-leading approaches to measurement, driving transparency and innovation in the field of sustainability, while also capturing successes as the company nears its Mission Zero targets in 2020. Erin is a frequent lecturer on sustainable business to senior management teams, universities and the growing green consumer sector. She has keynoted at a variety of conferences and forums around the world. Erin serves as a guest faculty member at Harvard University for the Executive Education for Sustainability Leadership program. She also serves on the Sustainable Entrepreneurship MBA (SEMBA) program advisory board for the Vermont Grossman School of Business. Erin is a magna cum laude graduate of the Vermont Law School, where she earned her master’s degree in studies in environmental law and her juris doctor degree.
Fiona Ball
Head of responsible business and Sky ocean rescue
Sky Group
Fiona joined Sky in 2005 and leads the Group’s work on the environment (from reducing the company’s impact on the environment to ensuring its product and services are sustainable), child safety, access services and responsible sourcing.
Alongside this, she was responsible for Sky Rainforest Rescue, Sky’s six year campaign and partnership with WWF to inspire customers to get involved and help save one billion trees in the Amazon Rainforest and am now actively involved in the Sky Ocean Rescue campaign, which aims to protect the health of our oceans by ensuring the business leads industry by being single use plastic free in its operations, products and supply chain by 2020. She is responsible for opinion former engagement and reporting the company’s sustainability performance and strategy.
Prior to joining Sky, Fiona was the Global Environment Manager at a multinational telecommunications company.
Fiona is a Chartered Environmentalist and a fellow member of the Institute of Environmental Management.
Dr. Geoff Mackey
Corporate affairs & sustainability director
BASF
Geoff was brought up on a small family farm in South Armagh, N. Ireland, he read biology in Liverpool and followed it with a range of post graduate qualifications in Health & Safety and management including a sleepless MBA. His doctorate concerned the strategic business value of social networks.
He is a Director of BASF plc, responsible for a service portfolio in UK & Ireland and BASF’s Sustainability network in Europe.
He has been within the BASF group for almost 20 years and advises a wide range of strategic and tactical groups inside and outside BASF covering private, public and third sector organizations in sectors including science, environment and further education.
Historically, he has been an HSE inspector (Yorkshire), a bouncer (N. West), research scientist (Wales), sports coach (Midlands), bingo hall manager (N. East), bar manager (N. Ireland), PR adviser (Cambs), trainer (London) and ran his own consultancy (Shrops).
In his 'spare time' Geoff is a driver for his two growing boys; an active Rotarian and has been recognized for his work both nationally and internationally; played rugby for Waterloo and Halifax; American Football in America and Australia; has sung and danced(!) with operatic societies; represented Breconshire at athletics; and is a published poet. He once won an award for his writing, and raises substantial charitable donations standing on his hind legs in public and talking.
Gilbert Ghostine
CEO
Firmenich
Gilbert Ghostine is the Chief Executive Officer of Firmenich, the world’s largest privately-owned Perfume and Taste Company and the number one Fine Fragrance House worldwide. Ranked among this year’s Top 100 CEOs, he is recognized for his relentless commitment to inclusive growth and delivering sustainable and differentiating innovation to his customers.
Gilbert has a deep understanding of the Consumer Goods and Luxury industries, having lived and led businesses in 4 Continents for two decades with Diageo, the leading premium spirits company; and more recently as CEO of Firmenich for the past 5 years.
A champion of “inclusive capitalism”, Gilbert believes in delivering positive value for all his stakeholders, from his customers and people to the planet and society.
Leveraging the Group’s world-class science capabilities, exemplified by its Nobel Prize, Firmenich strategically invested CHF 380m in 2018 to innovate for a better society, with a focus on Sanitation, Nutrition and Climate Change.
Firmenich is recognized as a global environmental leader, as one of only two companies worldwide to have achieved a triple A ranking from CDP, the world’s gold standard for environmental management. It is also one of only seven companies worldwide to be globally-certified as a gender-equal employer.
Gilbert holds a Masters Degree in Business Administration from Saint Joseph University, Lebanon and completed Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program.
