Speakers: 2024

Insights from experts across the ESG ecosystem

Lindsay Davis
Responsible investment manager
EMK Capital

Lindsay Davis is a Responsible Investment Manager at EMK Capital, where she helps to drive the firm’s approach to responsible investment strategy. Prior to joining EMK, Lindsay worked as a strategist at Ever Sustainable where she provided sustainability strategy consultancy for clients across several sectors including real estate, utilities, extractives and financial services. Prior to this, Lindsay worked as a trade journalist, providing on-the-ground coverage of the mining industry across sub-Saharan Africa. She also spent time in the NGO sector with organisations focused on female empowerment, poverty alleviation and supporting refugees.
Will Houston
Head of financial sustainability
BAT

Will is Head of Financial Sustainability at BAT, reporting into the Group’s Chief Sustainability Officer. His role focuses on helping to ensure that BAT delivers what its investors require on Sustainability topics, including by engaging with Sustainability contacts at investors on their specific focus areas and ensuring the wider investor base appreciates how Sustainability is integrated into BAT’s long-term business strategy. The team also aims to provide an effective feedback loop into the business. He established BAT’s Sustainability Data & Reporting Programme – focused on readiness and compliance with the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (and other regulations) with a particular focus on data. He was previously on both the buy-side, as a Portfolio Manager at Norges Bank Investment Management, and sell-side, as UBS and Redburn, focusing on Consumer Goods.
Danny Wall
ESG analyst
Pollen Street Capital

Daniel joined Pollen Street in April 2024 as an ESG Analyst, specialising in data analytics across the Private Equity and Credit portfolios, automating ESG dataflows and implementing AI utility into ESG reporting.
Pollen Street manages over £4.8bn AUM across private equity and credit strategies on behalf of investors including leading public and corporate pension funds, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds, endowments and foundations, asset managers, banks, and family offices from around the world.
Prior to this, Daniel worked as a Data Analyst for an ESG Data Infrastructure and Analytics startup, focusing on AI-integrated data scraping and automative data flows, for a proprietary ESG scoring and benchmarking methodology, focusing on quantifying the ‘S’ in ESG for FTSE companies.
Daniel also experiences in Asset-Management and EdTech and graduated from Nottingham Trent University with a degree in Economics with International Banking and Finance.
Martha McPherson
Sustainability director
Ever Sustainable

Martha is Sustainability Director at Ever Sustainable, working with companies around the world to build sustainability strategies which are more resilient, innovative and impactful. Ever believes that sustainability is opportunity, and that those businesses which orient towards more sustainable economic markets look to stand the test of time. Ever works with clients including Mondi, Britvic and The Carlyle Group on sustainability approaches, including double materiality and regulatory readiness, strategy development, roadmapping and reporting.
Matthew Hodgkinson
Co-founder and portfolio manager
Confluence Partners

Matthew is the portfolio manager of the Confluence Impact Fund – which focuses on publicly listed companies in the non-BRIC global emerging market, targeting positive impact as well as financial returns.
Prior to co-founding Confluence, Matthew was a Partner at Satya Capital. Satya is the private investment office of Dr Mo Ibrahim, it has a global mandate with an Africa focus. During his 12 years at Satya he worked across 17 of Africa’s largest economies, across a wide range of sectors and asset classes. Satya partnered with TPG in 2015 and Matthew had a front row seat to the launch of TPG’s first impact fund, the RISE Fund.
Matthew started his career in Investment Banking (Lehman Brothers) and Private Equity (Terra Firma).
Matthew holds a dual EMBA from INSEAD and Tsinghua University, an undergraduate degree from Oxford University, and completed the Cambridge University Sustainable Finance Course.
Danielle Chigumira
Director and head of European investor relations
LyondellBasell

