Climate Week NYC 2024

Vijnan Batchu is a Managing Director and the Global Head of the Center For Carbon Transition, Investment Banking and works out of the New York office. He is focused on working with our clients to achieve JPMorgan’s portfolio decarbonization targets and developing expertise in the emerging energy transition space. During his 20-year career at JPMorgan, he has done a variety of roles covering investment banking coverage, research, portfolio management and risk analytics. Vijnan started off his career with HSBC Markets in Mumbai where he worked with corporate clients to help them manage their FX and money market priorities. He has an MBA from the NYU Stern School and a Post Graduate Diploma in Management from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.​

Garrett Bradford is a Principal and GIS Consultant with Milliman’s San Francisco P&C Practice. He currently leads Milliman’s work with the Western Fire Chiefs Association on the development of the WUI Fire Protection Score and is Milliman’s lead GIS consultant for the Risk Rating 2.0 project with the National Flood Insurance Program. Garrett’s work focuses on capturing geospatial indicators of hazard risk to support insurance pricing and climate resiliency planning. Garrett manages the practice’s GIS databases, develops customized geospatial datasets for clients, and performs spatial analysis to support decision making and actuarial modeling. Garrett is a Certified GIS Professional (“GISP”). He has been with Milliman since 2010 and has a MS in Geographic Information Science from San Francisco State University.

Naomi English is Managing Director and Head of Climate Strategy, responsible for managing MSCI's global effort to provide cutting edge data, research and other tools to enable financial institutions to incorporate Climate across their organizations. She oversees the day-to-day operations of the global Climate team and drives collaboration and innovation across MSCI’s product lines.

Naomi has been with MSCI for over fifteen years and was previously leading MSCI’s ESG & Climate Product Strategy & Execution. Prior to her Product roles, Naomi was Global Head of ESG Consultants & Client Service, working with many of the pioneering institutional investors on their sustainable investing objectives and implementation. Naomi started her career at Innovest Strategic Value Advisors.

Naomi holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of British Columbia and a Master of Science (MSc) in Development Management from the London School of Economics, with a focus on Economic Development in Africa. Naomi is an avid runner and triathlete and has completed more than 20 races around the world.

Bridget Fawcett is the head of Sustainability & Corporate Transitions Investment Banking, where she oversees an investment banking team that delivers sustainability, transition advisory and corporate finance solutions to corporations. She serves on the Investment Banking Executive Committee and is also a member of the ESG Council.

Bridget is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Steering Committees on The Future of Capital Markets, the Task Force on Financing the Transition and WEF’s Earth Observation Initiative, all addressing longer-term funding and policy considerations for carbon intensive sectors. She formerly co-chaired WEF’s Futures Council on Financial and Monetary Systems. Bridget has also contributed to various WEF publications.

In addition to her client facing role, Bridget held positions as Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Financial Officer for Citi’s Banking business. Bridget also headed the Client Strategy Group and was responsible for client strategy and innovation efforts. Bridget began her investment banking career as an analyst in Citi's Real Estate Group.

Bridget is actively involved in various non-profit organizations. She is a Director of the Corporation of Yaddo and serves as Trustee Emeritus of St. Paul’s School, the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) and the Berkshire Theatre Festival. Bridget served as Co-Chair of Dartmouth’s Centennial Circle of Alumnae and was on the steering committee for the Dartmouth College Fund. She led Yale’s Parent Leadership Council for the Class of 2022. Bridget was a founding Co-Chair of Phillips Academy Andover’s Parent Advancement Council.

Bridget received her B.A. from Dartmouth College in Russian Language.

Marie Henniges is part of the GFANZ Technical Team, currently working as Director of Nature in NZTP. Within GFANZ, Marie has worked on mainstreaming the net-zero transition plan framework and developing transition finance and decarbonization contribution methodologies. She has eight years experience in environmental and sustainability research and holds a PhD in Biological Sciences.

Matt Kaczmarek, Managing Director, is Global Head of Sustainable Private Debt Investing and Head of the Los Angeles office at BlackRock. His team delivers innovative sustainable investing strategies, market-leading ESG integration, and tech-enabled ESG data and reporting to support $16 billion in sustainability-oriented private debt assets under management. Matt is also global chair of the firms Out & Allies LGBTQ+ employee network. Previously Matt held senior economic policy appointments in the Obama Administration at the White House and Departments of State and the Treasury. He received his BA from UCLA and MA from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), where he was editor-in-chief of the SAIS Review of International Affairs. He is a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy and the Council on Foreign Relations.