Ian Heasman
Director of sustainability
Taylor Wimpey
Ian is the Director of Sustainability for Taylor Wimpey UK Ltd, one of the UK’s largest house builders. He is responsible for the development and delivery of Taylor Wimpey’s sustainability policy and strategy. This has included work on climate change, waste and resources, water, biodiversity, air quality, supply chain, social issues, reporting, disclosure, contaminated land and environmental liability. Ian studied geology at Southampton University and then Environmental Technology at Imperial College. Ian’s career started at an air quality start up and with environmental consultancy practices ERM and RPS. For the last twenty-two years he has been working within the construction sector, initially on large civil engineering projects with Taylor Woodrow, but mainly within the house building sector.
Jennie Galbraith
Group head of sustainability
British American Tobacco
Jennie oversees the development and implementation of BAT’s sustainability agenda - with a particular focus on human rights and sustainable agriculture - as well as the Group’s sustainability reporting and ESG engagement.
Jennie is also Vice Chair of the Institute for Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability (ICRS) and in 2012 was delighted to be named as one of Business in the Community’s ‘Game Changers’ - a one-off Award to recognise individuals who have made a demonstrable contribution to integrating responsible business policy and practice within their organisation.
Prior to joining BAT she worked for both the Co-operative Group and Co-operative Financial Services.
Jes Rutter
Managing director
JRP Solutions
Jes is Managing Director of energy and sustainability consultants, JRP Solutions Ltd and The Green Consultancy and is a recognised UK expert in improving the effectiveness of energy use, particularly within industrial process environments.
Much of Jes’ 33 years in energy management has focused on the analysis, effectiveness and improvement of energy generation and use.
Jes also has a deep understanding of energy and facilities contract management and uses his unique expertise to develop and negotiate outsourcing and in-sourcing strategies for an impressive portfolio of blue chip clients. Most recently he has:
• Helped a global communications provider to implement FM and energy strategies, saving £8m over 3 years, and to achieve ISO 50001 certification across all their UK data centres including delivery of training to over 2000 people
• Developed CHP technical and outsourcing strategies, demand-side response and stand by generator strategies for a global healthcare retail organisation
• Delivered an FM strategy review for a global pharma organisation
• Carried out an FM strategy review for a performance car manufacturer.
Jes was invited by DECC to contribute to the Government’s development of energy efficiency policy for business and has given many presentations for DECC and others on the topic of ESOS, energy management and behavioural change. Jes is chair of the ESTA Independent Energy Consultants Group and has been a driving force behind ESTA’s initiative to focus on the crucial role that behaviour change will play in meaningful action to tackle climate change.
Jim Skea
Co-chair working group III
IPCC
Jim Skea is Professor of Sustainable Energy at Imperial College London with research interests in energy, climate change and technological innovation. His current main role is as Co-Chair of IPCC Working Group III for the 6th assessment cycle. He was Research Director of the UK Energy Research Centre 2004-12 and Director of the Policy Studies Institute 1998-2004. He has operated at the interface between research, policy-making and business throughout his career. He was a member of the UK Committee on Climate Change from its inception in 2008 until 2018. He is currently chairing Scotland’s Just Transition Commission. Until June 2017, he was President of the UK Energy Institute. He was awarded a CBE for services to sustainable energy in 2013 and an OBE for services to sustainable transport in 2004.
João Pola
CEO
Signify
João Pola is UK & Ireland CEO for Signify (formerly Philips Lighting), a position he has held since October 2017 having joined the senior leadership team early that year.
Signify is the world leader in lighting for professionals, consumers and lighting for the Internet of Things. Headquartered in Eindhoven, and with global sales of EUR 6.4 billion in 2018, Signify has approximately 29,000 employees and is present in over 70 countries.
Before joining Signify, João spent almost 15 years working internationally for Schneider Electric in various General Management, strategy, marketing & sales management and R&D roles.
During his tenure at Schneider, João led global product launches, drove new partnerships in India, and created a new manufacturing scheme for electrical distribution products in South America. He has a range of experience acquired working at both market and corporate levels in France, Spain and the UK&I.
