About the Conference 

Paul served as the Executive Secretary of South Africa’s post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Paul also co-founded the International Centre for Transitional Justice, an organization that works in over 40 countries that have endured massive human rights violations under repression conflict. Paul is also a co-founder and CEO of Maiyet, an ethical luxury fashion brand that cultivates traditional design and culture by partnering with global artisans. Most recently, Paul co-founded The Conduit, which serves as a home for those committed to improving the world by harnessing the power of creativity and entrepreneurship. The Conduit serves as a home for a diverse community of people passionate about social change. 

Paul served as the Executive Secretary of South Africa’s post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Paul also co-founded the International Centre for Transitional Justice, an organization that works in over 40 countries that have endured massive human rights violations under repression conflict. Paul is also a co-founder and CEO of Maiyet, an ethical luxury fashion brand that cultivates traditional design and culture by partnering with global artisans. Most recently, Paul co-founded The Conduit, which serves as a home for those committed to improving the world by harnessing the power of creativity and entrepreneurship. The Conduit serves as a home for a diverse community of people passionate about social change. 

Director General of British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) since April 2021, Shevaun was formerly Head of Business Engagement at Number 10 Downing Street and was at the heart of Government in the Cabinet Office as Head of the Inclusive Economy Partnership. 

Shevaun started her career in consultancy in London and New York. She then moved to the Walt Disney Company in strategic planning before joining Disneyland Paris, opening its second theme park. Shevaun then joined the agency world, running global accounts for Millward Brown, Mindshare and WPP. 

Following this, she started her own business as a partner in a digital innovation agency and venture builder, Independents United, where she also became an Advisor for the Danson Foundation. Most recently, Shevaun was the New Ventures Director for Avado, building new businesses in Edtech and founding the Academy of Digital Business Leaders. 

Shevaun has a passion for business as a force for good. She was elected to the International Chambers of Commerce’s (ICC) World Chambers Federation General Council and is a Board member of ICC UK. She is a Trustee of the Women of the World Foundation (WoW) and a Trustee of Barefoot College International. 

Jeremy Oppenheim is a Senior Partner at Systemiq Ltd., and on the Advisory Board of Quadrature Climate Foundation. Jeremy co-founded Systemiq, a B-Corporation dedicated to accelerating delivery of the Paris Agreement and UN Sustainable Development Goals by transforming markets and business models in five key systems: nature and food, materials and circularity, energy, the built environment areas, and sustainable finance. With offices in the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Indonesia, Brazil, France, and the United States, SYSTEMIQ combines cutting-edge research with corporate strategy advice, policy insights and high-impact, hands-on projects. SYSTEMIQ manages a focused pool of disruptive capital from mission-aligned investors and works globally and locally to help partners anticipate, shape, and create value in the new economy. 

An economist, business adviser and convener of coalitions, Jeremy is driven by one simple idea: tackling the biggest challenges of our times requires urgent, structural change to economic systems and thus demands new levels of collaboration across business, investors, government, and civil society. He cultivates this multi-sectoral partnership approach with the help of strong connections across industries and countries built over a career of pioneering this space. Jeremy has endless energy for this work and is forever developing new initiatives to deliver a sustainable world. Jeremy is an experienced speaker and moderator and can comment on a broad range of sustainability topics including climate science, blended finance, energy transition, food transformation, materials economy, valuing nature, and sustainable tourism. 

Jeremy was the first programme director of the Global Commission on Economy and Climate 2014 (otherwise known as the New Climate Economy project); lead author of the Better Business, Better World report (2018) of the Business and Sustainable Development Commission; Chair of the Blended Finance Taskforce; and Global Programme Director/Co-Lead Author of the Growing Better report (2019) of the Food and Land-Use Commission. He is chair of the non-profit, Global Action Plan; Founder and Chairman from 2000-2006 of UnLtd - The UK Foundation for Social Entrepreneurs; and over the past 6 years, a trustee on the Board of the Woodwell Climate Research Center. 

