Unlocking Capital for Sustainability 2020

Sumi Dhanarajan is the Associate Director, APAC for Forum for the Future, an international non-profit that works with business, government and civil society to solve complex sustainability challenges. She is an experienced advocate and international development practitioner with expertise on the impacts of the private sector on the environment, poverty reduction and human rights. Previously, she served at Oxfam GB for 10 years as senior policy adviser, then head of the private sector team; and, on moving to Singapore, at the Centre for Asia and Globalisation at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, leading their programme on the Public Roles of the Private Sector. Before embarking on her career in international development, Sumi served as a senior legal adviser to the Secretariat for Legislative Councillors of the Hong Kong Democratic Party, and established the human rights desk for the Malaysian Bar Council. She has served as trustee and board director to the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, the Ethical Trading Initiative and the Commonwealth Human Rights Institute and has had various advisory roles including on the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Human Rights.

Mr. Elliott Harris is the Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, and Chief Economist of the United Nations. He served previously as Assistant Secretary-General and Head of the Office in New York of the UnitedNations Environment Programme, from 2013-2018. Prior to joining the United Nations, Mr. Harris spent 25 years as an economist at the International Monetary FundIMF), working in the African and Fiscal Affairs Departments, including as IMF Mission Chief in Togo, Chad and Guinea. He served from 2008-2012 as the IMF Special Representative to the United Nations, in parallel to his role as Assistant Director of the Strategy Policy and Review Department.

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Feng Hu works as Senior Sustainability Consultant at Vigeo Eiris (VE), an affiliate of Moody’s Investors Service, and is primarily responsible for providing Second Party Opinions on green finance projects. Prior to VE, Feng led water-nomics work at CWR (China Water Risk), a think-tank specialised in water and climate risk analysis. He initiated and led joint projects with the Foreign Economic Cooperation Office of the Ministry of Environmental Protection of China, and co-authored reports on sectoral water risks such as in energy and agriculture, and basin water-nomics of Asia’s major rivers. In addition, Feng also worked as a senior carbon auditor on climate change mitigation projects of various types ranging from wind, hydro, solar PV, energy efficiency to waste management. As the project leader, he worked in China as well as across Asia and Africa

Mr. Robin Hu joined Temasek in December 2016 and is currently Head, Sustainability & Stewardship Group. In this role, Mr. Hu is responsible for such global functions as Corporate Affairs, Institutional Relations, philanthropy, and Sustainability policy, solutions and impact investing.

Prior to joining Temasek, Mr. Hu held the position Chief Executive Officer of the South China Morning Post (“SCMP”)Group in Hong Kong since June 2012. Before that, Mr. Hu was Senior ExecutiveVice President, Chinese Newspapers Division and Newspaper Services Division ofSingapore’s leading media group Singapore Press Holdings (“SPH”) for eight years, where he was responsible for managing three Chinese dailies, a bilingual free-sheet, events and exhibitions, and the group’s production, engineering and circulation business.

Mr. Hu also served as Managing Director(Global Business) of Singtel NCS Ltd. between 2001 and 2004. Mr. Hu gained earlier experience in China as the Regional Director (China) for theSingapore Economic Development Board based initially in Shanghai and Suzhou and later in Beijing in mid to late 90s. Mr. Hu was a Counsellor with the Embassy of Republic of Singapore (Beijing) between March 1998 and December 1999. Mr. Hu also served as SVP and Country GM (China) of Nasdaq listed Dotcom start-up Asiacontent.com Ltd from January 2000 toJune 2001.

Mr. Hu serves on the Board of Business China and Mediacorp Pte Ltd.

Mr. Hu holds a Bachelor of Science(Honours) in Mathematics from the University of Kent and a Master of Science inComputer Science from the University of Wales.

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Harjan Kuiper is the Chief Executive Officer of Rabobank Singapore & Representative Markets.

Based in Singapore,  Harjan is responsible for the overall management of Rabobank’s offices in Singapore and Malaysia, as well as the wider South-East Asian franchise for which Singapore is the hub for clients from Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines.

Harjan has over 20 years of successful banking and finance experience most notably in investment and portfolio management, markets and trade finance. He started his career with Rabobank in London, and subsequently took on various key management positions in Dublin, Utrecht and New York with his most recent position being the Head of Markets North America at Rabobank New York and double hatting the role of Chief Executive Officer for Rabo Securities USA, Inc.

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Mikkel Larsen is the Group Chief Sustainability Officer of DBS and a committee member of Global Compact Network Singapore’s Management Committee. Mikkel chairs the DBS Sustainability Council, which comprises senior leaders across business and support units and is responsible for developing DBS’ overarching sustainability framework, setting key performance indicators and targets in consultation with the relevant stakeholders, and driving sustainability initiatives across the bank. Prior to joining DBS, Mikkel was the Chief Financial Officer for Asia Pacific in UBS from 2009 to 2012 covering Investment Bank, Wealth Management and Asset Management. He was previously the Asia Pacific Head of Accounting Policy and location controller for Hong Kong at UBS. Mikkel has also worked in Citigroup in London and KPMG in London and Denmark. Mikkel holds an MBA from London Business School, Graduate education from Harvard University and a Bachelor and Masters Degree in Economics from Copenhagen Business School in his native country Denmark where he also holds his CPA.

