Sustainable Finance Forum 2020

Following the legislative elections of October 2018, Xavier Bettel is currently serving in his second term as Prime Minister and Minister of State of Luxembourg in the coalition government formed by the Democratic Party, the Luxembourg Socialist Workers’ Party and the Green Party : on 5 December 2018 he was appointed Prime Minister, Minister of State, Minister for Communications and Media, Minister for Religious Affairs, Minister for Digitalisation and Minister for Administrative Reform.

A member of the DP since 1989, Xavier Bettel was elected to Parliament for the first time in 1999, at the age of 26. He was since reelected in 2004, 2009, 2013 and 2018.

At local level, Xavier Bettel was as municipal councilor (2000-2005) and later alderman (2005-2011) for the City of Luxembourg. As of 2011, he assumed the role of mayor – an office he held until his appointment as Prime Minister in December 2013.

Xavier Bettel holds a master’s degree in public and European law and a post-graduate diploma of advanced studies in political sciences and public law from the University of Nancy.

Following the legislative elections of 14 October 2018, Pierre Gramegna was re-appointed Minister of Finance in the coalition government formed by the Democratic Party (DP), the Luxembourg Socialist Workers’ Party (LSAP) and the Green Party (déi gréng). Pierre Gramegna first joined the government as Minister of Finance in 2013.

As Minister of Finance, Pierre Gramegna has initiated major reforms to balance the budget and to align Luxembourg’s tax rules with international transparency standards. Thanks to these efforts, Luxembourg’s AAA rating has been consistently confirmed by all major rating agencies and, in 2015, the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes upgraded Luxembourg to “largely compliant”. Pierre Gramegna is also a promoter of the diversification of Luxembourg’s financial centre, in particular with regard to FinTech and sustainable finance. He is the initiator and president of the LHoFT Foundation, which runs the Luxembourg House of Financial Technology. He has also further developed bilateral relations with China in the financial sector.

Pierre Gramegna puts particular emphasis on Luxembourg’s role in multilateral development banks. In 2014, Luxembourg became a member of the African Development Bank and, in 2015, Luxembourg was the first non-Asian country to join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Currently, he is the chairman of the board of Governors of the AIIB. In May 2016, Pierre Gramegna was elected chair of the Board of Governors of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development for a one-year mandate. He currently serves on the Board of Governors of the European Investment Bank and on that of the European Stability Mechanism. He is also Luxembourg’s governor to the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.

Pierre Gramegna studied law and economics at the Université Panthéon-Assas (Paris II), where he was awarded a master’s degree in civil law in 1981 and a degree in economic sciences in 1982. He completed his post-university education with a DEA (postgraduate diploma of advanced studies) in European Union law.

As a career diplomat, Pierre Gramegna joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1983. From 1996 to 2002, Pierre Gramegna was Luxembourg’s ambassador to Japan and South Korea. From 2003 to 2013, Pierre Gramegna held the position of Director General of the Chamber of Commerce.

Nicolas Mackel is CEO of Luxembourg for Finance, the Agency for the Development of the Financial Centre, since July 2013.

Nicolas is a career diplomat. He has graduated with a law degree from the University of Aix-en-Provence, and holds two post-graduate diplomas in European law from the Sorbonne University, respectively the College of Europe in Bruges where he then also served as a teaching assistant in the Law Department. He worked as a legal clerk at the European Court of Justice before joining the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1999. His assignments focused on the successive EU Treaty negotiations (Amsterdam, Nice, Constitution, Lisbon).

Nicolas was consecutively posted at Luxembourg’s Permanent Representation to the EU (2002-07), as Deputy Chief of Mission at Luxembourg’s Embassy in Washington DC (2007-11) and as Consul General in Shanghai (2011-13) where he was in charge of promoting Luxembourg’s economic interests throughout China as the Executive Director of the Luxembourg Trade and Investment Office.

Judith Bogner is a television presenter, event facilitator and commentator for international finance, business and geopolitics based between the UK and Germany. For more than ten years she was one of the main European anchors of the financial news channel Bloomberg Global Television in London. Since 2012 Judith runs her own business, offering event and business facilitation, client advisory boards and strategic consulting. She is also a UK accredited mediator.

Judith regularly leads public and private events for corporate and institutional clients in the financial sector and beyond. Her list of clients include the Federation of German Industries, the Euro Finance Week (Frankfurt), Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Bank of New York Mellon, The Brewers of Europe, Luxembourg for Finance, the Dutch Development Bank FMO, Ergo Insurance, State Street, Scope Ratings, the Institute of Culinary Art, Allianz Global Assistance, Wacom and the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Born in Germany, Judith has lived in Switzerland, China, Ukraine, France and Italy. Currently she divides her time between Munich and London. She is bilingual in English-German and also speaks Italian, French and Mandarin Chinese. Judith holds a degree in International Business Management and Chinese from the University of Applied Sciences in Bremen.