Previously, Jeremy spent more than 20 years at McKinsey, developing and leading its Climate Change Special Initiative and its Sustainability and Resource Productivity Practice. He also served as Senior Economist at the World Bank (1988-1993) and Research Fellow at the Harvard Institute for International Development (1986-1987). Jeremy holds a first-class degree from Cambridge University in Law and Economics (1984) and a master’s degree in public administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University (1986).

Louis has worked at the CCC since 2020 across a number of roles and currently leads the CCC's Infrastructure team. This team is responsible for the Committee's work on the Net Zero transitions in surface transport, waste and industry, as well as the resilience of infrastructure systems. Prior to joining the CCC, Louis worked in government on nuclear power and international climate change. He also has a background in transport planning and a degree civil engineering.

Amal-Lee Amin joined British International Investment in February 2020 and played a pivotal role in leading the Climate Change team and implementing our first climate strategy. A passionate advocate for sustainable development, she now leads teams on climate finance, gender and diversity investing, and technical assistance. 

She was a senior adviser to the UK COP26 presidency and is a member of the independent High Level Expert Group on Climate Finance and the OECD Advisory Group on climate and economic resilience, and a trustee of the Born Free Foundation. 

Previously, Amal-Lee worked for the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), where she was Chief of Climate Change. Prior to joining the IADB, Amal-Lee spent ten years working on sustainable energy and climate change within the UK Government, including at the Cabinet Office, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC), and the Foreign Office. Prior to that she initiated and developed E3G’s international climate-finance agenda. 

Hannah is currently Chief Operating Officer at B4NZ. Hannah has over a decade of experience with the Big4 leading major transformation programmes and for the last 5 years has worked with executive leadership teams and boards, advising on ESG and sustainability strategy.   

Hannah has worked with major cross sector organisations, focussing on climate change and risk management. In doing this Hannah has been compelled to work with market coalitions and initiatives which define the future ecosystem where finance can flow with ease and organisations demonstrating the right sustainable behaviours are financially rewarded. The flow of capital to the real economy and working across innovative market solutions is what lead Hannah to B4NZ. 

Hannah is adept at building great relationships with repeated experience of quickly building trusted networks, and the ability to influence with ease. She is renowned for maintaining energy and positivity whilst leading teams through challenging periods of change.

Ben Clube is the founder of EnergyPathways. He has 30+ years’ commercial, finance and operations upstream experience. 
 
Previously founder and director of clean energy company EnergyCapture Limited, As a director at FAR Ltd he was responsible for building the Africa business, breakthrough M&A and commercial deals, leading to world class oil discoveries offshore Senegal. 

He was previously a Vice President Finance at BHP Petroleum with leadership roles in numerous international development and gas commercialisation projects in UKCS, Australia, USA, Africa, Asia. 

Sarah is the Director leading the Cleantech for UK initiative, building a coalition of cleantech and policy leaders to scale up sustainable innovation in the UK. Before joining Cleantech Group, Sarah spent 11 years working in the UK civil service, primarily on energy and innovation policy and legislation. She began her career as a research associate working on carbon capture and storage. Sarah holds a degree in Environmental Science, a PhD in Isotope Geochemistry and a Master’s in Public Policy. 

Harland Evans is the co-founder and CEO of Nature Based, a nature-as-infrastructure startup harnessing the power of kelp to protect floating offshore assets. The thesis of the business is ‘if we want infrastructure scale investment into nature, we need to make nature projects look and feel like infrastructure.

Before starting Nature Based, Harland worked in insurance and risk management – looking for ways to accelerate the growth of Cleantech companies and nature-positive businesses through risk transfer. He has recently finished an MSc in Business and Sustainability at UCL, where he explored how to unlock public sector funding for UK green infrastructure.

Eoin Murray brings 34 years of investment experience across firms including Federated Hermes, GSA Capital, and Callanish Capital. A natural capital specialist, he oversees portfolio strategy and helps investors access compelling nature-based returns.

