Net Zero Investor’s Natural Capital Forum

James is responsible for CCLA’s approach to sustainable investing. This includes our work to deliver real and lasting change through active stewardship, integrating environmental, social, and governance factors into our investment processes and ensuring that our portfolios are aligned with the values and mission of our clients.

James joined CCLA in 2010 and has developed and led programmes that have improved corporate behaviour on a wide range of issues including climate change, mental health, the Living Wage and modern slavery. This track record led to James being named one of Financial News’ 40 Rising Stars of Asset Management in Europe, 2020.

Prior to joining CCLA, James completed his PhD in economic geography at the University of Nottingham. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts.

Bola recently joined Harrow Council as Treasury and Pensions Manager and prior to this worked at Enfield Council as a Finance Manager (Pension & Treasury) overseeing and directing the management of the council’s pension investment strategy of £1.5bn assets and treasury strategy of some £50m of investment portfolio and over £900m of borrowing portfolio.

Previously Bola was responsible for directing and overseeing the management of £1.7bn assets of Tower Hamlets Pension Fund. Prior to joining Tower Hamlets, she worked in a similar role for over 7 years with London Borough of Lewisham Pension Fund before moving on in 2007 to oversee a private corporate pension fund, Trafalgar House Pension Trust with over 40 fund managers with investments in different asset class such as hedge funds, liability matching investments, swaps, CLOs, infrastructure, property, private equity, etc. for almost 3 years.

Bola has gained first-hand experience on a wide range of activities, such as creating and enhancing external relationships with key stakeholders, project management, procurement, performance measurements & monitoring, cash flow management, funding gap management, investment portfolio restructuring, managers’ selection, asset allocation, managing the valuation of swaps legs and collateral managements.

Bola is a frequent participant on the local government conference circuit, she is currently the chair of London Treasury Officers Forum (LTOF). Bola holds a degree in chemical engineering and an associate member of chartered institute of management accountant (ACMA CGMA).

Chris currently leads nature-related activities at Phoenix Group, focusing on developing the approach for understanding and assessing nature related risks across Phoenix investment portfolios as well as supporting the work to identify, define and integrate nature-related investment opportunities into existing investment strategy.  Prior to joining Phoenix in November 2021, Chris led financial sector engagement at Global Canopy, a UK based not for profit organisation focused on enabling a tropical deforestation free economy through data and tools development. Prior to that he held roles as both equity portfolio manager and financial analyst predominantly for in-house managed pensions schemes.

Olga is the Deputy Head of Responsible Investment at the Church Commissioners for England, where she works across the Church Commissioners responsible investment and stewardship activities, and with the other investing bodies of the Church of England to develop and deliver responsible and ethical investment policies. Olga also holds the position of Chair of the UKSIF Policy Committee, Co-Chairs the Indonesia Investor Policy Dialogue on Deforestation and leads the Policy workstream of the Net Zero Asset Owner Alliance. Olga is a Fellow of the Institute of Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability.  Prior to joining the Church Commissioners, Olga worked in human rights and environmental law.

Eve Gleeson (Research Manager, Biodiversity) joined ShareAction in April 2021 to lead the biodiversity team’s research efforts. In this role, she has lead research and report writing on financial sector action on biodiversity and the pesticides industry. Prior to ShareAction, Eve was a research fellow at Food Tank, a non-profit focusing on sustainable food systems, where she researched and wrote about various issues relating to the global food system. Eve formerly worked in threat intelligence for a political risk consulting firm. Eve holds a BA in International Studies from Emory University and an MA in International Relations from King’s College London.

Stephanie Mielnik, CFA, is Director of Research at the Anthropocene Fixed Income Institute (AFII), a research organisation empowering fixed income investors to drive the climate transition. She is currently leading extensive research projects on sustainability-linked bonds and integration of nature considerations into fixed income investments.