On February 20, 2018, Ban Ki-moon was unanimously elected as the President of the Assembly and Chair of the Council by the two respective governance organs of the Global Green Growth Institute. His leadership has been instrumental for the Institute to help its Members adopt the green growth—environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive—model of development.

Previously, he served two terms as the Eighth Secretary-General of the United Nations from 2007 to 2016. He successfully initiated global action to combat climate change that culminated in the adoption and rapid entry into force the landmark Paris Climate Change Agreement in 2016. He worked closely with member states to shape the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and to establish UN Women, the latter of which advances global gender equality and women’s empowerment.

Prior to leading the UN, he was Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of the Republic of Korea. His 37-year career as a diplomat included, among others, postings in New Delhi, Washington D.C., and Vienna.

Ban Ki-moon holds a BA degree in International Relations from Seoul National University and MA degree in Public Administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Bertrand Badré is CEO and Founder of Blue like an Orange Sustainable Capital.

Previously, Bertrand was Managing Director of the World Bank and World Bank Group Chief Financial Officer.  Prior to this, Bertrand was group Chief Financial Officer at Société Générale and Crédit Agricole and served as a member of President Jacques Chirac’s diplomatic team as his deputy personal representative for Africa. He spent seven years at Lazard in New York, London and latterly in Paris as Managing Director where he co-led the restructuring of Eurotunnel.  He started his career in Paris as an Inspector, then Deputy Head, of the auditing service of the French Ministry of Finance.

Bertrand currently serves on the board of Canadian Fintech Wealth Simple and he is a non-Executive Director at Getlink (Groupe Eurotunnel).  Bertrand wrote a book “Can Finance Save the World?” prefaced by Emmanuel Macron and Gordon Brown and translated in multiple languages.  Recently, he wrote the book « Voulons-nous (sérieusement) changer le monde ? », prefaced by Erik Orsenna.  Published articles include “From Billions to Trillons: MDBs contributions to financing for development”, the first joint report from the IMF, EIB, Regional Multilateral Development Banks and the World Bank Group.

Bertrand is a graduate of ENA, SciencesPo and HEC. He is a regular speaker and teacher at these and other institutions including Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, Princeton and Oxford.

Dorothée Baumann-Pauly is a Professor at Geneva University’s School of Economics and Management. She directs the Geneva Center for Business and Human Rights, the first human rights center at a business school in Europe.

Since 2013, she is also the Research Director at the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights at New York University. In these roles, Dorothée works with companies to advance human rights in corporate practice. Her applied research is focused on embedding human rights in organisations and developing business models that enable profits and principles to coexist.

Dorothée also teaches Business and Human Rights and she co-edited the first textbook on Business and Human Rights (Routledge 2016). In 2016, she also co-founded a business school network to integrate human rights in business education as well as the BHR Young Researchers Summit for emerging scholars.

Dorothée earned her PhD in Economics (summa cum laude) at the University of Zurich in 2010 while working for the Fair Labor Association, a multi-stakeholder initiative with the mission to improve labor rights in global supply chains.

Ambroise Fayolle was appointed Vice-President of the European Investment Bank in February 2015.

He is currently responsible for climate action and environment, development policy, the European Fund for Strategic Investments, and is Board member of the European Investment Fund.

He also oversees the activities of the Bank in France, Germany and many countries in Africa and of the Pacific Ocean.

A graduate of the Ecole Nationale d’Administration (ENA), he spent most of his career in various positions at the French Treasury Department and in the IMF and the World Bank, including as a Board member of the two institutions for 6 years.

Johannes Hahn is the Commissioner for Budget and Administration at the European Commission

Johannes Hahn has held various management functions in the different sectors of the Austrian economy and industry, including as CEO of Novomatic AG for 5 years. Between 1992 and 1997, Mr. Hahn was Executive Director of the Austrian People’s Party Vienna. In 2002, he was elected Deputy Chairman of the Party and Chairman in 2005. Member of the Regional Parliament of Vienna from 1996 to 2003, he became Federal Minister for Science and Research in 2007.

He was the Member of the European Commission in charge of Regional Policy from 2010 to 2014. From 2014 to 2019, he was the Member of the European Commission in charge of Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations. Since December 2019, he is the Member of the European Commission in charge of Budget and Administration.

Ingrid Holmes is a Director and Head of Policy and Advocacy at Federated Hermes International. She is also the firm’s climate change coordinator. She has over 15 years of experience working on environmental policy and sustainable finance issues.