Danielle Chigumira is the Head of European Investor Relations at LyondellBasell, also with responsibility for global Sustainable investor relations engagement. Based in London, she hopes to illuminate the unique sustainability strategy at LYB to investors and the broader financial community. Danielle was a sell-side analyst for 15 years, known for a thoughtful, detailed and commercial approach to equity research. Danielle is passionate about combining an informed, data-led, bottom-up approach to ESG analysis, with a broader awareness that naked ESG metrics aren’t the only thing that count (and can sometimes encourage suboptimal corporate behaviour). During her sell side career, she led the EMEA Metals & Mining team at Credit Suisse, covering the diversified miners and mid cap base and precious metals. Prior to Credit Suisse, she covered the mining sector at UBS, Macquarie and Bernstein; and was Research Manager at the World Platinum Investment Council.
Aya Batyrbekova
Head of sustainability advisory, EMEA & APAC
ISS-Corporate

Aya Batyrbekova is the Head of Sustainability Advisory for the EMEA and APAC regions at ISS-Corporate. In this role, she leads efforts to integrate sustainability into corporate strategies, advising companies on navigating the complexity of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) landscape and aligning business practices with sustainability goals. Before joining the Sustainability Team, she served as a Lead Advisor on the Corporate Governance and Executive Compensation team at ISS-Corporate, guiding issuers in designing and managing their policies to align with both their goals and investor expectations. Aya holds a Master’s degree in International Business and Finance from Boston University and a Bachelor’s degree from Kazakh Economic University.
Jeroen Ouwehand
Partner
Clifford Chance

Jeroen served as Clifford Chance’s Global Senior Partner from January 2019 to January 2023 and as the Clifford Chance Amsterdam office Managing Partner from November 2015 to January 2019. He currently chairs the firm’s Global ESG Board and its Responsible Business Board. His background is in cross border litigation and arbitration.
Hannah Simons
Head of sustainability
Lloyds Banking Group

Hannah joined LBCM in 2023 as Head of Sustainability. In her role, Hannah supports LBCM’s clients to build sustainable financing solutions relevant to their individual needs. She also works closely with colleagues across the wider Lloyds Banking Group to support the delivery of our own sustainability objectives. Hannah joined from Schroders where she was Head of Sustainability Strategy. In her role, she supported clients in embedding sustainability into their investment strategy and developed a cohesive range of sustainable investment products to meet client needs. Earlier in her career, Hannah worked at BlackRock, PIMCO and Schroders supporting institutional investors in designing bespoke investment solutions, aligned to their long-term objectives.
Michelle de Jongh
Managing director
Inspired ESG

Michelle is the Managing Director of Inspired ESG, an emerging market leader in the ESG sector delivering end-to-end solutions for investors and businesses to make effective compliance disclosure and transform them into effective ESG impacts. Michelle and her team now support over 350 clients across multiple industries and geographies with their ESG disclosures and strategies.
Müge Yücel
Director of investor relations and sustainability
Galata Wind
Roger Leese
Partner
Clifford Chance

Roger has been a Partner in Clifford Chance’s Litigation and Dispute Resolution practice for the past 23 years, acting for business clients across many sectors and jurisdictions. He co-heads the firm’s Global Business and Human Rights practice and is a Director and co-founder of the Business and Human Rights Lawyers Association. He also increasingly advises on climate change related business risk. Roger is a member of the firm’s ESG Board and also sits on the firm’s Responsible Business Committee. He is the firm’s Global Pro Bono and Community Affairs Partner. Roger is a co-founder and Chair of the legal charity Advocates for International Development (A4ID), and of the environmental charity the Lifescape Project. He is also Chair of the City of London Law Society’s ESG Committee.
Tim Human
Events editor
IR Magazine and Governance Intelligence

Tim Human is events editor at IR Magazine & Corporate Secretary, In his role Tim researches the topics that are most challenging and topical for investor relations professionals globally, and creates briefings, hosts webinars and chairs roundtable discussions to help solve those challenges. Following on from his role as senior reporter, which Tim held at IR Magazine between 2019-2023, Tim continues to write in-depth articles aimed at helping investor relations professionals. Tim rejoined the publication in 2019 and has previously held the editor position. Tim has also written for Governance Intelligence, IR Magazine’s sister publication, and CorpComms, the UK-based magazine for corporate communications professionals.
Steven Wade
Head of content
IR Magazine and Governance Intelligence