Michael Kashani joined Apollo Global Management October 2021, serving as the Head of Sustainable Credit and Platforms. Michael is responsible for supporting ESG integration across the Credit business as well as further incorporating ESG considerations into Apollo’s lending platforms and other non-majority equity stake investment processes. 

Michael currently represents Apollo across several industry initiatives, including as the inaugural Steering Committee Chair of the ESG Integrated Disclosure Project. 

Michael formally served as the Global Head of ESG Portfolio Management within the Fixed Income division at Goldman Sachs Asset Management. Within that role, Michael was responsible for coordinating the ESG integration efforts across all fixed income teams as well as serving as the lead portfolio manager for ESG focused mandates. 

Michael was previously on the Goldman Sachs Asset Management municipal team as a senior research analyst covering healthcare, education and distressed municipalities and was instrumental in the developing its ESG capabilities as well. 

Prior to his time at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Michael worked as a credit analyst at American Capital Access and Standard & Poor’s, focusing predominantly within the healthcare and education sectors.

Anne Kleppe is a managing director and partner in BCG’s Berlin office. She is a member of the Financial Institutions practice, as well as of the firm’s tech build and design unit, BCG X, for which she leads the work in risk and compliance globally.

Anne has over 15 years of experience in quantitative modeling for banks and financial institutions, with a special focus on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) and sustainability issues, as well as risk management. She is one of BCG’s thought leaders on climate and sustainability for financial institutions. In particular, she developed, and is the global lead for, a dedicated solution: CO2 FI, that helps financial industry players navigate their climate action journey.

Prior to joining BCG, Anne was a Partner with d-fine.

Pooja Malpani heads the ESG and Climate Engineering team at MSCI. Equipped with 22+ years of software development experience, Pooja provides strategic direction in terms of technology transformation for ESG and Climate offerings underpinned by a seamless data backbone

Previously, she was the Chief Technology Officer for Bloomberg Media, where she led the engineering team responsible for consumer media, marketing and data visualization. This included supporting Bloomberg.com, consumer mobile applications, smart television apps, other connected devices, as well as the systems that deliver market-moving news, data, audio and video to consumers and syndication partners.

Prior to Bloomberg, Pooja was at HBO Digital Products, where she led the Purchase and Identity engineering teams for HBO Go and HBO Now. Her group was responsible for Subscription Management, including Auth, Direct Commerce and Partner Commerce across web, mobile and connected devices. Her group managed HBO’s streaming user services, including scaling for high traffic shows like ‘Game of Thrones’.

Previously, Pooja spent 9 years at Microsoft, leading the engineering efforts on a variety of features for Skype for Business and Skype for consumers.

Pooja is an ambassador for women in technology and is actively involved in engineering initiatives related to diversity.
Pooja graduated from Indiana University with a Masters in Computer Science.

Dr. Oliver Marchand is Global Head of Climate Research.

Dr. Oliver Marchand is responsible for all research activities in the field of climate risks analysis. The MSCI Climate Risk Center offices create an extensive climate risk assessment and reporting offering for the institutional market, providing global investors with solutions to help them better understand the impact of climate change on their investment portfolios and comply with mandatory and voluntary climate risk disclosure initiatives and requirements.

In 2015, Dr. Oliver Marchand founded the Zurich-based fintech start up Carbon Delta AG and was the CEO until 2019, when the company was acquired by MSCI Barra SA. Prior to founding Carbon Delta and joining MSCI, Dr. Oliver Marchand gained extensive experience in IT management, financial portfolio management and IT systems development at Fisch Asset Management. Furthermore, he is experienced in climate data modelling as a researcher in weather forecasting at various weather services.

Dr. Oliver Marchand is a strong entrepreneurship professional with a Ph.D. in Computer Science from ETH Zurich. The combined expertise in software development for financial portfolio management and climate data modelling puts Dr. Oliver Marchand in the unique position to combine two very different industries. With the establishment of the MSCI Climate Risk Center offices, the fulfilment of his personal vision of creating a new climate risk standard in the financial industry is on track.

