Sustainability Summit 2023

Zubin Dabu is Managing Director and Market Head for Bank of Singapore – Asia’s global private bank & the only Asian private bank to be awarded an Aa1 credit rating by Moody’s. Passionate about ESG, he is privileged to Chair the Bank’s ESG Forum. Zubin also serves as a member of the 'Expert Panel For Leadership' for Wealth Management Institute, Singapore.

Peggy Liu is Chairperson of JUCCCE, an NGO at the heart of the greening of China since 2007. Peggy is one of the most impactful environmentalists globally. She catalyzed China’s leaps into clean energy, Smart Grid, ecocities, efficient lighting, green bonds, and sustainable diets. Her efforts have helped a billion and a half people leapfrog towards personal and planetary health. For this, Peggy was awarded the Hillary Step, the "Nobel" for climate change solutionists; “Hero of the Environment” by Time magazine, and a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. ; CEO Magazine named her a “Top 20 Sustainability Thought Leader 2023”; The Economist called "one of the most innovative thinkers in Asia"; and press dubbed her the "Green Goddess of China". Today, Peggy shares with communities, governments and companies around the world the lessons she learnt in scaling societal movements by successfully tackling China's toughest environmental health challenges. Peggy’s "Tornado Leadership" lessons empower visionaries to curate societal change and bring in a better future faster. She has taught 1000 mayors and central government officials across China how to build ecocities. Her workshops on reimagining prosperity sustainably have been used to birth the National slogan “China Dream”, used in Britain, and to reimagine Pakistani Dream 2047. She is an Sr. Executive Advisor to the sovereign Nation of Hawaii. As a global speaker, Peggy believes that the most helpful skill is heart-based storytelling, and that cultural translators will have the most important roles of the next generation. She is the best-selling author of “Mesmerize the Media: Maximize Your Impact With more Press” on transformational speaking. Previously, Peggy was a venture capitalist and McKinsey consultant. She was dubbed an "Internet Pioneer” in Silicon Valley for founding one of the earliest ecommerce companies. She is an MIT-trained electrical engineer and completed public policy programs at Harvard Kennedy School and National University of Singapore. More: www.juccce.org/peggyliu Fun fact: Peggy is a 20th generation South Shaolin Inner Energy One Finger Qigong master and is a professional energetic healer. You can call her Yoda.

Dr. Axel Schweitzer (born 1969) studied industrial engineering at the Technical University of Berlin and was awarded his doctorate in 1995. In the same year, he was appointed to the Board of Directors of ALBA, the recycling company founded by his father, and has managed the family business together with his brother Dr. Eric Schweitzer from 1998 onwards. From 2005 to 2018, Axel Schweitzer was at the helm of ALBA SE (formerly INTERSEROH AG and INTERSEROH SE) in various roles (Chairman of the Supervisory Board, the Board of Directors, and the Administrative Board). From 2013 to 2018, Schweitzer was also a member of the Greater China Spokesperson Team of the Asia-Pacific Committee of German Business (APA). Since February 2019, he has been Deputy Chairman of the APA and a member of the German-Chinese Discussion Forum. Axel Schweitzer is committed to social causes; the company supports the children's homes in the city of Cologne, for example. As Chairman of the Supervisory Board of ALBA BERLIN Basketball GmbH and Chairman of ALBA BERLIN Basketball e.V., he also plays a role in the world of sports in Germany / Europe. With the reorganisation of the companies of the Schweitzer family in 2022, Dr. Axel Schweitzer assumed responsibility for the Asian business, the global activities in the area of plastics recycling, as well as all the business activities of Interzero fostering the circular economy. As the Chairman and owner of ALBA Group Asia and Interzero, he is dedicated realising the company's vision for a world without waste.

