Scaling Climate Finance to Reach the Trillions

Hubert Keller has been a Managing Partner of the Lombard Odier Group since 2006 and Senior Managing Partner since 2021. Mr. Keller has been primarily involved with the Group’s Asset Management business since 2009 and acted as the CEO of Lombard Odier Investment Managers until 31^st December 2020 He coordinates the firm’s work on sustainable investment, including aligning investment strategies and portfolios to the environmental transition and to a more inclusive economic framework. Mr. Keller started his career at Compagnie Financière Tradition and SG Warburg Group. He subsequently moved to Deutsche Bank, working in corporate finance and capital markets before assuming global responsibility for Equity Capital Markets and becoming a member of the Executive Committee of its Global Banking division.

Mahmoud Mohieldin is an economist with more than 30 years of experience in international finance and development. He is the UN Climate Change High-Level Champion for Egypt (COP27) and an Executive Director at the International Monetary Fund. Since February 2020, Mr. Mohieldin has been the United Nations Special Envoy on Financing the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. He was Minister of Investment of Egypt from 2004-2010, and served on several Boards of Directors in the Central Bank of Egypt and the corporate sector. His professional experience extends into the academic arena as a Professor of Economics and Finance at the Faculty of Economics and Political Science, Cairo University and as a Visiting Professor at several renowned Universities in Egypt, Korea, the UAE, the UK and the USA. Mr. Mohieldin has authored numerous publications and articles in leading journals in the fields of economics, finance and development.

Barbara Buchner is Global Managing Director of Climate Policy Initiative advising leaders on climate, energy, and land use investments around the world. She also directs the Global Innovation Lab for Climate Finance which solicits, shapes, and tests cutting edge climate finance instruments that resolve financing barriers hindering alternative energy, adaptation, and land use projects. In addition, Dr. Buchner built and directs the San Giorgio Group, which brings together climate finance leaders to engage on critical issues that require collective effort to accelerate the transition to more sustainable, lower-emission economies. She is a Professor in Practice for Sustainable Finance at the University of London SOAS Centre for Sustainable Finance, a Program Director of the Climate Change and Energy Program at the Australian National University, is on the Advisory Board of the Barilla Foundation and the Schwarzenegger Climate Initiative, and a member of several influential groups and committees. Previously Dr. Buchner served as a Senior Energy and Environment Analyst at the International Energy Agency (IEA) and as a Senior Researcher at the Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM) where she was involved in a number of activities related to FEEM’s Climate Change Policy and Modelling Unit in the field of environmental economics. She holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Graz and was a Visiting Scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Avinash Persaud is special envoy to the Prime Minister of Barbados, and emeritus professor at Gresham College in the UK. His career spreads across academia, finance, and public policy. Mr. Persaud is a senior fellow at London Business School; a visiting fellow at the Centre for Financial Analysis and Policy, Judge Institute, Cambridge University; 2010 president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (Section F) and past governor of the London School of Economics and Political Science. His current roles include chairman of Elara Capital PLC, an investment bank based in London and Mumbai; chairman of PBL, a real estate development company in the Caribbean; chairman of Intelligence Capital Limited, a London-based financial advisory firm; and board director of RBC Latin America and the Caribbean. Mr. Persaud was formerly a senior executive at J. P. Morgan, State Street and GAM Holdings. He is a senior adviser to the Financial Services Law Reform Commission in India, a member of the UK Treasury’s Audit Committee and a member of the National Council of Economic Advisors in Barbados. Mr. Persaud was the chairman of the Warwick Commission on Financial Reform, the chairman of the regulatory subcommittee of the UN High-Level Task Force on Financial Reform, co-chair of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Emerging Markets Network and member of the Pew Task Force to the US Senate Banking Committee.

Mattia Romani is Senior Counsellor to the Special Envoy on Climate Change and President Designate of COP28. He is an internationally recognised leader on sustainable finance, power system decarbonisation, and transition economics. Dr. Romani is a partner at Systemiq, the systems change company and senior at holistiQ Investment Partners (“holistiQ”), the newly launched sustainable asset management platform of Lombard Odier Investment Managers, powered by a unique partnership between the Lombard Odier Group and the systems change firm Systemiq.   Dr. Romani was previously at Autonomy Capital, where his work as Head of Sustainability ranged from sustainability investment and carbon market analysis to energy and mobility research. Prior to that he served as Managing Director for Economics, Policy and Governance at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) between 2014 and 2020, and was formerly Deputy Director General and Chief Economist of the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI). Dr. Romani worked closely with Lord Nick Stern on the ground-breaking Stern Review, and was a senior expert in sustainability and resource productivity at McKinsey. He holds a D.Phil (PhD) in Economics from University of Oxford and a MSc in Development from the London School of Economics.