Judge(s)
Editorial Consultant and Former UK Business Editor and Associate Editor
John Willman is an Editorial Consultant based in London and a former Associate Editor of the Financial Times. In an 18-year career with the FT, Mr Willman held a series of senior roles, including Chief Leader-Writer, Banking Editor, Consumer Industries Editor and latterly UK Business Editor. He has also won several journalism awards, including Financial Journalist of the Year at the 2001 British Press Awards and the banking award in the Business Journalist of the Year 2002 awards. Since stepping down from the FT, he has been working on a variety of editorial projects for government departments and large companies, and is a Senior Research Fellow at Policy Exchange, a free-market think-tank.
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Rachel Kyte is Vice President, Business Advisory Services, for IFC. Previously, she served as Director of IFC's Environment and Social Development Department. At the department, which she joined in January 2004, she stewarded the development and adoption of the new sustainability policy, performance standards and disclosure policy for IFC and has overseen an overhaul in internal systems and procedures to support the strategic importance IFC places on environmental and social sustainability. The IFC's new Performance Standards serve as a basis for Equator Principles which have now been adopted by over 45 financial institutions. Prior to this appointment, Ms Kyte was Principal Specialist in the Office of the Compliance Adviser/Ombudsman of IFC/MIGA. She managed the Ombudsman function, investigating and offering conflict resolution to complaints filed in relation to the private sector activities of IFC and MIGA. Before joining IFC, she was Senior Policy Adviser, Senior Adviser on Gender and Representative to the European Union for IUCN, The World Conservation Union.
A graduate of the University of London and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Ms Kyte has worked extensively within the environment, women's and health movements as a policy analyst and advocate. She has worked with and for private sector concerns on private/public partnerships in the fields of health and environment and has served as an adviser, and on the boards, of a number of NGOs, private philanthropic foundations, the United Nations, and government. She has taught negotiation and public policy at a number of institutions.
David Harris
Manager, Responsible Investment
FTSE Group
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David Harris joined FTSE Group in 2002, and is responsible for the operational management of the FTSE4Good Index Series and the FTSE ET50 (the Global Environmental Technology Index). His main responsibilities include managing the engagement process with FTSE4Good constituent companies, direction and management of the research providers EIRIS, and the development of new responsible investment products. He also manages FTSE's internal corporate responsibility programme, and FTSE Group's GoodCorporation membership and verification. He also plays an active role in the wider responsible investment market, serving on advisory committees for both the UK and European Social Investment Forums (UKSIF and EuroSIF). Previously, Mr Harris worked for Arthur D. Little's Global Environment and Risk Practice, developing sectoral sustainability strategies and programmes, and with PwC's climate change consulting team.
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Richard Laing is Chief Executive of CDC Group based in London. CDC, formerly the Commonwealth Development Corporation, is 100 per cent owned by the UK government. It is a leading fund-of-funds investor in private equity and other funds in the emerging markets with a focus on Africa and South Asia. Its mission is to generate wealth in order to combat poverty by providing capital to sustainable private sector businesses in the poorest countries of the world. Mr Laing is responsible for the overall direction of the company, which has assets of approximately US$5 billion. Mr Laing joined CDC in January 2000 as Finance Director. He was responsible for the financial affairs of the group as well as looking after part of the portfolio. He was appointed Chief Executive in 2004 following the restructuring of the group. Prior to CDC, Mr Laing spent 15 years at De La Rue where he held a number of positions both in the UK and overseas, lastly as Group Finance Director. He was a non-executive director of Camelot plc. Prior to this he worked in agribusiness in developing countries, at PricewaterhouseCoopers where he qualified as a Chartered Accountant, and at Marks & Spencer in the UK. He is a graduate of Cambridge University.
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Elizabeth Littlefield is a Director of the World Bank and the CEO of the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), a multi-donor organisation dedicated to building sustainable financial systems for the poor. CGAP was created to set standards, provide strategic advice to policy-makers, donors and practitioners, develop technical tools and services, and act as resource center for the microfinance industry. Ms Littlefield came to CGAP from the investment bank JP Morgan, where she was the Managing Director in charge of Emerging Markets Capital Markets. As such, she was responsible for Central, Eastern and Southern Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
Herman Mulder
International Sustainable Development Advisor;
Former Head, Group Risk Management, ABN Amro
Herman Mulder, an initiator of the Equator Principles, was Head of Group Risk Management at ABN Amro from 1998 to 2006, and a key driving force behind the Dutch bank's emergence as a pioneer of sustainable banking. He was previously Head of Global Structured Finance at ABN Amro (1995-1998). After retiring from the bank, he has dedicated himself, as an independent advisor and board member, to all dimensions of sustainable development, including voluntary business codes of conduct, climate change, value chain, microfinance, social entrepreneurship, development finance, and fair trade. He advises the UN Global Compact, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), the Club de Madrid, the Taellberg Foundation, Oxfam Novib (the Dutch affiliate of Oxfam), and Earth Charter International. He is a board member of the Global Reporting Initiative, UTZ Certified, Dutch National Committee for International Cooperation and Sustainable Development (NCDO), Dutch National Contact point for OECD Guidelines (NCP), Business in Development (BiD), ABN AMRO Foundation India, and the CBI (Consensus Building Institute) in Boston. He is a Knight of the Royal Order of Orange-Nassau for his work in sustainable development.
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Tessa Tennant has worked in social investment since 1987. She co-founded in 1988 the UK's first equity investment fund for sustainable development, before moving to Hong Kong and founding, in 2001, the Association for Sustainable and Responsible Investment in Asia, a not-for-profit, membership association dedicated to promoting corporate responsibility and sustainable investment practice in the Asia Pacific region. ASrIA's members include investment institutions managing over $4,000 billion in assets. Ms Tennant is a board member of Calvert World Values Fund in the US and an adviser to the Robeco Sustainable Private Equity Fund in the Netherlands. She is a WWF UK Ambassador. In 2003 Ms Tennant received the Sustainability Leadership Award from SAM/SPG of Switzerland and in 2004 was named joint winner of the City of Goteborg International Environmental Prize. She was Chair and Co-Founder of the UK Social Investment Forum and the Carbon Disclosure Project and previously served on environmental advisory panels for the UK government.