Dr. Parag Khanna is a leading global strategy advisor, world traveler, and bestselling author. He is Founder & CEO of Climate Alpha, an AI-powered analytics platform that future-proofs global investments, and Founder & Managing Partner of FutureMap, a data and scenario based strategic advisory firm. Parag's latest book is MOVE: Where People Are Going for a Better Future (2021), which was preceded by The Future is Asian: Commerce, Conflict & Culture in the 21st Century (2019). He is author of a trilogy of books on the future of world order beginning with The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order (2008), followed by How to Run the World: Charting a Course to the Next Renaissance (2011), and concluding with Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization (2016). He is also the author of Technocracy in America: Rise of the Info-State (2017) and co-author of Hybrid Reality: Thriving in the Emerging Human-Technology Civilization (2012). Parag was named one of Esquire’s “75 Most Influential People of the 21st Century,” and featured in WIRED magazine’s “Smart List.” He holds a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics, and Bachelors and Masters degrees from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He has traveled to more than 150 countries and is a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum.

Prof Jason Pomeroy is an award-winning architect, academic, author and TV presenter regarded as one of the World’s leading experts in sustainable design. He is the Founder of interdisciplinary sustainable design and research firm, Pomeroy Studio and sustainable educator and researcher, Pomeroy Academy. His professional career includes critically acclaimed green cities, buildings and landscapes: from the micro-scale of the first zero carbon house in Asia, to the macro-scale of Indonesia’s ‘Silicon Valley’. He lectures globally and is the author of: 'Idea House: Future Tropical Living Today' (2011); 'The Skycourt and skygarden: greening the urban habitat' (2014); 'Pod Off-Grid: Explorations into Low Energy Waterborne Communities' (2016), and 'Cities of opportunities: connecting culture and innovation' (2020). Jason works to raise awareness of the cultural role the built environment plays in society and was both consultant and host of the architecture / urbanism TV series’ 'Smart Cities 2.0', 'City Time Traveller', 'City Redesign' and 'Futuropolis', which aired throughout Asia, Middle East and Europe. He holds professorships at the University of Nottingham, and James Cook University; and leads a sustainable urbanism module on the IDBE programme at the University of Cambridge. He gained Undergraduate and Postgraduate degrees from the Canterbury School of Architecture, a Masters degree from the University of Cambridge, and a PhD from the University of Westminster. He is a CISL Fellow, University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership.

Rachel leads Google’s Government Affairs & Public Policy work in Southeast Asia and Asia Pacific on sustainability. Having lived in Mumbai for nearly 4 years, she sees climate change as humanity’s largest collective challenge and our region as particularly vulnerable to the consequences of climate change. With that context, she is passionate about partnership areas to drive collective change in the region. Prior to Google, she spent a decade with the Economic Development Board and championed sustainability before it was cool in green pharmaceutical manufacturing, and R&D in circular materials to recycle single-use plastics with FMCG companies. She also spent time at PricewaterhouseCoopers Zürich where, among other account management efforts, she led a sales culture change programme. She believes firmly in building trusted, long-term and multi-stakeholder relationships especially in adversarial situations under time pressure, and loves working in the ambiguity and discovery of an international cross-cultural environment where each day presents a new problem to unpack. While perhaps ironic for someone in tech, she deplatformed from all social media in 2021 and considers it her best mental health decision, and has committed to learning one new thing every month in 2023. Outside of time with her two energetic kids, she is passionate about mentoring, quality human connections between people and aeroponics. The question she thinks about now is Mary Oliver’s quote “What will you do with your one wild and precious life?”

Ted is the Co-founder and CEO of Evercomm Singapore – “one of Asia Pacific’s fastest growing Sustainability AI companies in the cleantech sector.” Evercomm is an Enterprise Singapore Scale-up Company and also accredited by the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA). The company works closely with the United Nations and governments worldwide to pilot industry-scale sustainability transformation initiatives. Ted is also the youngest to receive the prestigious Singapore Energy Award and recognized as one of the digital pioneers by the Singapore Committee on the Future Economy (CFE). Beside Evercomm. Ted is an expert technical partner for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), International Telecommunication Union’s Generation Connect board member and Science Policy Focal Point for the United Nations Major Group for Children and Youth (UN MGCY). Ted has notably received the Nanyang Outstanding Young Alumni Award from Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Tatler Asia's Social Impact Award, and made it to World Cities Summit Young Leader and Forbes’ Inaugural 30 Under 30 Asia List.

