
Sustainable Finance Week 2022

James Close
Head of Climate Change
James has spent his career working at the interface of the public and private sectors with a focus on mobilising finance. He is now committed to working on some of the most challenging global issues focusing on sustainable development and climate change. He is currently the head of climate change at NatWest Group, supporting the implementation of the bank’s purpose-led strategy which included principal sponsorship of COP26. He is also a member of the Energy and Natural Resources Advisory Group for the ICAEW and a trustee for the Trust for Sustainable Living. Prior to this role, he was the head of the circular economy programme for London.
Before returning to the UK, James spent five years in Washington, D.C. as the Director for Climate Change at the World Bank. Previously, he was a Partner in the Corporate Finance Practice of EY, and also worked for HM Treasury.
Josephine Bush
Sustainable Finance Strategic Advisor
Josephine Bush is a strategic advisor to Guernsey Finance. Josephine has worked in the sustainable and green sector for more than 17 years. She was a former partner at EY, helping to build and lead their renewables practice, sitting on their UK&I Power & Utilities Board, and separately, Governance Board. Josephine has an ESG consulting practice working with a variety of organisation on ESG strategy development and execution. Additionally, she sits on a number of listed Boards as ESG Chair, including the Foresight Sustainable Forestry Company Plc, Next Energy Solar Fund Plc and Vulcan Energy Resources. She also sits on Gresham House's investment committee for the British Sustainable Infrastructure Fund. Josephine founded the not for profit, Sustainability & You, which aims to raise levels of awareness in the financial community of the impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss with a focus of accelerating solutions.
Building an effective carbon market
James Close
Head of Climate Change - NatWest Group
James has spent his career working at the interface of the public and private sectors with a focus on mobilising finance. He is now committed to working on some of the most challenging global issues focusing on sustainable development and climate change. He is currently the head of climate change at NatWest Group, supporting the implementation of the bank’s purpose-led strategy which included principal sponsorship of COP26. He is also a member of the Energy and Natural Resources Advisory Group for the ICAEW and a trustee for the Trust for Sustainable Living. Prior to this role, he was the head of the circular economy programme for London.
Before returning to the UK, James spent five years in Washington, D.C. as the Director for Climate Change at the World Bank. Previously, he was a Partner in the Corporate Finance Practice of EY, and also worked for HM Treasury.

Richard Kelly
Co-Founder and Co-Lead Fund Manager - Foresight Sustainable Forestry Company PLC
READ BIORichard Kelly
Co-Founder and Co-Lead Fund Manager - Foresight Sustainable Forestry Company PLC
Richard is the Co-Founder and Co-Lead Fund Manager for Foresight Sustainable Forestry Company PLC, the LSE's first listed natural capital investment vehicle.
Richard joined Foresight in 2015 and is an Investment Director focused on natural capital and forestry. He co-founded Foresight's forestry team in 2019 and has overseen around £250 million of investment into the sector across more than 40 transactions. He is primarily responsible for investment strategy and has spear-headed the direct origination campaign for off-market afforestation land.
Richard has more than 14 years of experience in finance. Prior to co-founding Foresight's Forestry team, Richard was responsible for the origination, development and launch of innovative investment products and new business divisions. He has successfully originated and launched four innovative new fund strategies (that have to date attracted around £1.5 billion of investment) and founded three new business divisions.
Prior to Foresight, Richard worked at Accenture as a Strategy Manager, where he focused on merger and acquisition strategy across a variety of industries.
Marija Rompani
Director of Ethics and Sustainability - John Lewis Partnership
Marija has more than 20 years of experience and an excellent track record in driving environmental and social agenda across finance, consumer goods and retail sectors. Marija currently works at John Lewis Partnership as Director of Ethics and Sustainability where she is driving and delivering change, critical to taking the Partnership from ambitious goals to action.
Prior to joining the Partnership Marija worked at Federated Hermes, Sainsbury's, Reckitt and UBS. Marija holds a Meng in Environmental engineering and BEng in Chemical engineering from Belgrade University, Serbia.
Amy Smith
Sustainable Finance Manager - London Stock Exchange Group
Amy Smith is a Manager in LSEG’s Capital Markets Sustainable Finance team, where she is focused on strengthening London Stock Exchange’s position as a leading venue for sustainable finance through product development, stakeholder engagement, strategy, and innovation.
Amy is key member of London Stock Exchange’s Voluntary Carbon Markets team, where she has contributed to developing a public market solution to the scaling of the voluntary carbon markets.
Pricing and offsets – creating a net-zero investment portfolio
Deputy Nick Moakes (Moderator)
Chairman - Guernsey Green Finance Strategy Group
Nick lives in Guernsey where he was elected as a States Deputy in October 2020. Nick chairs a number of business forums and sits on a number of boards, including chairing the Guernsey Green Finance Strategy Group.
Originally based in London, Nick spent 25 years working for some of the world’s leading Financial Services companies. An analytical and creative thinker, Nick has strong financial and commercial skills and is used to leading teams, negotiating complex agreements and managing major projects.
Grant Cameron
Managing Director - Ninety One Guernsey Limited
Grant is the Managing Director of Ninety One Guernsey Limited, which is Manager of a wide range of both open- and closed-ended funds, mainly domiciled in Guernsey. He has worked and resided in Guernsey since 2001 and is a past Chairman of the Guernsey Investment & Funds Association.
Ninety One is an active, global investment manager managing £143.9 billion in assets (as of 31 March 2022). Ninety One's goal is to provide long-term investment returns for clients while making a positive difference to people and the planet. Ninety One's approach to sustainability centres on the concept of sustainability with substance. We focus on climate and advocate strongly for investors to commit to real world decarbonisation and a fair transition for emerging markets.
Grant is the chairman of Ninety One's Global Valuation Committee and also chairs the Global Distribution Committee, responsible for the oversight of distributors. He is also chair of the Counterparty Risk Committee.
Grant is a director on a number of the Ninety One fund ranges including the $35 billion Luxembourg domiciled Global Strategy Fund. In this role Grant has been involved in the development of its article 8 and article 9 funds and how they are embedded into the company's sustainability with substance approach.