Prior to joining Hermes, Ingrid was a Director at sustainable development think tank E3G, leading a range of global initiatives on sustainable and inclusive finance. She has also held positions at the low carbon asset manager Climate Change Capital; been an energy and environment adviser in the UK Parliament; and adviser at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Ingrid has also held several Government advisory roles including Member of the UK Green Finance Initiative (2016/2018), Member of the European Commission’s High Level Expert Group on Sustainable Finance (2017/2018) and ran the Secretariat for the Green Finance Taskforce (2017/2018). She is currently a member of the UK Prudential Regulation Authority/Financial Conduct Authority Climate Financial Risk Forum.

Ingrid has a BSc in Biological Sciences from the University of Edinburgh and an MSc in Environmental Technology from Imperial College London.

Leslie Hook is the FT’s environment and clean energy correspondent, based in London. An award-winning journalist, she has reported from more than a dozen countries across Asia and Europe, and currently leads the FT’s coverage of the global climate crisis.

Previously, she was a San Francisco correspondent at the FT, and before that Beijing correspondent, covering resources and the environment. Leslie was also a fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University during 2013-2014.

Prior to joining the FT in 2010, she was at the Wall Street Journal and the Far Eastern Economic Review in Hong Kong.

Danae Kyriakopoulou is Chief Economist and Director of Research at the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIF) based in London.

Her research focuses on areas relevant to global public policy and investment institutions such as central banks, sovereign funds and public pension funds. These range from monetary policy and financial regulation to reserve management, investment policy and governance, including issues around climate risk supervision by central banks, ESG integration in portfolio management and the scaling up of green and sustainable finance.

She is a frequent speaker and contributor on ESG-related themes in the media and international publications and seminars including at the UN, World Bank and OECD among other forums.

Laura Messchendorp is a reporter at the Financial Times and reports on institutional investor activity and sustainable finance in the Benelux and more widely in Europe.

She holds a bachelor of laws from Maastricht University where she specialised in European Union law, and a master in law and economics from the university of Bologna, Hamburg University and the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, researching the taxation of plastic bags to curb usage of single-use plastics.

Elena Philipova is the Global Head ESG Proposition at Refinitiv, formerly the Financial and Risk business of Thomson Reuters. She is responsible for the end-to-end management of the ESG business, products and services. Elena is the Rapporteur for the Benchmarks group of the EU Technical Expert Group on Sustainable Finance appointed by the European Commission.

Previously, Elena was Head of Company Content Management at Thomson Reuters, where she led the Global Investing and Advisory Content Management Team. Other previous roles at Thomson Reuters include Content Specialist Manager, Content Proposition Manager and Head Data Quality. Elena worked as Senior ESG Analyst at ASSET4, the ESG data provider acquired by Thomson Reuters in 2009, and started her career as Research Analyst at Morgan Stanley.

Elena holds an MBA and BA in Finance and International business from Stetson University.

Dr. Gerald Podobnik is CFO of the Corporate Bank division of Deutsche Bank.

In this role, he is responsible for all financial matters of the division including accounting, reporting, planning, performance management, resource allocation as well as strategy. In addition, he is responsible for Deutsche Bank’s ESG activities as co-chair of the sustainability council.

Gerald holds a doctorate degree in law, a master degree in business administration and is a member of the Sustainable Finance Committee of the German government.

Fiona Reynolds is the CEO of the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), a UN supported organisation with more than 3,000 signatories representing over US $90 trillion in AUM.

Appointed in 2013, Fiona has 25 years’ experience in financial services. She joined the PRI from Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees, where she spent 7 years as CEO. Fiona serves on the Board of the UN Global Compact, is a member of the International Integrated Reporting Council, the Global Advisory Council on Stranded Assets at Oxford University, the UN Business for Peace Steering Committee, the Global Steering Committee for the investor agenda on climate action and the Steering Committee for Climate Action 100+.

Fiona has been a member of the UK Government Green Finance Taskforce and is on the Advisory Board for the UK Green Finance Centre.

In 2018, Fiona was named one of the 20 most influential people in sustainability by Barron’s magazine.

Iain Richards joined the company in 2012 and is currently Head of Responsible Investment, EMEA.

Before joining the company Iain was Regional Head of Corporate Governance at Aviva Investors. His career in the City has also included roles at Schroder Investment Management, the Policy Group of the UK’s Listing Authority and the London Stock Exchange. Iain has also worked at the UK’s Department of Trade and Industry (now BIS) in various roles in the European and competition policy units.

He has written papers on a range of issues including Auditing, Sovereign Wealth Funds and, in 2006, on the impending risk of a systemic banking crisis. He was responsible for leading the UK investment industry’s successful lobbying to re-establish the overarching ‘True & Fair View’ principle of accounting in revised UK Company Law. He has also appeared as an expert witness before the UK House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs to give evidence on Audit Market concentration and the role of auditors.

