Our speakers
Julie is Remuneration Committee Chair at Ebiquity plc, Senior Independent Director of Marshall of Cambridge, and Co-Director of the Hughes Hall Centre for Climate Change Engagement, at Cambridge. Julie is Chair of the Chapter Zero Board, helping its network of non-executive directors to discuss the risks and opportunities of climate change in the boardroom.
Bridget is a Partner in KPMG’s Climate Risk and Decarbonisation Strategy team helping clients understand the physical and transition risks that they will face under various climate change scenarios, the impact of these risks on their operations and the strategy they need to put in place to mitigate these risks as well as to take advantage of any opportunities arising. Bridget has over 13 years’ experience in climate change and decarbonisation, spanning a variety of private and public sector roles including banking, Government advisory and strategic consulting.
Jan's work focuses on issues that emerge at the intersections between sustainable development concerns and accounting scholarship and has published on topics such the Sustainable Development Goals; sustainability science; motivations and rationales for standalone reporting; carbon accounting; sustainability assessment and accounting education.
Riona moved into KMPG’s ESG team last year and has worked on a range of climate risk engagements, performing scenario analysis, and helping companies understand the range of risks posed by climate change. Riona is passionate about the role of the Accountancy profession in dealing with the climate emergency.
Ben leads the multi-disciplinary project team at Aviva working on the development of scenario analysis to support the development of disclosures consistent with the recommendations of the Taskforce on Climate Related Financial Disclosures. He is also a member of the joint PRA-FCA Climate Financial Risk Forum Scenario Analysis Working Group.
Asif has significant experience in audit of FTSE-listed companies in the consumer energy sector. He works with leading companies to assess the impact of climate change on their financial statements. Recently, he completed a secondment with EY’s Global Vice Chair - Sustainability and helped set up EY’s global sustainability strategy and launch EY’s commitment to be net zero by 2025.
Gemma joined CDSB in 2016 to support CDSB's technical and engagement work after being an educator in London. As training and education lead, Gemma manages the TCFD Knowledge Hub including authoring the e-learning courses on climate-related financial disclosure. She also leads on CDSB’s supporting services, helping companies improve their disclosure practice.
Bruce Davis is Co-founder and joint Managing Director of Abundance Investment, the UK's leading investment crowdfunding platform for green and socially positive businesses and projects. Since launch, Abundance investors have collectively funded more than £115m of investments including recently the UK's first green municipal bonds from West Berks and Warrington Council.
Jonathan leads the ESG Solutions Group for Global Banking at HSBC. A chartered accountant with an MA in Economics from Cambridge University, his banking career started more than 20 years ago in London. After working in Latin America and raising capital for projects in the Middle East, he has been based in Hong Kong since 1997.
Rosie has more than 17 years’ experience as a Chartered Accountant and subsequently an environmental economist. She is the lead author of the Capitals Coalition’s Biodiversity Guidance, which brought together business, policy and conservation stakeholders to develop guidance on why and how biodiversity can be better integrated into core business decisions.
Jessica Fries is Executive Chairman of The Prince’s Accounting for Sustainability Project (A4S), established by His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales in 2004. She has led A4S since 2008, working with the finance community to catalyze a shift to a sustainable economy, with a focus on practical actions and targeted interventions capable of achieving global change.
John oversees ICAEW’s PFP Community and ICAEW’s Personal Financial Planning Advisory Group. His role involves liaising with the FCA and other regulators, working across different areas of ICAEW and with external stakeholders. He began his career as a private client stockbroker and investment manager before working as an independent financial adviser.
Andrew is MP for Arundel and South Downs and the UK’s Net Zero Business Champion. His role aims to support UK businesses to make credible plans to net zero by 2050 and to showcase the UK’s place as a global leader in tackling climate change in the run up to COP26.
Josh helps clients identify which ESG elements to focus upon to build and maintain competitive advantage. He predominately focuses on delivering sustainability focused growth-strategy services with an alignment to a company’s core activities and role in society, as well as ESG implementation, reporting, planning and responding to ESG mega forces.
David is a senior campaigner, policy specialist and strategy professional, with over a decade’s experience in the international development sector. David’s career also includes periods in strategy consulting, working at Accenture Development Partnerships, Bridgespan International, and Citi Private Bank in New York.
Mark Jerome is the Head of the Green Climate Fund’s Internal Audit Office. He was previously an audit partner at KPMG, where he focused on emerging economies and the development sector. He was also a member of KPMG’s international steering committee on the development sector from 2007 to 2016.