João is a Portuguese national and fluent in four languages. He holds an MBA from IESE Business School and Electrotechnical Engineering Degree from ISEL- Lisbon Polytechnic Institute.
Jonathan Horrell
Director global sustainability
Mondelez International
Jonathan Horrell is Director global sustainability for the snacking company Mondelēz International, a world leader in biscuits, chocolate and other categories, featuring brands such as Oreo and belVita biscuits; Cadbury Dairy Milk and Milka chocolate; and Trident gum. Mondelēz International is a member of the Standard and Poor’s 500, NASDAQ 100 and Dow Jones Sustainability Index.
He is responsible for sustainability strategy, managing key sustainability issues, and building relationships with policy makers and external stakeholders to support the company’s strategic sustainability priorities.
His responsibilities cover sustainability across the value chain from agricultural sourcing to post-consumer waste, working alongside specialists from functions across the business.
He joined the company in 2003. Until December 2011 - a period which included the acquisition of Cadbury – he was Corporate Affairs Director for the UK and Ireland, with responsibility for external and internal communications, public affairs and community involvement.
Originally a dairy farmer, Jonathan previously worked in the UK dairy industry and a journalist on a variety of IT and finance titles.
Leon Kamhi
Head of responsibility
Hermes Investment Management
Reporting to Hermes’ CEO, Leon is responsible for developing and directing Hermes’ program for integrating responsibility across the group. This includes ensuring that investment teams are aware of and integrate ESG performance in investment decisions and that engagement is effectively incorporated alongside investment activities. In addition, in this role he oversees and contributes to how the firm’s responsibility activities and performance are integrated into Hermes’ client relationship management and reporting, the delivery of its corporate citizenship programme and the development of responsible structures and processes for the firm. He also leads a number of corporate and public policy engagements. Previously at Hermes, Leon was responsible for the development and delivery of Hermes EOS’ global corporate and public policy engagement programme from 2012-2016 and acted as its commercial director from 2009-2012. Prior to that, Leon worked within the Hermes UK Large Cap Focus Fund for seven years, where he was responsible for executing the fund’s engagement programmes. He also has 12 years of strategy consulting and operational industry experience.
Mardi McBrien
Managing director
Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB)
Mardi McBrien joined the Climate Disclosure Standards Board (CDSB) as Managing Director in 2011 following a career spanning leadership roles in environmental campaigning, public-private partnership management, and public policy. Mardi is a member of the GRI Stakeholder Council, a trustee of the International Tree Foundation and a founding board member of WOCAN - Women Organising for Change in Agriculture and Natural Resource Management. Holding a double degree in Forestry and Environmental Science from the University of Melbourne and a MSc in Agricultural Economics from SOAS, UCL. In 2013, Mardi was awarded environmental campaigner of the year by the Sheila McKechnie Foundation.
Mark Gough
CEO
Capitals Coalition
Mark Gough is the CEO of the Capitals Coalition, a global collaboration of business, governments and civil society that uses capitals thinking to improve decision making, and which unites the work of the natural, social and human capitals coalitions.
Among other positions, Mark is at present on the TEEB Advisory board, the Steering Committee of the United Nations CEO Mandate, and is a member of the Advisory Network of the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy.
Mary Robinson
Chair and former President of Ireland
The Elders
Mary Robinson is Adjunct Professor for Climate Justice in Trinity College Dublin and Chair of The Elders. She served as President of Ireland from 1990-1997 and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997-2002. She is a member of the Club of Madrid and the recipient of numerous honours and awards including the Presidential Medal of Freedom from the President of the United States Barack Obama. Between 2013 and 2016 Mary served as the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy in three roles; first for the Great Lakes region of Africa, then on Climate Change and most recently as his Special Envoy on El Niño and Climate. Her Foundation, the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice, established in 2010, came to a planned end in April 2019.
A former President of the International Commission of Jurists and former chair of the Council of Women World Leaders she was President and founder of Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative from 2002-2010 and served as Honorary President of Oxfam International from 2002-2012.
