About us

The Climate Governance Initiative supports the growth of groups of board directors around the world to form networks, known as Chapters.

Our Mission, Vision & Values

Our mission is to mobilise boards around the world to accelerate the net zero transition, guided by the World Economic Forum’s Principles for Effective Climate Governance.

Our core purpose is to enable effective climate corporate governance and mobilise boards to act.

Our vision is that a critical mass of boards proactively govern their organisations to ensure they fully contribute to resolving the global climate challenge.

Our values underpin everything we do.  We are impact focused, collaborative and entrepreneurial in spirit.

Impact focused – We are highly motivated to make a difference through effective climate governance, using impact as a lens for our decision making.

Collaborative – We work with others who share our goals to achieve our mission, valuing the importance of collaboration over competition.

Entrepreneurial – We are fast acting, creative and learn from our actions and those of others.

Our unique proposition

The Climate Governance Initiative is driven by a community of non-executive directors focused on making climate a boardroom priority, building on the World Economic Forum’s Principles for Effective Climate Governance.

Why?  Climate change is a global emergency.  Business has a crucial role to play in the necessary transition.  Boards must take the lead on this.

All Chapters have signed up to our Charter, and commit to upholding the values of the Climate Governance Initiative.

Our Ambition 2025

We see the next 3 years as critical in our response to the global challenge posed by climate change.  The IPCC report 2021 signals a ‘code red’ for humanity and emissions globally need to be halved by 2030 to ensure average temperature rise does not exceed 1.5 degree by 2050.  The business community must act now to move from pledges to action, yet lacks the tools, skills and expertise to do so effectively, to create climate related opportunities and respond to risks.  Boards are uniquely placed to drive this change, asking the right questions and providing robust challenge for the long-term resilience of the companies they oversee.

Our ambition is for Boards to be transformed through implementation of the World Economic Forum Principles for Effective Climate Governance.  This will be evidenced by the progress of companies whose board members are active members of Climate Governance Initiative Chapters over the next 3 years and an overall increase in the number of companies with transition plans compatible with a 1.5 degree scenario.  The Chapters of the Initiative have an instrumental role to play for this Ambition to be realised, with the support of the Governing Board and Secretariat.

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Our Strategic Action Areas

In line with our mission, vision, values, identity and operating environment, as the basis of a plan to achieve our ambition for 2025, our strategic action areas are:

  1. SUPPORT THE NETWORK: Strengthen the Climate Governance Initiative network by engaging the Chapters to build a robust community of climate board leaders, advocates and supporting partners, focusing funding and partnership to deepen our impact.
  2. DELIVER EFFECTIVE CLIMATE GOVERNANCE CONTENT: Foster and facilitate collaboration, knowledge and content sharing among the Chapter network to equip non-executive directors to implement the World Economic Forum’s Principles for Effective Climate Governance.
  3. DRIVE FOCUSED, IMPACTFUL GROWTH: Focus Initiative growth in the most critical economies that increase our global climate impact.

Our governance

The Climate Governance Initiative is overseen by a Governing Board which consists of six elected Chapter representatives, a World Economic Forum representative, a Senior Advisor and the Head of the Secretariat as an ex-officio member. Each member of the Governing Board brings a wealth of knowledge and experience of boardroom best practise and is committed to promoting effective climate governance in boardrooms globally. 

The secretariat is hosted by the  Centre for Climate Engagement, which is based at Hughes Hall, University of Cambridge in collaboration with the World Economic Forum. The secretariat has the responsibility of coordinating collaborative efforts among Chapters to advance the Initiative’s strategy in addition to supporting the Governing Board.

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Our Governing Board

Karina Litvack

Karina Litvack

Chairman of the Climate Governance Initiative.

Karina serves on the boards of Italian Oil & Gas major Eni S.p.A., where she chairs the Sustainability & Scenarios Committee, and serves on the Remuneration Committee; the CFA Institute, home of the professional qualification for investment management professionals, where she chairs the ESG Working Group of the Investment Sub-Committee and serves on the Governance Committee.

Since COP21 in 2015, Karina has worked to build a global network for fellow board directors that became the Climate Governance Initiative, home of the World Economic Forum’s Principles for Effective Climate Governance, where she chairs the Governing Board.  

Previously, Karina had a 25-year career in Finance, latterly running the Governance and Sustainable Investment activities of UK asset manager F&C Investments*.

* now Columbia Threadneedle Investments


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Pim Valdre

Head, Climate Ambition Initiatives, World Economic Forum

Pim Valdre is the Head of Climate Ambition Initiatives at the World Economic Forum.  Prior to her current position she also worked in the Industry Decarbonization team and the European government team at the Forum.  She has broad experience on climate, net zero action, public private cooperation and sustainable development and international security policy, having worked in the Executive Office of the UN Secretary General (2012-2015) and in the Office of the President of the UN General Assembly (2004-2005).  Other experience includes working to develop policy recommendations and research related to climate security and peacekeeping affairs at the New York based think tank International Peace Institute. She also worked as a Special Adviser in the UN Department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs during Sweden’s membership in the UN Security Council (2017-2018) where Sweden among other issues put climate on the agenda of the Council.