Ajay worked at Barclays Wealth before joining Ruffer in 2014. In 2019, he worked as an equity analyst in Ruffer’s Hong Kong office, before returning to the charities team in London as an Investment Manager. He is a member of the Chartered Institute of Securities & Investment and is co-manager of the Charity Assets Trust.
Scott formed the first ICAEW-chartered, BCorp-certified accounting practice. Kung Fu Accounting is designed to leave nothing but footprints, through its business policies (printing nothing) and purchasing decisions (buying refurbished IT equipment). Scott also formed the Climate Conscious Accountant's Network to empower finance professionals to take action on climate issues.
Fflur heads up the public affairs work of Smart Energy GB across Great Britain. She is responsible for stakeholder and politician engagement, and is a regular public and media spokesperson. A fluent Welsh speaker, she started her career working in the third sector developing environmental projects with communities across Wales.
Sam works in the BEIS team delivering the Together for Our Planet Business Climate Leaders campaign for Andrew Griffith MP in his role as UK Net Zero Business Champion ahead of COP26 in November. Before joining the Civil Service, she led on climate engagement at Nottingham City Council.
David’s varied accountancy career has spanned energy, aviation, asset management, banking, audit, corporate recovery, finance, investor relations, advisory, large transformations, and now the future. David has been tasked with creating a vision that enables financial markets to make systemic changes to remain effective as ESG data becomes increasingly price sensitive.
Christophe McGlade is the Head of the Energy Supply Unit at the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA). He joined the IEA in 2015 and leads the energy supply and climate analysis within the World Energy Outlook (WEO) series. The World Energy Outlook is the IEA’s flagship publication and one of the world’s most authoritative sources for strategic insight on energy and environmental trends. It uses different scenarios to illustrate the choices that can lead towards a more secure and sustainable energy future.
Richard was senior partner of an accounting firm for more than a decade before becoming involved in tax justice campaigning. He co-founded the Tax Justice Network, the Fair Tax Mark and Finance for the Future and founded both Tax Research UK and Corporate Accountability Network. He co-created the Green New Deal.
Sarah works within the sustainability team at ICAEW and is responsible for delivering climate change content to support students and members achieve climate action (SDG 13). She works to showcase the importance of the accountancy profession as change makers in society, and how they can tackle the climate crisis.
James is a Chartered Financial Planner. He was named one of the “Top 35 Next Generation Advisers” by Citywire Magazine in 2017 and 2018, and runner up in the FT’s Money Management Award for Multi-Asset Planner of the year 2018. His focus is building lasting relationships with clients, piecing together previously disparate circumstances to maximise family wealth and meet clients’ objectives.
Mark Sait is known for his pragmatic approach to sustainability. His experience is in identifying and starting businesses that simplify fragmented markets to help move new technologies/solutions into the mainstream. SaveMoneyCutCarbon is his latest venture and is recognised as the “go to people for homes and organisations that want to reduce their energy and water bills”.
Zsuzsanna is responsible for ICAEW’s Banking and Insurance Committees leading their engagement in technical and policy work. This includes responding to public consultations and running events to engage the membership. She also works on special projects, including investigating how the climate change-related risks are managed in financial services following the TCFD recommendations.
Richard joined ICAEW in 2005 to set up the sustainability practice within the technical strategy department. During this time Richard has led on the ICAEW’s thought leadership and engagement programme in sustainability.
Alan is a NED with Diageo where he has been on the board since 2014 and chairs the Audit Committee. He was a NED and Audit Committee chair of Games Workshop Group from 1996 to 2009 and a NED at Tesco Personal Finance Ltd (Tesco Bank) from 2017 to 2021. Alan was a founder member of the A4S CFO network which he co-chaired for some four years until his retirement and is a member of Chapter Zero.
Helena has over 10 years of audit and advisory experience at KPMG in the UK, working across a broad range of sectors. She has recently established KPMG UK’s Corporate Reporting Advisory team bringing together financial reporting and ESG specialists to provide advice to clients on all aspects of UK corporate reporting.
India graduated with an MA honours in English from St Andrews University and joined Ruffer in 2017 as part of the graduate trainee programme. She is a member of the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment following completion of the CISI Masters in Wealth Management.
Iain Wright joined ICAEW as Director of Corporate and Regional Engagement in June 2018. Iain trained as a Chartered Accountant with Deloitte & Touche and worked for the firm until 2003.