Kate Elliot
Head of Ethical, Sustainable and Impact Research - Rathbone Greenbank Investments
READ BIOKate Elliot
Head of Ethical, Sustainable and Impact Research - Rathbone Greenbank Investments
Kate is head of Rathbone Greenbank’s ethical, sustainable and impact research team. She oversees the development and implementation of the team’s sustainability assessment framework, analysing investments against a range of environmental, social and governance criteria. She also monitors emerging sustainability themes, sets priorities for Greenbank’s stewardship and engagement activities and has developed the team’s systems for the measurement and reporting of portfolio sustainability and impact performance. She joined Rathbones in 2007 after graduating from the University of Bristol with a masters in Philosophy and Mathematics.
Claire Galineau
Associate Director - Deloitte
Claire is an Associate Director in Deloitte UK’s Tax and Trade Policy Group and is based in London. Claire recently rejoined Deloitte as an Associate Director in the Tax and Trade Policy Group, specialising in international taxation and climate change taxes.
Claire trained with Deloitte in Luxembourg and the UK for five years before spending three years in-house at Vodafone, in the M&A and structuring team. She also has experience with competition law and state aid issues, having worked on the Luxembourg & UK Controlled Foreign Companies investigation throughout her career. She also qualified as a tax advisor in Luxembourg.
Catharina Hillenbrand von der Neyen
Head of Research - Carbon Tracker
Catharina Hillenbrand von der Neyen, CFA, is Head of Research at Carbon Tracker. She has more than 20 years of energy and climate finance experience.
She was a leading equity analyst, in the energy sector with financial institutions including Cazenove, RBS and Nomura, where she headed power, utilities and clean energy teams. In these roles, Catharina analysed major energy companies and equity markets and advised on some of the largest transformational financial transactions in the sector.
She also served as a regulator and government advisor. As a senior advisor at the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, she shaped several critical energy and climate policies in the UK and advised Ministers on financial markets, investors and energy related Brexit issues.
At Allianz, she shaped and influenced the climate agenda of one of the world’s largest investors. Catharina is a member of the Task Force on Carbon Pricing in Europe.
Cees Vermaas
CEO - The International Stock Exchange
Cees is the Chief Executive Officer of The International Stock Exchange (TISE), which is headquartered in Guernsey.
He has been CEO since November 2020. With a strong focus on strategy, business development and infrastructure, he strives to enhance value for the Group’s stakeholders, including its staff, members, issuers and shareholders
Cees has more than 20 years’ experience within international financial market infrastructure. He has held senior executive positions within several international exchanges, including CEO of CME Europe Ltd, CEO of Euronext Amsterdam and Head of European Cash Markets for NYSE Euronext. Prior to that, he spent a decade working in IT and programme management roles.
Closing Keynote
Martin Hartley
Photographer & Explorer - Martin Hartley Photography
Martin Hartley is an award-winning expedition and adventure photographer. He has spent the last 20 years documenting, the Arctic Ocean, a place he argues is the most important and fragile place on our planet right now. During this time Martin has covered more than 2,000 miles, over 400 days skiing across the Arctic Ocean, including a 99-day crossing from Russia to Canada with dogs.
Martin's passion for using his hard-won expedition and photographic expertise to benefit the future of our planet has taken him beyond the polar regions to desert, jungle, mountain and oceanic environments. He has documented indigenous communities, corporate social responsibility initiatives and ground-breaking scientific programmes, for the European Space Agency and NASA”s Operation Icebridge Mission in 2017
He was nominated by Time Magazine as one of their Heroes of the Environment in 2009 in recognition of his work with the Catlin Arctic Survey, documenting sea ice, thickness and ocean acidification.
Headline Sponsor Address - RBS International
Susan Fouquier
Managing Director, Institutional Banking - RBS International
As the Managing Director of Institutional Banking, Susan is responsible for supporting institutional customers (alternative investment fund managers, asset managers, fund administrators and corporate service providers) with their operational banking and borrowing needs. Susan leads teams in Gibraltar, Guernsey, Isle of Man, Jersey, London and Luxembourg.
With over 20 years’ experience in the financial services sector, Susan started her career with the NatWest Group in 2000 and has undertaken a number of senior leadership roles across various parts of the Group, including real estate finance, business banking, commercial and private banking, risk and strategy. Susan has international experience having worked in Paris for eleven years and is fluent in French.
Susan is a former bank appointed trustee for the NatWest Group Pension Fund and was a director of Lothbury Insurance Limited.
Susan holds a degree in International Business and Modern Languages from Strathclyde University, Glasgow and has successfully completed the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership NatWest Programme.