Mike has been involved in project and infrastructure financing for more than 20 years. As Head of Structured Finance, he is responsible for the origination and execution of project financing, cross-border export financing and event-driven financing across a wide range of industries, including renewable energy, power and utilities, telecommunication, and general infrastructure. In 2018, Mike assumed the role of Head of Sustainable Finance. In this capacity, Mike is responsible for the origination and execution of sustainable finance transactions, including green loans, sustainability-linked loans, and financing for sustainable industries. Prior to joining OCBC, Mike was in the project and structured financing business in various institutions including the Royal Bank of Scotland (Hong Kong) and ABN AMRO (Hong Kong). Mike graduated with a Master of Science (International Accounting and Finance) with the London School of Economics, and a Bachelor of Business (Financial Analysis) with the Nanyang Technological University.

Vivek Pathak is IFC’s Regional Director for East Asia and the Pacific, leading advisory and investment operations across 18 countries, which in 2019 reached US$3.8 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.

Ben works as part of the Advisory team at the Carbon Trust delivering consultancy work covering both ongoing carbon management and long term strategy planning. His focus is to improve the utilisation of the evidence base of climate science in corporate decision making. He is a lead expert in science-based target setting, supply chain strategy and climate related risk analysis. He heads up the Carbon Trust’s work in assessing the financial opportunity and risk to companies from a low carbon economic transition, including responding to the TCFD recommendations.

He is a specialist in green bonds covering assurance pre- and post-issuance as well as ongoing impact assessment. He has worked with a number of development banks to engage diverse groups of stakeholders to embed sustainable thinking, focused around both de-risking portfolios and aligning activities with climate goals.

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Steve Peters is a Senior Energy Specialist (Waste-to-Energy) in the Energy Sector Group of the Sustainable Development and Climate Change Department, Asian Development Bank.  He is responsible for developing the knowledge base, project development and implementation in waste to energy and supporting projects across waste, the circular economy and ocean impacts.

Prior to joining ADB, Mr. Peters was the Director at Stratcon Singapore Pte Ltd where he consulted on waste to energy, waste to fuels, biomass, biogas, biofuels and innovation in clean technology. He was a Founder and Technical Director for the Technology and Development Network which is a network of professionals in clean technology in Asia. He was the Managing Director at Waste to Energy Pte Ltd, a Stratcon JV biogas developer in ASEAN from 2004 to 2010; Deputy Project Manager at Kumagai Gumi Co. Ltd., in Singapore in 1997-1999; Director at Stratcon Pty Ltd., in Australia in 1993-1999; and a Director at Foster Sturrock Pty Ltd in Australia from 1988 to 1993. He is the immediate past Chairman of the Asia Pacific Biogas Alliance.

Mr. Peters obtained his Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees in Civil Engineering both from University of Melbourne, Australia in 1996 and 1987 respectively.

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With 20+-year experience in the fund management industry with more than 10 years at top ranking investment banking firms (JP Morgan, Citi and Credit Suisse), Cedric has been managing fixed income portfolios and analyzing corporate bonds during the most part of his career, most recently as the Head of Emerging Markets Corporate Credit Research at an independent credit research company. He’s been managing teams of analysts and acting as a principal of small investment teams in various capacities. He earned a Business Degree from EM Lyon in France, including a one year exchange program at Waseda University in Tokyo, a Master’s in Finance from the London Business School and he is currently enrolled in the joint Executive MBA program of INSEAD in Singapore and Tsinghua University in Beijing. He is a CFA charter holder and member of the CFA Society in Singapore. Since relocating for the second time to Asia six years ago (Bangkok and Singapore), he has been developing investable projects in the climate finance space in South East Asia. He’s been a consultant for the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia Pacific (including Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines) on Green Finance.

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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Regula Schegg is Circulate Capital’s Managing Director, Asia. She leads the investment strategy, manages the investment team and oversees Circulate Capital Ocean Fund’s investment portfolio in South and Southeast Asia.

Together with her team, Regula manages asset allocations as well as due diligence, portfolio management of fund investments. She also provides strategic advisory to the portfolio companies, focusing on strategy, business development, fundraising, key hiring decisions, financial management and governance.

Regula is an experienced global professional with over 20 years' of leadership, business development, project management, finance and social enterprise/start-up expertise. Throughout her corporate career, she held positions in corporate strategy, M&A, private equity, financial controlling and business development.

She was further engaged in the microfinance industry, establishing a growth guarantee fund, financing microfinancing institutions. She further established a social enterprise in the Philippines, developing sustainable housing technologies, establishing production and construction of affordable housing solutions in collaboration with urban poor communities and civil society organizations in Southeast Asia.  

