Climate Change Integration in the Investment Process

Mary Leung, CFA, is the head, standards and advocacy, Asia Pacific, at CFA Institute. She is responsible for the development, maintenance, and promotion of capital markets policy perspectives in the APAC region. She also oversees the promotion and development of CFA Institute professional standards in the region. Mary has over 20 years of experience in the global financial industry, having worked in corporate finance, wealth management advisory, and fund management. Previously, she was with Coutts & Co, where she was director of Business Development and Management for North Asia. Prior to that she was executive director at UBS AG, where she led the Corporate Advisory Group in Hong Kong. With experience in both the buy- and sell-sides, Mary has a strong understanding of the drivers and dynamics of different investor groups, including institutional investors, corporates, family offices, asset owners, and high-net-worth individuals. Mary graduated from Peterhouse, Cambridge with a degree in Engineering. She is a CFA charterholder and speaks English, Putonghua, and Cantonese.

Matt Orsagh, CFA, CIPM, is a former director of capital markets policy at CFA Institute, where he focused on corporate governance issues. He was named one of the 2008 “Rising Stars of Corporate Governance” by the Millstein Center for Corporate Governance and Performance at the Yale School of Management.

Kanol Pal is Senior Advisor on Responsible Investments for BNP Paribas Wealth Management Asia. He has been appointed to this role in 2017 to define the Sustainable and Responsible Investments offer and to set up the SRI product platform across all asset classes for high net worth individuals. Kanol has more than 30 years experience in the financial industry having worked as Bank Treasury Manager, Head of Fixed Income & Derivatives Sales and Head of Investment Services in Singapore and Europe. He has also volunteered for various leadership positions at CFA Singapore and CFA Institute. Kanol is a graduate of ESSEC business school and a CFA charterholder. He has a post graduate certificate in Business Sustainability Management from the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership.

Hardik is a sustainability-focused leader with over 15 years of experience spread across Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) research & investing, Climate Change and Carbon Credits advisory, and Business Intelligence domains.

At GMO, Hardik was responsible for building its global ESG capability across investment product areas and asset classes. His efforts included creation of GMO’s proprietary country ESG model as well as the company-level GMO ESG Score, helping various investment teams with their ESG integration and engagement efforts, and designing Fund level ESG reports for GMO strategies.

Prior to joining GMO in 2017, he led a global team of analysts focused on ESG ratings and thematic research at Sustainalytics. Previously, he was an ESG Ratings associate at MSCI and, as a senior climate change consultant with Ernst & Young, has helped register a wide variety of carbon credit projects with the UNFCCC under the Clean Development Mechanism defined in the Kyoto Protocol.

An engineering graduate, Hardik also holds a post-graduate diploma in management (Finance), the Fundamentals of Sustainability Accounting (FSA) credential issued by the SASB, Sustainability, the Climate Risk (SCR) credential by the GARP, and the CFA charter.