Hardik is a sustainability-focused leader with over 15 years of experience spread across ESG research & investing, Climate Change and Carbon Credits advisory, and Business Intelligence domains. He is responsible for building GMO’s ESG capability across investment product areas and asset classes. His efforts at GMO include creation of GMO’s proprietary country ESG model as well as the company-level GMO ESG Score, helping various investment teams with their ESG integration and engagement efforts, and designing Fund level ESG reports for GMO strategies. He is an active contributor to CFA Institute, as well as CFA Society Singapore’s ESG efforts. He is currently a member of the CFA Institute’s ESG Technical Committee which is responsible for developing and maintaining the Global ESG Disclosure Standards for Investment Products and has previously been a member of its ESG examination subcommittee. Prior to joining GMO in 2017, Hardik led a global team of analysts focused on ESG ratings and thematic research at Sustainalytics. Previously, he was an ESG Ratings associate at MSCI and, as a senior climate change consultant with Ernst & Young, has helped register a wide variety of projects with the UNFCCC under the Clean Development Mechanism defined in the Kyoto Protocol. Mr. Shah earned his Bachelor of Engineering in Electronics from University of Mumbai and holds a post-graduate diploma in management - e business (finance) from We School, Mumbai. Mr. Shah holds the Fundamentals of Sustainability Accounting (FSA) credential issued by SASB, Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR) credential by GARP, and the CFA charter.

Carolina is the CEO of Arabesque AI. Prior to joining Arabesque AI, Carolina was Global Head of Product, Solutions & Quant at Schroders where she was a member of the Global Management Committee. She was involved in several technology projects, including mass customisation and blockchain technology to deliver personalised investment tokens. In 2013, she joined Lombard Odier IM as Deputy CIO and Global Head of Solutions where she focused on sustainability long before it became a prominent trend. She led the integration of ESG across asset classes and built some of the first SDG-aligned thematic investment propositions for Private Wealth clients including Lombard Odier’s Private Bank. Carolina has an extensive quant background and worked for almost a decade as a Managing Director in Bob Litterman’s quantitative team at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, servicing mainly institutional clients. She started her quant journey more than 20 years ago with factor-based investing which has now evolved into more adaptive AI models. Carolina holds a PhD in Finance from London Business School, an MBA in Finance from the Université Catholique de Louvain and a BSc in Economics from Université Libre de Bruxelles. Fluent in Italian, French, and English, Carolina's diverse interests encompass modern art, architecture, theatre, skiing, sailing, tennis, and rowing.

Fernando is executing the impact investment strategy of Grupo Baobá, a family office based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, currently building a venture capital portfolio around biotechnology applied to healthcare and food manufacturing. Fernando is also a member of the Global Board of The ImPact, a network of families aspiring to make more impact investments more effectively. Fernando is based in Singapore, is a CSP alumnus, and graduated from the New York University with a Bachelor in Political Science. He is an avid reader on a mission to read one fiction book from every country in the world.

Jean Chia is responsible for Bank of Singapore’s CIO Views, Macroeconomics, Investment Strategy, FX, Equity & Fixed Income Research, as well as Discretionary Portfolio Management (DPM), Advisory Portfolio Management (APM) and Funds Selection teams at Bank of Singapore. She is a member of the board of directors for BOS International Funds, Luxembourg and a member of the OCBC Wealth Panel. Jean has over 20 years of experience in Private Banking and Asset Management. Prior to her current role, she was previously Head, Equities Advisory & Sales, responsible for the equities and derivatives business at Bank of Singapore, and Head of Client Advisory Services for Equities, Investment Products & Services at UBS Wealth Management, Singapore. Prior to UBS, she was Vice President, Head of Grassroots Research at Allianz Dresdner Asset Management (now known as Allianz Global Investors). Jean graduated with an MA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from University of Oxford, UK. She recently completed a Sustainable Finance certification from Cambridge Institute of Sustainable Leadership (CISL). Jean is currently a Financial Women’s Association of Singapore (FWA) Female Champion and an Institute of Banking and Finance (IBF)