Jessica Matthews is the Global Head of Sustainable Investing at J.P. Morgan Private Bank based in New York. Jessica has spent the past 15 years of her career leading sustainable and impact investing efforts at major financial institutions, and joined J.P. Morgan in 2018. In her role she leads the development and execution of the Private Bank’s sustainable investing offering, with a focus on expanding the platform of sustainable investing managers, developing thought leadership, and working with clients to integrate their social and environmental goals with their long-term investment objectives.

Prior to joining J.P. Morgan, Jessica was Cambridge Associates’ Global Head of Mission-Related Investing (MRI), where she lead the firm’s mission and impact investing practice and advised clients on their MRI programs. Jessica previously worked with government clients in the Financial Services sector at Booz Allen Hamilton, in the Investment Office at the American Red Cross, and in the Global Consultant Relations Group at BlackRock. Jessica began her career with Cambridge Associates as a consulting analyst.

Jessica is a frequent speaker and guest lecturer, and is actively engaged with various field-building organizations in the areas of sustainability and impact investing. She has published industry-leading thought pieces on a variety of topics, including impact investing benchmarking, the materiality of ESG, fossil fuel divestment, and gender lens investing.

Jessica graduated from the University of Virginia with a BA in Government and a Minor in Economics. She serves on the Board for The Resolution Project and the Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility for the University of Virginia Investment Management Company.

Puja Modi joined MSCI in 2013 and is an Executive Director in the Americas ESG & Climate Client Coverage group and has spent more than a decade dedicated to the evolution of sustainable finance. She also serves as a Private Assets specialist where through her engagement with investors and industry bodies, helps inform MSCI’s ESG & Climate private markets strategy. She was instrumental in the development and launch of MSCI’s private company data collection tool, Private Company Data Connect, which furthers efforts in transparency, harmonization, and management of sustainability data from private companies.

Based in New York, Puja received a bachelor’s degree in Political Economy and Environmental Science from Barnard College and a Master’s in Sustainability Management from Columbia University.

Laura Nishikawa leads a global research team responsible for producing ESG-related research content and developing models to help institutional investors identify, measure and manage investment risks and opportunities arising from significant ESG issues. Laura joined MSCI in 2010 through the acquisition of RiskMetrics. Laura received her Master’s degree in International Economic Policy from Columbia University (SIPA), and her Bachelor’s degree from McGill University, and is a CFA® charterholder.

Bruce Schlein is Director, Head of ESG at OMERS Infrastructure. In this role, he is responsible for developing OMERS Infrastructure’s global ESG strategy and supporting its integration and execution. Bruce works closely with Boards and management teams at portfolio companies to develop tools and programs to improve ESG performance and supports the integration of ESG into portfolio formation, capital allocation and deal origination.

Prior to joining OMERS, Bruce served in several ESG roles at Citi including Director, Impact Investing, Director, Alternative Energy Finance, and co-lead of the Corporate Sustainability team. Before this, Bruce worked for Bechtel as a sustainability specialist on infrastructure projects in China and Eastern Europe, and for several international development organizations. He is a former Board member of the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and currently sits on the New York City Energy Efficiency Corporation Board.

Bruce has a Bachelor of Arts (Government) from Cornell University and a Master of Arts (International Economics) from the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University. He has held various adjunct faculty positions at SAIS, New York University, Bard College, and Cornell’s Johnson School of Business.

""Dr Andrew Smith is the Chief Operating Officer at flood and climate risk intelligence firm, Fathom. He co-founded the company in 2013 whilst undertaking his PhD at the University of Bristol.

In his role, Andrew oversees the daily operations of Fathom, working with numerous teams to ensure short- and long-term objectives align with the business growth strategy.

Alongside his role, Andrew continues to work as an active research scientist, contributing to leading research examining various aspects of climate change risk modelling and modelling floods over large scales.""

In the current role, Ms Tan oversees the formulation of strategies to drive the growth of sustainable finance markets and solutions in Singapore, and positioning Singapore’s financial sector to capture regional opportunities arising from Asia’s transition towards net zero. This includes leading initiatives to develop carbon markets and transition credits, as well as blended finance and transition finance markets in Singapore.