Mary Robinson serves as Patron of the International Science Council and Patron of the Board of the Institute of Human Rights and Business, is an Ambassador for The B Team, in addition to being a board member of several organisations including the Mo Ibrahim Foundation and the Aurora Foundation. She was Chancellor of the University of Dublin from 1998 to 2019. Mary’s memoir, ‘Everybody Matters’ was published in September 2012 and her book, ‘Climate Justice - Hope, Resilience and the Fight for a Sustainable Future’ was published in September 2018.
Michael Alexander
Global head of water, environment, agriculture sustainability
Diageo
Michael is global head of water, environment, and agriculture sustainability for Diageo with a focus on strategy, policy and communications. His principle responsibility is to drive the company’s strategy and associated communications, stakeholder engagement and reputational programme. This applies to the full value chain but with an emphasis on supply chain and operations. Key to success is understanding the evolving and complex sustainability agenda and industry best practice - and sharing and applying this across the business. He joined Diageo in 2007 prior to which he was with Ericsson. A graduate of the universities of Edinburgh and London, Michael is a member of the Institute of Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability, Institute of Economic Development and the Chartered Institute for Public Relations.
Michael Gidney
CEO
Fairtrade Foundation
Michael has worked in international development for 20 years, with a particular focus on reducing poverty and developing small enterprise by helping producers identify and access markets.
Michael joined the Fairtrade Foundation in 2009 as Deputy Executive Director, before becoming Chief Executive in 2012. Prior to this, Michael spent eight years as Director of Policy at Traidcraft, where he led their research and advocacy programme.
Nathan Gray
Head of sustainability - B&I
Reconomy
As a specialist in Sustainability Consultancy and Resource Management, Nathan has over 30 years’ experience advising both public and private sector UK and International clients. Nathan focuses on enhancing the environmental performance of clients activities with his regulatory experience and practical knowledge. Nathan’s goals are to improve the efficiency and performance of organisations from an economic, social and environmental perspective, to give them the right to confidently promote their endeavours and support their brand principles and ethics.
Paul Clark
General manager, Cloud engineering and supply chain sustainability
Microsoft
Paul currently works in Azure as the General Manager of Cloud Provisioning & Decommissioning Engineering and he is the Azure environmental sustainability champion. Paul Clark is a veteran of process engineering and managing global supply chain capabilities that deliver exceptional value to customers as well as large corporations. Paul’s passion for innovation can be traced back to Intel where he spent significant time working in emerging markets and developing a deep understanding of the global perspective. At Microsoft, one of Paul’s passions is Supply Chain Sustainability and how corporations drive accountability throughout the cloud infrastructure ecosystem.
Rebecca Marmot
Chief sustainability officer
Unilever
Rebecca is the Chief Sustainability Officer of Unilever.
She is responsible for driving through advocacy and partnerships, transformational change on priority areas of Unilever’s Sustainable Living Plan: climate change and eliminating deforestation; sustainable agriculture & smallholder farmers; water, sanitation and hygiene; and opportunities for women.
Rebecca is a Non-Executive Director at WSUP – Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor.
Richard Howitt
former CEO
International Integrated Reporting Council
Strategic advisor on Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability, Business and Human Rights Richard has been a leading voice on corporate responsibility, during a career spanning international politics and business. In a distinguished twenty-year period as a Member of the European Parliament, Richard served as Rapporteur on Corporate Social Responsibility. He is known as the key architect of the EU’s Non-Financial Reporting Directive, described as the foremost legislation internationally on corporate transparency. Subsequently, Richard has completed a three year-term as Chief Executive Officer at the International Integrated Reporting Council, driving reform of corporate reporting with its global coalition of businesses, investors and regulators. This included helping to establish the major project for better alignment between the world’s principal financial and non-financial reporting frameworks. Richard participated in the development of the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights in the UN Human Rights Council (2005-11), was an adviser to the OECD in its update of the Guidelines on Multinational Enterprise (2011) and a member of the B20 Business Leaders’ group advising G20 Governments (2017-2019), serving on its Energy and Climate and its Integrity Task Forces. He has travelled and spoken extensively throughout the world, including at the Rio+20 UN Summit on Sustainable Development, the UN Forum on Responsible Business Conduct, the World Economic Forum and the World Investment Forum. He is currently strategic advisor to a number of businesses and organisations, visiting speaker at the Universities of Bath, Liverpool Edge Hill and at the Hult International Business School, and undertaking speaking and moderating at events, including the Edie Sustainability Leaders Forum.