As head of research (job share), Heather works on industrial decarbonisation, North Sea oil and gas, critical raw materials needed for the net zero transition, integrating nature into our economic system and the transition to a circular economy. Previously she was a research fellow at the Walker Institute, working on climate adaptation. During her PhD she was a fellow at the Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology on climate and agriculture.

Nick Lyth is Founder and President of Green Angel Ventures, which he founded in 2013 as an experiment to fight climate change and global warming, with ten members, and two company investments.  It now has more than 300 members, 50 companies in its portfolio, has launched its first EIS Climate Change Fund, attracted a £10 million commitment from BBI’s Regional Angel Programme, and recently won UK Angel Syndicate of the Year, for the second time. 

Alastair Collier, Chief R&D Officer at A Healthier Earth, is a climate tech innovator and leader with over 10 years of experience in strategic, innovation, and operations leadership roles in capital-intensive and investment-focused organisations. 

A Healthier Earth is a UK-based climate tech company that brings environmental projects to life through science, systems thinking, and practical delivery. As the R&D subsidiary of Pure Data Centres Group (Pure DC), it focuses on three interconnected challenges: removing carbon from the atmosphere, decarbonising digital infrastructure, and helping communities adapt to the impacts of climate change. 

Alastair creates change through driving real-world technology development and delivering safe, efficient, and reliable operations. He is a strategic industry leader who empowers and coordinates cross-functional teams, coaches and develops transformational decision-making, and enables outcome-driven innovation.

Once described as “human caffeine” on social media, Dr Nicola Millard injects a people-centred expresso shot to innovation and future strategy. Half social scientist, half technologist, all academic, she uses techniques from disciplines such as design thinking, psychology, anthropology, computing, and business consulting to generate data, provocations, and stories to engage and create conversations from the board room, to the front line. No frothy coffee; just solid research. 

In her long and varied career Nicola has done many jobs, including futurology, research, usability, customer service, marketing, and business consulting. She was involved with some BT firsts, including the application of artificial intelligence into BT’s call centres, BT’s experiments with home working, and helping to develop BT’s “net easy” customer score. 

Nicola got her PhD on motivation & technology acceptance from Lancaster University in 2005,  has authored over 50 publications – including 1 book and numerous book chapters – and is a mentor at Cambridge Judge Business School. 

She is an award-winning presenter, with 2 TEDx talks and hundreds of conference panel, chair, and keynote sessions under her belt. She occasionally pops up on radio and TV around the world, including appearances on ‘Woman’s Hour’, ‘Tech Tent’, ‘The Media Show’, ‘The Genius of Invention’ and ‘Back in Time for the Weekend’ for the BBC.

Oscar is Head of Policy and Regulatory Affairs at UKSIF. He leads UKSIF’s work on public policy and regulation in the UK, and on behalf of the organisation’s members he looks to actively encourage a more positive, enabling environment for the growth of sustainable finance in the UK.

Oscar is responsible for UKSIF’s engagement with financial regulators and civil servants, while regularly engaging with investors on addressing policy barriers to sustainable investing and private investment in the UK’s transition. In recent years, he has been a deputy representative to a number of advisory taskforces to the UK government and regulators, providing perspectives on delivery of various sustainable finance initiatives. He is the secretariat for UKSIF’s Policy Committee and regulatory member working groups, and a member of the Advisory Board for the Sustainable Investment Hub at Asset TV.

Paul served as the Executive Secretary of South Africa’s post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Paul also co-founded the International Centre for Transitional Justice, an organization that works in over 40 countries that have endured massive human rights violations under repression conflict. Paul is also a co-founder and CEO of Maiyet, an ethical luxury fashion brand that cultivates traditional design and culture by partnering with global artisans. Most recently, Paul co-founded The Conduit, which serves as a home for those committed to improving the world by harnessing the power of creativity and entrepreneurship. The Conduit serves as a home for a diverse community of people passionate about social change.