Steve Wade is head of content for IR Magazine and Governance Intelligence. In his role, Steve and his team are responsible for researching and producing insightful content that helps the investor relations and governance communities stay up-to-date on the latest trends and best practices in their fields.
Steve curates content across multiple platforms, including conferences, workshops, think tanks, podcasts, best practice guides, research studies, videos and websites. Steve guides editorial coverage and research to ensure they fulfill the needs of our communities and is responsible for hosting our conferences and presenting research at industry events.
Prior to joining IR Magazine and Corporate Secretary, Steve’s experience has been in ESG and sustainability research, producing conferences for Ethical Corporation (now Reuters Events.) During this time, Steve was a judge for the Deloitte Green Frog Awards and presented research at the Global Sustainable Events Summit and United Nations Global Compact, World Bank & Polish Ministry of Finance events.
Steve has a Bachelors Degree in Event Management and enjoys playing rugby in his spare time.
Laurie Havelock
Editor
IR Magazine and Governance Intelligence

Laurie has been part of the IR Magazine team for more than a decade, starting out as a reporter and research editor before becoming editor in 2023. He was previously acting business editor at the i newspaper and deputy business editor at The Daily Telegraph. He lives in London with his husky, Mischa.

Agenda: 2024

Click here to view the agenda as a pdf.

Timings on the agenda are shown in Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)

08:00 AM
Registration, breakfast and morning networking
08:50 AM
Welcome to the ESG Integration Forum – Europe

Steven Wade, head of content, IR Magazine & Governance Intelligence
Jeroen Ouwehand, partner, Clifford Chance
09:00 AM
How to implement CSRD

The deadline for implementing the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive is approaching, and preparing for implementation is a top priority for companies. Achieve compliance, increase investor confidence, attract investment and manage risks more effectively by learning how to successfully implement CSRD. This session will teach you about the new reporting requirements and provide examples of how early adopters have approached implementation.

• Explore what more is required in the areas of human rights, climate change mitigation, and natural capital
• Learn how to align CSRD with existing reporting frameworks and reduce fragmentation and data duplication
• Understand how to ensure your data is accurate and ready for independent assurance
• Hear guidance from early adopters on effective steps to implement CSRD reporting

Moderator: Steve Wade, head of content, IR Magazine and Governance Intelligence
Dr Michelle de Jongh, managing director, Inspired ESG
09:45 AM
The future of ESG ratings: What it means for you

The European Union, the UK government, the International Organization of Securities Commissions and the International Capital Markets Association are pushing for enhanced oversight of ESG ratings agencies via voluntary codes of conduct and regulation.

ESG ratings agencies are relied upon as a valuable source of information to inform investment and ownership activities. In this discussion you will hear how this will impact investment decision-making and learn about how to adapt your approach to engaging and disclosing sustainability information.

• Learn about the risks and opportunities resulting from ESG rating agency regulation
• Understand how the legislation will impact the dissemination and quality of ESG information
• Hear how these structural changes will impact the way you engage with ESG ratings agencies and their users

Moderator: Laurie Havelock, editor, IR Magazine and Governance Intelligence
Aya Batyrbekova, vice president, head of sustainability advisory, EMEA & APAC, ISS-Corporate
Danielle Chigumira, director and head of European investor relations, LyondellBasell
Hannah Simons, head of sustainability, Lloyds Banking Group
10:30 AM
Networking break and morning refreshments
11:00 AM
Sustainability in a changing system – how to implement change in your company

As regulation, consumer behaviour, investor needs, new technologies and the macro-economic environment impact attitudes and expectations of companies and their ESG efforts, it is essential to orientate your business plan to set yourself up for the future. This session explores How to create, then embed your ESG strategy in a new era of ESG – particularly looking at going beyond compliance to implement change that benefits shareholders and stakeholders in the long-term.

