Financial News will reveal its top picks for the 50 most influential people in the European sustainable finance industry on 11 September.
Following on from the success of our inaugural list last year, we received an influx of impressive submissions this time around, which made narrowing down the final selection a challenge.
ESG is no longer just the purview of banks and asset managers. Companies grappling with thorny issues like climate change and gender diversity and a wave of incoming regulations and disclosures have driven demand for sustainability experts across the City — a reality FN's list tries to capture.
Here's a sneak peek of three of the top professionals who made the grade.
John McCalla-Leacy, partner, global head of ESG and UK ESG vice-chair, KPMG
A former professional canoe slalom athlete and knitwear designer for United Colours of Benetton, John McCalla-Leacy does not have a boilerplate background for an ESG executive.
He initially joined KPMG’s M&A team in 2001 and over time he increasingly found himself being drawn to social issues impacting the Big Four firm — or the ‘S’ in ESG.
Internally, he was one of the big drivers of KPMG’s Black Lives Action Plan, which includes a target to boost the number of Black Heritage partners in the UK from 1% to 5% by 2030.
He made history by becoming the first Black person to join its UK management board in November 2020, applying for the position following the murder of George Floyd in the US.
READ John McCalla-Leacy: ‘I was the only Black person on the main board of the Big Four ever’
Less than a year later McCalla-Leacy became the ESG lead for KPMG’s UK business and was promoted to global head in October 2022.
In his current role, he is responsible for embedding ESG practices across KPMG’s global strategy and helping its clients with everything from reducing carbon emissions to green audits, and designing and implementing their own ESG strategies.
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The Big Four firm has earmarked $1.5bn for a multi-year ESG expansion, and under McCalla-Leacy’s watch the climate risk & strategy team in the UK has grown from 20 people in 2021 to 120 people in 2022.
McCalla-Leacy is also an advocate for youth charity the Prince’s Trust, which gave him a helping hand financially when he was a young athlete struggling to afford racing equipment.
“Receiving the support that I did - and when I did - changed my life,” he told FN in an exclusive interview. “Prior to this, I was failing in school. But sport gave me discipline and focus.”
Farnam Bidgoli, global head of ESG solutions, HSBC
Farnam Bidgoli has been growing her team this year after receiving a promotion to global head in early 2022. She now leads 16 people who advise on the ESG aspects of financial transactions such as IPOs and M&A, as well as corporate strategy.
Deals they have worked on this year include wind turbine company Nordex’s €333m green convertible bond issuance, PT Merdeka Battery Materials’ $620m IPO in Indonesia and Emirati ADNOC Gas’s $2.5bn float.
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A key piece of work for Bidgoli this year has been building collaboration across HSBC on its own net zero target.
She is also leading its net zero technology squads, which are working groups that bring together people from across the bank to focus on how it can scale up key technologies such as clean power and sustainable fuels.
Bidgoli joined HSBC as head of sustainable bonds, Emea in 2017 and previously worked at responsible investment research firm Sustainalytics.
Andy Howard, global head of sustainable investment, Schroders
Andy Howard joined Schroders in 2016 as head of sustainable research and was promoted to global boss of its 50-strong sustainable investment team in 2020.
He oversees the FTSE 100 fund group’s sustainability research and leads the charge on its active ownership and engagement activities, which last year included 5,300 engagements with over 3,400 companies.
He helped create Schroders’ SustainEx investment framework, a proprietary tool that aims to quantify the hidden costs of companies’ impact on their workforce, society and the environment.
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Over the past 12 months Howard’s team has driven several key initiatives at the asset manager, including launching an engagement blueprint, which ties fund managers’ personal performance goals to sustainability targets, and formulating its Plan for Nature, which sets out investment commitments to prevent nature loss.
Howard has spent the bulk of his career in sustainable finance, previously heading up Goldman Sachs’ sustainability research team in London.
He frequently participates in high-profile industry events, including COP15 last year where he was a key speaker. He was also selected to give evidence to the UK’s House of Commons in February 2023 to discuss deforestation.
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To contact the author of this story with feedback or news, email Kristen McGachey