Prior to this, Ms Tan was in various roles in MAS including overseeing the formulation of regulatory policies for retail payment systems and payment services, as well as banks such as digital banks.

Ms Tan spent eight years in the development function of MAS, setting strategic development plans for the insurance sector and building financial cooperation and relations between Singapore and China in the Beijing Representative Office of MAS. She was also working under the Managing Director’s office responsible for supporting the MD of MAS in coordinating strategic corporate development, leadership engagements and Board meetings.

Rama Variankaval is the global head of Corporate Advisory and Sustainable Solutions (“CASS) which encompasses Corporate Finance Advisory (""CFA""), Center for Carbon Transition (“CCT”), Sustainable Solutions, and Infrastructure Finance Advisory (“IFA”) teams at J.P. Morgan. CFA advises clients across industries on capital allocation, shareholder value creation strategies, and other corporate and structured finance issues. CCT is leading the firm’s efforts in developing and implementing its climate strategy pertaining to its client facing businesses. CCT and Sustainable Solutions teams also advise clients on transitioning to a low-carbon future and navigating the various Environmental, Social and Governance (“ESG”) considerations faced by companies today. Rama sits on the Investment Bank’s management committee. ​

In addition to these responsibilities, Rama leads the Corporate and Investment Bank’s ESG forum, and serves on the Firmwide Environmental Committee. ​

Rama holds a BS in Civil Engineering from the National Institute of Technology in India, an MS in Structural Engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign and an MS in Statistics and Operations Research from New York University. Rama started his career at J.P. Morgan in 2003.​

Sarah Wilson is the head of Climate Solutions on the Responsible Investing team at Nuveen, the investment management business of TIAA.

As head of climate solutions, Sarah leads a team that sets firm-level climate vision and accelerates alignment of brand, investment process, and products with the market’s rising climate expectations for the financial sector. Her team also advises on Net Zero implementation for the TIAA General Account. Throughout her career at Nuveen, Sarah has also led ESG integration across asset classes and, prior to that, within fixed income.

Prior to joining TIAA, Nuveen’s parent company, in 2015, Sarah managed corporate sustainability reporting and renewable energy credit portfolios for Green Mountain Energy, a subsidiary of NRG, and helped structure debt financing for renewable energy projects as a summer associate at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

She holds an M.B.A. and Master of Environmental Management from Yale University and a B.A. in Economics and Plan II Honors from the University of Texas at Austin. Sarah sits on the advisory board of the Yale Initiative for Sustainable Finance.

""Han Yik is the Senior Advisor to the Executive Director and Chief Investment Officer of the New York State Teachers’ Retirement System (NYSTRS). As a member of NYSTRS’ Executive Leadership team, he advises the ED/CIO on investments, public policy, global initiatives and corporate governance. In addition, Han is building and leading NYSTRS’ initiatives on investor stewardship and sustainability and its integration and implementation across the NYSTRS investment portfolio.

Han was formerly the Head of Institutional Investors at the World Economic Forum, where he workedwith the senior leadership of the world's largest asset owners and top government officials on issues around long-term investing as well as providing strategic guidance on initiatives involving public-private cooperation. He led the Forum’s initiative on the global pension crisis, with his articles and reports receiving extensive press coverage from media outlets such as Bloomberg, The Financial Times, Barron’s and others. In addition, he has been a keynote speaker at various global conferences, including the CIE Chairs & CEOs Symposium in Sydney, the Singapore Fintech Festival, the Global Asset Owner Series from the CFA Society of New York, the Asia Risk Congress, the Salesforce World Tour and CROSAPF and has led private roundtables for asset owners and asset managers at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos.

Han began his career as an actuarial consultant at Towers Perrin and Mercer, before joining Bank of America Merrill Lynch as a Senior Institutional Portfolio Strategist and Head of Institutional Thought Leadership, where he managed $2 billion in assets as an OCIO for institutional clients. Han earned his B.S. in Applied Mathematics with a concentration in Operations Research from Yale University, where he won the Benjamin F. Barge Prize for Excellence in Mathematics. Han formerly served as a board member for Materials for the Arts, a local non-profit devoted to creative recycling and reuse of donated materials as arts materials for underserved public schools in New York City.""