Net Zero Investor’s Renewable Infrastructure Summit 2025

Rhyadd Keaney-Watkins is a Managing Director and  Head of ESG at Arjun Infrastructure Partners, a London-headquartered and independent asset management firm dedicated to identifying, executing and managing mid-market infrastructure investments. Founded in 2015, Arjun now manages over €7 billion of capital on behalf of prominent institutional investors.

Prior to Arjun, Rhyadd spent over 15 years in sustainability consultancy, advising a range of Development Finance Institutions and Infrastructure Fund Managers on infrastructure ESG strategy development, risk management and value creation. His diverse experience includes advising the International Finance Corporation on solar development in Zambia, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in hydropower and agricultural irrigation in Morocco, and Infrastructure GPs on a range of infrastructure strategies focussing on OECD countries. He has also advised companies on topics such as ground risk and liabilities, greenhouse gas accounting and climate risk assessment.
Rhyadd is a Chartered Environmentalist (C.Env.) and Chartered Member of the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management (MCIWEM).

Valeria Piani is Head of Stewardship at Phoenix Group. She joined the firm in September 2021 to lead a stewardship team and collaborate with Phoenix’s Asset Management partners to influence ESG performance by investee companies. She has over 15 years of experience in the industry and has held a number of senior positions at different firms. She joined UBS Asset Management in 2017 as Strategic Engagement Lead responsible for the manager’s climate change engagement programme, stewardship reporting and integration research in the industrial sector. Prior to this, Valeria worked for nine years as Associate Director at the UN-backed Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) where she managed a team of 11 members responsible for coordinating investor collaborative engagement activities with companies on a range of ESG issues. When at the PRI, she supported over 30 investors coalitions involving more than 200 asset owners and investment managers. Topics included among others director nomination, gender diversity, emissions reduction and human rights.

Her recent publications include reports on engaging on climate change and the added value of stewardship more broadly. Her research on the effectiveness of shareholders’ collaborative engagement activities with companies on ESG issues has been published by the Business & Society Journal and Emerald Group Publishing and was selected by the editors as an Outstanding Author Contribution in the 2014 Emerald Literati Network Awards for Excellence. Valeria is currently a member of the PRI Advisory Committee of Advance, the AOA Engagement and Policy Dialogue Track, the IIGCC Net Zero Stewardship working group, the UK Transition Plan Taskforce workstream focused on sector templates and the DWP UK Taskforce on Social Factors.

Mike has spent over 35 years managing and investing for public, private and, charity sector pension schemes.  He is an Accredited Professional Trustee at Pi Partnership and the longstanding independent Chair of Trustees of the Institute of Cancer Research Pension Scheme. Mike is also performing a number of complementary non-executive, advisory and consulting roles within the UK pensions and investment management industries. 

In his executive career Mike’s most recent role was as CEO of LGPS Central Limited. Under his leadership assets more than doubled to c£30bn, with several multi-billion-pound fund launches and the establishment of investment fund vehicles spanning both public and private markets asset classes. He drove the responsible investment agenda and delivered the investment performance and cost savings to support long-term pension payments by Partner Funds to their scheme members.

Prior to this Mike was CEO of the Pensions Infrastructure Platform. PiP was a specialist UK infrastructure investor established and funded by UK pension schemes which owned and managed over £1.5bn of assets across healthcare, energy, transport and utility sectors. He also spent 5 years as the Chief Investment Officer for the pension schemes of DMGT plc which maintained significant asset allocations to UK real assets.

An experienced financial journalist who was previously deputy editor at portfolio institutional. Winner of the 2023 WTW Media Awards in the category DB Pensions Journalist of the year.

Shipra Gupta joined Scottish Widows in 2020 to focus and lead on the firm’s Stewardship strategy and initiatives. Shipra brings with her over 20yrs of global experience working in Management Consulting, Financial Services, Healthcare and also a Social Enterprise. Of these she has spent the last 10yrs specifically focussing on integrating ESG/Sustainability in business-as-usual, and helped develop new propositions in the sustainable finance & impact space. She has also served as a Trustee on the Board of ShareAction, Chairs the Governing Body of her local community school, is a Trustee at The Conservation Volunteers and is involved in Investment Committees.  

Roger Breeden joined BESTrustees in 2021 and specialises in workplace Defined Contribution and Master Trust pension schemes.

Roger’s financial services experience spans more than 40 years, the majority of which was with Mercer where most recently as a Partner he led the launch and successful authorisation of a Master Trust establishing operational and governance systems and processes.

Roger started his career as a personal financial adviser which provided him with day to day experience of the needs of pension scheme members while both building and drawing down on their savings. His current appointments include a leading Master Trust and Independent Governance Committee.

Roger is a fully accredited professional trustee with the APPT and also outside of Pensions, Roger is a Non Exec Director and Chairperson of a not for profit company that helps people with a learning disability to lead independent lives.

Specialist areas: Defined Contribution and Master Trust; Independent Governance Committees.