Regula graduated with an MBA (Honors) in Global Management from Thunderbird, School of Global Management, USA, with undergraduate studies in Switzerland, the United Kingdom and France. She is an Aspen Institute Business & Society First Movers Fellow. Regula speaks German, English and French.

Liang is the Head of DCM & Syndicate APAC of BNP Paribas, based in Singapore.

Her main responsibilities include the origination and distribution of Asia Debt Capital Market Products. Her product scope spans from vanilla to structured solutions across investment grade to high yield spectrum for G3 & Asian local currencies. She works closely with Debt Capital Markets & Sales teams in Asia, the Syndicate team globally internally and all major international investment banks.

Over the past 15 years with BNP Paribas, Liang has executed a number of landmark transactions in Asia. Before joining BNP Paribas, Liang worked for Deutsche Bank in the Relative Value Group and the Institutional Sales Group in Hong Kong, London and New York, specializing in interest rate products structuring and sales.

Liang graduated from the University of Bergen, Norway, majoring in system engineering and Fudan University, Shanghai with a Bachelor in Finance.

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El Lynn is the Head of Ethics at Prudential Singapore. She is responsible for ensuring a successful corporate ethics culture, developing and implementing an Environmental,Social and Governance (ESG) framework, as well as a framework around the responsible use of AI and data analytics.

Prior to this role, she was Head of Community Investment at Prudential Singapore responsible for driving community investment and sustainability initiatives in Singapore. She began her career in the corporate communications industry and spent 17 years consulting for major MNCs across banking and financial services, travel, arts, FMCG and for the public sector.

Before joining Prudential in August 2017, she ran her own corporate communications consulting business for three years where she worked with start-ups and non-profits in the technology, real estate, arts and aviation sectors. Prior to that, El spent eight years with Hill+Knowlton in various roles including Business Development and Marketing Director, Asia and Asia Lead for Sports Marketing and Sponsorship. During this time, she oversaw new business activities and multi-market pitches across Asia with a focus on improving conversion rates.

Before taking on her role at Hill+Knowlton, she led both corporate and marketing communications teams across Asia including in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Shanghai, managing clients such as DHL, HSBC, P&G, National Heritage Board, National Parks Board, UK Trade & Investment, State Street Corporation, Linde Gas, Pernod Ricard, Rio Tinto Alcan and American Express.

El holds a BA in Communication from Olympia College and is currently pursuing a BA inSociology and Psychology at the Singapore University of Social Sciences.

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Ricco Zhang is Senior Director, Asia Pacific of the International Capital Market Association (ICMA) based in Hong Kong. Mr. Zhang is responsible for ICMA’s development in Greater China and works very closely with regulators, financial institutions and other organizations who are active at the capital markets in the region to promote and maintain the best market practice. He has previously worked for international law firms, investment banks and other financial institutions engaged in capital market transactions and mergers & acquisitions in Asia and has extensive experience as a market practitioner. Mr. Zhang graduated from the Faculty of Law of the University of Hong Kong.

Vincent Bakker has over 10 years of experience in the energy industry. He co-founded at Positive Energy, a Singapore-based technology startup simplifying the financing of renewable energy projects, where he supports commercial renewable energy projects in Asia in attracting investments. Due to his work and personal interest, Vincent has a strong background in the financial world, economic/energy policies & regulations as well as the energy industry. Prior he worked at oil major Royal Dutch Shell. Vincent studied Industrial Engineering in the Netherlands and is CGMA accredited.

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.

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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 the environment.

Robin is currently the Deputy Editor of Eco-Business, where 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. He is also a long-suffering supporter of West Ham United FC.

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Nicholas brings a strong international background in the chemicals and plastic business. A Canadian and Australian citizen, he has worked extensively in Europe and Asia throughout his career.

Nicholas joined the Alliance to End Plastic Waste on May 1st, 2020 as Vice President of Projects, responsible for the sourcing, development, planning and implementation of projects focused on ending plastic waste in the environment.

Nicholas held various management positions in the Borealis Group from 2009 – 2020. Most recently as Head of Marketing Automotive, based in Vienna Austria. Prior to that he was located in Singapore as Strategic Planning Manager for Borouge Pte. Ltd.

He started his international career in the chemical industry in 1998 with Ciba Specialty Chemicals where he held several sales, marketing, strategy and management positions in Hong Kong, Switzerland, Thailand and the United Kingdom.

Nicholas holds an MBA in Marketing and Strategy from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada.

Steven Okun is Founder and CEO of Singapore-based APAC Advisors, a public affairs consultancy working with clients on ESG, sustainability and stakeholder engagement. In addition, he serves as the ASEAN Representative for EMPEA and is a member of its global ESG community. Steve has lived and worked in Asia since 2003, most recently for KKR. As KKR’s first Director of Asia Public Affairs, Mr. Okun’s responsibilities encompassed government affairs, communications, stakeholder engagement and sustainability including KKR’s Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) initiatives. Prior to moving to Asia, Steven served in the Clinton Administration and is a graduate of the University of Virginia and University of Virginia School of Law.

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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