Ruth Romer
Private sector lead
WaterAid
Ruth Romer is the expert focal point on private sector engagement for WaterAid. As the Senior Private Sector Advisor she works across a variety of sectors on a range of water management, WASH and stewardship issues to provide strategic insight and guidance. Ruth has an MSc in Water Science and Governance and has over a decade of experience in working directly with the private sector.
Sashidhar Vempala
Head of communications and sustainability
Pernod Ricard India
Sashidhar is a former wildlife photographer and conservation documentary film maker. Being a conservationist and wildlife photographer in India, he has been working very closely with the forest departments of certain states to aid water management, bio diversity conservation, conflict management, and anti-poaching camp infrastructure. This work has allowed him to gain a vast amount of expertise in water conservation, habitat and biodiversity management, working with tribal communities on livelihoods. His extensive background in forest conservation amongst other things has led him to his current role as Head of communications, sustainability and responsibility at Pernod Ricard India.
Scott Poynton
Founder
The Forest Trust
Scott Poynton has built a career inspiring leaders to take major, unprecedented leaps forward that have transformed not only their own company, but also their entire industries. Since founding The Forest Trust (now Earthworm Foundation) in March 1999, Scott has worked on seven major industry wide transformational projects that have broken traditional moulds and helped position his clients as pioneers, helping them reap significant reputation and business returns while making major shifts in their environmental and social performance. Key to these major transformations has been an exploration and implementation of company leaders' personal values. This career continues as an independent advisor to C-suite executives the world over, where he shares the lessons he's learned over the past 20 years to inspire leaders, both experienced and new, young entrepreneurs, to move forward within a complex context of big challenges and bigger opportunities.
Sonya Bhonsle
Global head of supply chain program
CDP
Sonya Bhonsle is the Global Head of CDP’s Supply Chain program which enables major multinationals and governments to achieve sustainable supply chains, influencing over US$3.3 trillion in annual procurement spend. Sonya has over 14 years of Sustainable Supply Chain experience, both in the public and private sector. Over the last few years she has specialised experience on Scope 3, setting and meeting scope 3 targets (including science-based targets), as well as setting and meeting water security and deforestation related supply chain goals.
Tom Szaky
CEO
TerraCycle
Tom Szaky is founder and CEO of TerraCycle, a global leader in the collection and repurposing of complex waste streams. TerraCycle operates in 21 countries, working with some of the world’s largest brands, retailers and manufacturers to create national platforms to recycle products and packaging that currently go to landfill or incineration. It is also the lead company in a new circular shopping platform called Loop that enables consumers to purchase products in durable, reusable packaging.
Tom and TerraCycle have received hundreds of awards and recognition from organizations including the United Nations, World Economic Forum, Fortune Magazine and U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Tom is the author of four books, Revolution in a Bottle, Outsmart Waste, Make Garbage Great and The Future of Packaging.
Vincent de Rul
Director of energy solutions
EDF Energy
Vincent joined EDF Energy to head the Business Development Team, having also managed the business sales team, responsible for EDF Energy supply activity for our business customers.
He is now Director of Energy Solutions, thus responsible for the development and sales of all Energy Solutions for our business customers, including energy monitoring and energy efficiency, Demand Side Response, Storage, Electric Vehicles and storage.
Vincent joined us from EDF Fenice Rus, the Russian subsidiary of Dalkia, where he was Chief Executive Officer. Operating as an Energy Service Company (ESCO) in Russia since end of 2009, Fenice Rus helps its industrial clients to improve the energy efficiency and environmental impact of their factories through energy service and performance contracts.