• Strategic input: Learn how to structure meaningful and efficient approaches to sustainability
• Understand how to use sustainability reporting to identify opportunities for long-term growth
• Learn how to collaborate with employees across the business to achieve your business and sustainability goals

Moderator: Tim Human, events editor, IR Magazine and Governance Intelligence
Lindsay Davis, responsible investment manager, EMK Capital
Martha McPherson, sustainability director, Ever Sustainable
Muge Yucel, investor relations and sustainability, Galata Wind
11:45 AM
Roundtables: Exchange ideas with your peers

How the roundtables work:

• Join a table and write your biggest challenge, or a question you have about ESG on the paper in front of you
• Discuss your question or challenge with others on your table and get advice on how to address your challenges
• Share experiences, concerns and other learnings from your peers’ questions
12:30 PM
Lunch
13:30 PM
AI & Automation in ESG – beyond reporting fatigue

GenAI and automation will transform all aspects of business through its ability to save time in data collection & analysis, information processing, templating documents and idea generation. Although not without its risks, you need to understand how to harness these rapidly evolving technologies to enhance your sustainability efforts. This session will share real life case studies featuring companies that are currently using technology to reduce reporting fatigue and add value in other areas of ESG.

• Understand how companies are using AI and automation to reduce reporting and survey fatigue
• Learn about the immediately available tools companies are using in their ESG activities and hear about future developments allowing you to create a multi-year plan to integrate AI into your sustainability practices
• Hear how to use AI to enhance your materiality analysis and identify unseen risks and opportunities

Moderator: Laurie Havelock, editor, IR Magazine and Governance Intelligence
Lucy Larner, engagement manager, Schroders
Danny Wall, ESG analyst, Pollen Street Capital
14:15 PM
Afternoon networking break
14:45 PM
Developments in ESG activism and preparedness

Activist shareholders are increasingly focusing on ESG issues, however the topic divides opinion. The majority of activists demanding more ambitious climate targets, progress on DE&I and action on human rights. On the other hand, an increasing minority of while some investors perceive a focus on ESG to be a distraction, or even destructive to value.

In the face of changing tactics and attitudes around ESG activism, this session will provide insight into the future trends for ESG activism and how you need to adapt to ensure you can deter activists and successfully navigate a campaign should it arise

• Learn how ESG activism has changed in recent years
• Debate the impact of ‘Anti-Woke’ activism
• Hear how to adapt your action plan to better defend your position against activists

Moderator: Steve Wade, head of content, IR Magazine and Governance Intelligence
Roger Leese, partner, Clifford Chance
15:30 PM
Know your investors: The intersection between targeting and responding to shareholder expectations

Learn how investors analyze your performance against ESG factors. In our final session, we explore ways to understand the ESG issues that are a top priority for your shareholders and how to use ESG to target investors. You will learn which metrics impact investor decision making, how to inform them about your ESG story, and how to increase your chances of being included in sustainability indexes.

• Explore how to use shareholder ID and analysis to further your understanding of your shareholders’ ESG priorities
• Learn about the metrics and disclosures are most helpful to active long-term investors
• Hear top tips on how to increase your chances of index inclusion
• Take it to the next level: Discover how to run a successful ESG roadshow

Moderator: Tim Human, events editor, IR Magazine and Governance Intelligence
Matthew Hodgkinson, co-founder and portfolio manager, Confluence Partners
Will Houston, head of financial sustainability, BAT
16:15 PM
Conference summary

Steve Wade, head of content, IR Magazine and Governance Intelligence
16:30 PM
Networking drinks reception

Who attends our events

Our attendees are leading governance, IR and sustainability practitioners with an established track record and strategic governance or IR role within their company.

Below is a sample of some of our past attendees:

Job title	Company	Job title	Company
Assistant general counsel	Mercer	Head of ESG transformation	Upfield
Associate general counsel	AvePoint	Head of IR	Barry Callebaut
CEO, founder	Competent Boards	Head of IR	Plus500
CFO	Enteq Technologies	Head of IR	Rubis
Chief ESG officer	Non-Standard Finance	Head of legal, company secretary	Ten Lifestyle Group
Climate change specialist	Robeco	IR	Seplat energy
Company secretarial assistant	Henry Boot	IR manager	Atenor
Corporate analyst	Kooth	IR, ESG manager	Rolls-Royce
Director business compliance	Serco Group	Managing director, legal group	Accenture
Director, IR	Babcock International	NED, company secretary	Sirius Petroleum
ESG engagement manager	Kingfisher	Senior IR, ESG manager	BAT
ESG governance	HSBC Holdings	Stakeholder dialogue specialist	CEZ Group
Group head, sustainability	Entain	Sustainability finance manager	Burberry
Group M&A legal counsel	ArcelorMittal	Sustainability officer	Arion Bank
Head of capital markets	AEDAS Homes	VP, general counsel EU and Asia	ICL Group

Request full attendee list

Become a partner

Why partner with us?