Robert Scharfe is the Chairman of the Nomination Committee of the World Federation of Exchanges. He has been the CEO of the Luxembourg Stock Exchange from 2012 until April 2021.

He is a recognised expert in Capital Markets matters and a specialist in Green finance.

Before joining the Luxembourg Stock Exchange, he spent 35 years in the banking industry, mostly in Corporate Finance and Financial Markets. Between 2000 and 2012 he was a Member of the Management Board of BGL BNP Paribas in Luxembourg. During that time, he also assumed senior responsibilities within Fortis Bank in the areas of Institutional Banking and Global Markets.

During his banking career, he acquired extensive knowledge in International Capital Markets and gained solid experience in the fields of Asset Management and Investment Funds.

He holds a Master Degree in Economics from the University of Nancy, France, and he is an alumni of Insead, France and Stanford Graduate School of Business, Palo Alto, USA.

Michaela Seimen Howat is a Sustainable Investing Strategist in the Chief Investment Office Wealth Management. She joined UBS in April 2018 from Scope Ratings, a European credit rating agency, where she was a senior analyst for financial institutions. At Scope Ratings, she lead a project team for the assessment and implementation of ESG criteria in the credit rating process.

Michaela has more than 15 years of international experience in the credit and debt markets. Prior to joining Scope Ratings, Michaela was a rates strategist within the Investment Banking Divisions of Royal Bank of Canada, Barclays and UBS in London where she covered Supranationals, Sub-Sovereigns & Agencies, as well as Covered Bonds. She was responsible for advising institutional clients with a global coverage. Michaela also worked in counterparty risk management for financial institutions at UBS in London and, from 2003 until 2006, she worked as a bank analyst for Moody’s in Frankfurt and London.

Michaela studied Economics with a focus on International Business Relationships and International Market Management at the Universities of Passau and Muenster, Germany,  and received a Masters degree.

Martin Spolc is the Head of the Sustainable Finance unit in the European Commission’s Directorate General for Financial Services.

Prior to his current role, he was the Head of the Capital Markets Union unit, the Economic analysis unit, Deputy Head of the Banking unit and Assistant to the Director General, directly involved in developing the Banking Union and other key projects in the area of financial services aiming at restoring financial stability since the crisis. Before joining the Commission, he had worked at risk management consultancy and the banking sector.

He is the holder of the CFA and FRM designations and member of the CFA Institute and Global Association of Risk Professionals.

Maxim Straus is the CFO of Cargolux Airlines International.

He joined Cargolux Airlines International S.A. in 2005 as a trainee. He was hired as a Financial Planner thereafter and prepared the Business Plan for Cargolux. He was working with Corporate Finance and the CFO on the strategic projects. This function gave him an excellent insight into the business model of the Company. Over the years he held various positions in Corporate Finance, including being in charge of the Aircraft Financing Department. He has been part of the team managing the sale of the shares to Qatar Airways (2012) and later to HNCA in China (2013/2014) as well as in the turnaround plan that the company embarked on in 2009. In 2014 he took over the responsibility of the Corporate Development/Strategy department and was appointed Chief Financial Officer in 2016.

Due to the high volatility in the airline business, Maxim’s continuous focus is to optimise the liquidity of Cargolux and monitor the profitability of the network. The latter is closely linked to transformation initiatives such as Customer Revenue Management, Dynamic Pricing tools, eProcurement, real-time Business Intelligence and the implementation of SAP 4 Hana.

Maxim is heading the Government Affairs and Traffic Rights Department. This is the foundation of Cargolux’ operations as the Company is only allowed to fly to destinations that have an air service agreement with Luxembourg. He is also in charge of Cargolux’ representation at Airlines for Europe (A4E) and at the EU Commission – where the current hot topics are post-Brexit Traffic rights and EU Aviation Sustainability Targets.

He represents Cargolux as a board member Champ Cargo Systems (CCS), Cargolux Italia, the Luxembourg Cluster for Logistics and the Luxembourg Chamber of Commerce. He holds advisory roles in the Luxembourg Center for Logistics from MIT and the Chinalux association.

Hilde Veelaert joined ACTIAM in June 2003 as Portfolio Manager for European equities and became Head of the equity team in 2011. Since then she manages a team of 9 investment professionals focusing on both active and passive equity management.

Hilde started her career in 1994 and worked at AXA Bank in Belgium and AXA Investment Management in The Hague.

She holds a Master of Science degree in Economics from the University of Leuven. Furthermore, she is a Financial Analyst (ABAF/EFFAS). She is also registered with the Dutch Securities Institute as a Senior Investment Manager. Hilde engages as an active member of the Dutch CFA institute (VBA) and other industry initiatives to promote continuous knowledge transfer and the further professionalisation of the investment industry and the portfolio companies.