Eco-Business A-List 2020

Ms Esther Chang is the Executive Director of Global Compact Network Singapore (GCNS). She leads GCNS initiatives to raise awareness and adoption of corporate sustainability efforts in Singapore and the region. She serves as the main liaison between GCNS and the United Nations Global Compact.

Passionate about creating positive change in society and problem solving, Ms Chang has dedicated her career in the non-profit sector and has worked for leading healthcare and education organisations, as well as grassroots NGOs in Canada and Singapore. She champions multilateral partnerships to responsibly invest in and develop sustainable solutions at scale. She is an active volunteer in human rights and social welfare causes.

Ms Chang has a B.Sc (Hons) in Life Sciences from Queen's University (Canada) and completed post-graduate studies in Fundraising and Volunteer Management (Humber College, Canada) and Sustainability Leadership (University of Cambridge, UK). She is CFRE certified since 2012, an internationally recognised accreditation for philanthropic fundraising administered by CFRE International.

Jessica is the Founder and Managing Director of Eco-Business, an award-winning journalist, TV presenter, director, producer, and a social entrepreneur. She has more than a decade of experience in media, journalism and sustainable development and is a columnist for print and digital publications such as The Straits Times and TODAY.

She is an independent and non-executive director of Singapore-listed ComfortDelGro, one of the world's largest land transport companies, and sits on the nomination and investment committees.

She serves as Strategic Advisor to Blue Planet Environmental Solutions, and is founding Director for Embodhi (Singapore), a non-profit for women empowerment in Asia. She is also an associate 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 climate action and raise public awareness on climate issues.

A Singapore Press Holdings scholar, she has won many journalism awards. In March 2018, she was announced the winner of the Women of the Future Southeast Asia Awards for the media and communications category. She was also named as one of LinkedIn's Power Profiles for Singapore for 2018.

Robin is the Deputy Editor of Eco-Business. He has spent a decade living and working in Asia Pacific, including in Hong Kong, Australia and Singapore, and has 17 years of experience in journalism, writing about media, marketing, government, technology and sustainable development issues.

He reports on the big stories in sustainability as well as manages Eco-Business’s network of writers across the region.

Robin has a degree in Zoology from the University of Bristol in the UK, and spends his weekends as a volunteer for Singapore animal welfare charity ACRES.

Georg Kell is the founder and former executive director of the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), the world’s largest voluntary corporate sustainability initiative with over 8,000 corporate signatories in more than 160 countries.

As its founding executive director, Kell helped to establish the UNGC as the foremost platform for the development, implementation and disclosure of responsible and sustainable corporate policies and practices.

In a career of more than 25 years at the United Nations, Kell also oversaw the conception and launch of the Global Compact’s sister initiatives on investment, the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), and on education, the Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME), together with the Sustainable Stock Exchanges (SSE) initiative. Mr. Kell is currently chairman of Arabesque, an asset management firm that integrates environmental, social, and governance data with quantitative investment strategies.

He started his career as a research fellow in engineering at the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology and Innovation in Berlin. He then worked as a financial analyst in various countries in Africa and Asia before joining the United Nations in 1987. A native of Germany, Kell holds advanced degrees in economics and engineering from the Technical University of Berlin.

Mr. Kell has received numerous recognitions and has been named among the "100 Most Influential in Business Ethics" every year since 2011.

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Michael Salvatico leads environmental, social and governance (ESG) business development in Asia Pacific for Trucost, based in Sydney. 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, Michael was an Executive Director at MSCI Inc. 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 Inc., he was part of the highly rated research team at Bank of America -Merrill Lynch where he was head of Emerging Markets quantitative analysis.

Michael was a cofounder 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.

Michael 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.

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A committee member of the Global Compact Network Singapore, which is the local network of UN Global Compact for CSR, Esther is a member of the World Green Building Council’s Corporate Advisory Board and the Urban Land Institute Women’s Leadership Initiative Singapore Steering Committee. Her latest appointments include: member of the UNEP Finance Initiative Property Working Group, GRI Corporate Leadership Group for Integrated Reporting and Sustainable Stock Exchanges’ Green Finance Advisory Group.

Anna R. Oposa is a multi-hyphenated changemaker best known for being the Executive Director and Chief Mermaid of Save PhilippineSeas (SPS), a movement to mobilise "seatizens" for collective action and behaviour change. She has been at the forefront of numerous projects on campaigns for shark conservation, youth empowerment, environmental education, and waste management.

Outside SPS, she serves as a consultant for theUnited Nations Development Programme, The Purpose Business, and the AsianDevelopment Bank. She earned her MSc in Conservation Science (Merit) fromImperial College London in 2015 through the Chevening scholarship and was one of the three Global Fellows in Marine Conservation at the Duke University Marine Laboratory in 2017. Awards and distinctions include being named as one of Yahoo! Southeast Asia’s seven inspiring modern-day Filipino heroes in 2011; the youngest and first Filipino recipient of the Future for Nature Award in2012; City Land Development's E-Generation Challenge winner in 2018; and being name done of the 30 under 30 Environmental Education Awardees of the North AmericanAssociation for Environmental Education, also in 2018.

Mr R. Raghunathan is the Chief Executive Officer of WWF Singapore, a regional hub for one of the world’s largest conservation organisations.  

As CEO, Raghu is focused on shaping conservation strategies with global impact and local relevance, bringing communities, businesses and governments together to enable change. He believes in making a positive impact by empowering people to take climate action and restore our natural biodiversity.

Raghu brings 30 years of extensive and diversified experience in management and finance consulting, having spearheaded successful business transformation strategies for organisations in Singapore and the region. Prior to joining WWF, Raghu provided consulting services related to the implementation of digital technologies, working with industry associations, government agencies and local small and medium enterprises in Singapore. He is also a former partner and leader in the Consulting practice of PricewaterhouseCoopers Singapore.

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Junice is Eco-Business' Acting Executive Director, and Director for Greater China, based in Beijing and head of Eco-Business's consulting practice.

She was previously the Director for Southeast Asia at global sustainability advisory, Corporate Citizenship, where she worked with Asian-based corporations, governments and non-profits on strategic environment and social issues.

Junice is no stranger to China. She started her career in Shanghai with French consumer goods multinational, Danone. She returned to China again in 2011, where she was appointed by Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City (SSTEC) to be responsible for the marketing and communications of the bilateral project driving sustainable urbanisation. Prior to that, she spent four years as Deputy Head for the Switzerland's State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) based in the Embassy of Switzerland in Singapore, helping Swiss companies, particularly in the cleantech and sustainable architecture industries - invest into Southeast Asia.

A certified trainer under the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)'s GRI Standards, Junice has trained over 200 individuals on sustainability reporting. She has also trained community specialists on social impact measurement.

As a mother of two young kids, Junice has genuine concerns about their immediate futures in an era of imminent climate change. Besides brushing up on her Mandarin, Junice is committed to helping businesses in China bridge knowledge, ideas and understanding on sustaining our planet for generations to come.

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