The ESG Integration Forum – Europe brings together some of the most influential people in the IR and governance communities.

The event offers an effective approach to targeting clients when they are exploring how they can improve their ESG practice. Through our unrivalled knowledge of the subject matters and commitment to in-depth agenda research, our events are guaranteed to attract a qualified audience.

The unique buzz we create at our in-person events – a far cry from a traditional conference – makes them multi-faceted and highly interactive with great engagement in particular from heads of IR and governance teams. This allows our partners to have meaningful conversations with corporates who are deciding which parts of their ESG program to invest in, which service providers to engage and which consultants to retain. By partnering with us on an event, you can generate leads, showcase your thought leadership and position yourselves as the partner of choice to the IR and governance communities.

We’d love to have a chat with you about how you can get in front of a truly engaged and motivated audience. Get in touch with Henry Wright or call on +44 20 8004 5337.

Inquire about partnership

Partners

Ever Sustainable

Ever Sustainable

Forum Partners

Ever Sustainable is an impact consultancy that helps businesses harness the value generation multiplier of sustainability. By joining the dots between sustainability and growth, Ever endeavours to move sustainability beyond risk reduction to uncover new commercial opportunities. We strive to bring bold ideas into the boardroom to inform both day-to-day decision-making and long-term transformation.

Our expertise ranges from robust research and double materiality assessments, to defining and implementing sustainability strategies that are underpinned by decision-useful KPIs. We’re also passionate communicators who excel in distilling urgent ideas into clear messages that clients can deliver to stakeholders with confidence.

For more information, please visit: www.eversustainable.co.uk
Inspired PLC

Inspired PLC

Forum Partners

Inspired PLC provides market-leading commercial energy and sustainability advisory services to help our clients achieve net-zero and thrive in the future low carbon global economy.

Every business faces a unique set of challenges and over 3,500 organisations have partnered with Inspired to find the best solutions for them.

We focus on helping our clients control costs, reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions and remain compliant in the regulatory landscape.

We call these challenges the “4Cs,” and offer a full range of practical solutions through our four divisions to tackle them:
• Energy assurance services
• Energy optimisation services
• ESG strategy, disclosure, and impact services
• Software solutions

Inspired has held its position in the Cornwall Insight ranking as the leading energy advisor for industrial and commercial consumers since 2018. Our 700+ energy and sustainability experts form the backbone of our entire organisation, and it’s their commitment and hard work that have led us to our success today.

We value our role in meeting the UK’s net-zero target, and we will be net-zero ourselves before 2050. The steps we’ve taken on our own decarbonisation journey mean we’re ready to lead others towards adapting to a net zero economy.

Today’s partner for a better tomorrow.

For more information, please visit: www.inspiredplc.co.uk
ISS-Corporate

ISS-Corporate

Forum Partners

Companies turn to ISS-Corporate for expertise in designing and managing governance, compensation, sustainability, and cyber risk programs that align with company goals, reduce risk, and manage the needs of a diverse shareholder base by delivering data, tools, and advisory services. ISS-Corporate’s global client base extends across North America, Europe, and Asia, as well as other established and emerging markets worldwide.

For more information, please visit our website here.

ESG Integration Forum – Europe

Tuesday, November 19, 2024

HOW ESG PRIORITIES ARE CHANGING

Speakers: 2024

Agenda: 2024

Who attends our events

Become a partner

Partners

What our attendees say

CEZ

YouGov

Mondi Group

Bladonmore

Aramco

BAT Group

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