Stephanie has a master’s degree in software engineering from HEI Lille and a M.Sc. in financial engineering from Skema Business School. Prior to joining the AFII, she was a Vice-President in Northern Trust Asset Management’s Strategic Products Team where she led the development of sustainable strategies and worked on the implementation of SFDR. Stephanie started her career at Natixis as a quantitative analyst before joining the equity derivatives desk as a structurer.

Stephanie is a passionate mountain sportsperson and is a member of the non-profit Protect Our Winters.

Fernanda Gimenes is works at the Tropical Forest Alliance/World Economic Forum as engagement manager for the Innovative Finance for the Amazon, Cerrado and Chaco (IFACC) initiative. Prior to this, she worked at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), in the Sustainable Consumption and Production Unit, where she coordinated private sector engagement on the UN Principles for Communicating Product Sustainability Information. In Brazil, she worked at the Brazilian Business Council for Sustainable Development conducting research and managing projects on sustainable finance and ecosystem services. Fernanda is currently completing her PhD on Environmental Policy and Development from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), where she is conducting research on climate finance in emerging market countries. She holds a BSc in International Relations from the University of Brasília (UnB), a MSc in Sustainable Development from UnB and a MSc Environment and Development from the LSE.

Olly Hughes has been Managing Director and an Investment Committee member of our Forestry division since January 2019. He is responsible for managing the growth and development of Gresham House’s sustainable forestry and land management investment activities including sustainable timber, carbon and other natural capital opportunities.

Prior to joining Gresham House, Olly was a Partner and Head of Infrastructure at Oxford Capital for six years where he built and managed a portfolio of over £300m of solar and wind renewable energy assets. He started his career at ING Barings in 1995 focusing on asset backed structuring and since then has focused his career on natural capital investment management.

Olly has over 25 years of investment experience and holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Master’s degree from the University of Oxford in Biological Science. He also obtained the Investment Management Certificate from the CFA Society in the UK.

Becky is the Climate Investment Analyst at the Environment Agency Pension Fund (EAPF). Having spent over 18 years of her career in scientific research, the last being in the Futures team of the Environment Agency’s Chief Scientists Group, she now provides scientific analysis for EAPF. She originally joined EAPF in 2020 to help them develop their Climate Change & Net Zero policy. She works in the EAPF investments team and supports the work done on responsible investment. She has a focus on nature, leading engagement work on behalf of EAPF to support companies better value water and was also part of the working group that helped Global Canopy develop their Deforestation Free Finance guidance for pension funds.

Pei Chi Wong is Global Canopy’s Senior Research Associate focusing on driving guidance for the Deforestation-free Finance initiative. She works with financial institutions and asset managers to help them move towards deforestation-free portfolios. Before joining Global Canopy Pei Chi spent over a decade in risk management and corporate treasury roles in the banking sector.

Emma Amadi is an integral part of Planet Tracker’s expanding Food and Land use team, having recently helped the team to deliver a new, ground-breaking financial roadmap for a sustainable food system, analysing financial data for 400,000 food system companies from 160 countries. Emma brings her subject matter expertise on sustainable agriculture and forestry to Planet Tracker’s cutting-edge research on the ways in which investors can meaningfully shape the future of the worldwide food system. She holds a Master’s in Environmental Technology from Imperial College London where she received an award from the Tropical Agricultural Association for her thesis on climate-smart agriculture in Ghana’s cocoa sector.

Joe is UK Networks Lead at Built by Nature, a grant-making fund and network aiming to increase the use of timber construction across Europe to mitigate climate change & realise biodiversity and wellbeing benefits. In this role, Joe coordinates a network of key stakeholders; developers, architects, engineers & insurers, collectively driving the transformation of the industry towards biobased construction. Having trained and practised as an architect, Joe went on to lead research into the challenges and opportunities for mass timber in the UK as Project Director of the ASBP’s Timber Accelerator Hub. He is also an Associate Lecturer at Oxford Brookes University, School of Architecture & Campaigns Coordinator at the Architects Climate Action Network.