MA and BA in political science from Uppsala University and Institute d’Etudes de Science-Politiques in Paris. Worked and studied in Sweden, Australia, France, UK, US, Jordan, Switzerland.


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Julie Baddeley

Chair and Founder, Chapter Zero

Julie Baddeley has served on the boards of major organisations in the public and private sectors for more than 20 years. She is a non-executive director at FTSE 250 company TI Fluid Systems, which is in the forefront of the transition to electric vehicles, Remuneration Committee Chair at Ebiquity plc, and Senior Independent Director of Marshall of Cambridge.  She is also Co-Director of the Hughes Hall Centre for Climate Engagement, at the University of Cambridge.

Julie is leading a series of initiatives with investors, academics and advisors to help chairs and non-executive directors recognise the challenge of climate change to their businesses, and their business’ impacts on global warming. Her background was in change management consulting with Accenture, and she sees delivering a zero carbon economy as the biggest challenge for business in her lifetime.


Sabrina Bruno

Sabrina Bruno

Founder, Chapter Zero Italy

Sabrina Bruno is full professor of comparative company law at University of Calabria and Luiss G. Carli and has served as non-executive director in Italian banks and in an energy listed company since 2012. She is currently non-executive director at Carige Bank (where she is member of the Remuneration Committee and of the Nomination, Governance and Sustainability Committee) and Chairman of the Supervisory Board at Lux Vide S.p.a. She is the author of two monographs and several articles and chapters published on Italian and international editions on corporate governance, sustainability, directors’ duties and liabilities with particular reference to climate change. She obtained an M.Litt. Degree from Oxford University (1990-1993) and was Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Harvard Law School (2010) and Visiting Scholar at Stanford Law School (2019). 


Liselotte Engstam

Liselotte Engstam

Chair and Co-founder, Boards Impact Forum, the Nordics Chapter

Liselotte Engstam is a Chair at FCG Group (priv), a Non-Executive Director at TietoEvry(publ), Transtema(publ), Zalaris(publ), Ografy(priv) and at the academic foundation IMIT. 

Engstam is the founder of Digoshen, a Think Tank hosting board membership networks and programs, is an affiliated academic researcher in board topics, and co-author of several books about boards. 

She has a background from international executive leadership positions in major European, American, and Indian companies in technology, engineering, and professional services sectors.  Engstam holds an M.Sc. in Engineering and Sustainability from Chalmers University of Technology, an international board certification (IDP-C) from INSEAD, is a Fellow at the Institute of Coaching, Harvard Medical School, and was appointed one of 2021 Modern Governance Top 100 in the world.


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Shai Ganu

Steering Committee member, Climate Governance Singapore; and Co-founding member, ASEAN Climate Governance Network

Shai Ganu is passionate about enhancing board effectiveness, combating climate change, ensuring cognitive diversity on boards, embedding ESG priorities, and driving meaningful behavioral change through incentives and human capital governance. He is the Global Leader for Executive Compensation & Board Advisory business at WTW. Based in Singapore, he has extensive experience working closely with some of the largest companies in the world on Remuneration Committee, Nomination Committee, and Sustainability Committees issues.

Shai serves on Boards and HR Committees of leading companies and not-for-profit organizations in the region. He is a Fellow and Governing Council member of the Singapore Institute of Directors (SID), chairs its Partnerships Committee and is also a member of its ESG Committee. He is also a faculty member with universities and at director associations in the region, teaching courses for current and aspiring Board members. He was also the WTW sponsor and engagement leader for recent collaboration with the Initiative on the Executive Compensation Guidebook for Climate Transition.


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Yves Hayaux-du-Tilly

Co-founder and Co-Chair, Chapter Zero México

Yves Hayaux-du-Tilly is a Partner of the Mexican law firm Nader, Hayaux & Goebel, head of its (Re)Insurance Practice and its Sustainable/ESG Transition Working Group.  For more than thirty years he has been a trusted advisor of multinationals, Mexican and foreign investors in mergers, acquisitions and financing transactions, corporate and governance-related matters.

Yves has been serving over twenty two years as non-executive director and secretary of the board in various financial institutions; he currently serves as non-executive and independent director of Dentegra Seguros Dentales, Pensiones Principal, Sofia Salud and GNP International Ltd.

Yves is a co-founder of the Mexican Chamber of Commerce in Great Britain (MexCC) and served as its Chairman from 2011 to 2019.  He also served as Chairman of the Mexican Association of Insurance and Bonding Law (AMEDESEF).  He is currently a member of Chapter Zero UK (the Director’s Climate Forum), founder and Co-Chair of Chapter Zero México, the Climate Governance Initiative, member of the Presidential Council of the International Association of Insurance Law (AIDA), and honorary member of the Commercial Bar Association (COMBAR).


Cristián Rodríguez Chiffelle

Cristián Rodríguez-Chiffelle

Board and Executive Committee member, Chapter Zero Chile

Luksic Fellow at Harvard’s David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Senior Advisor, Global Advantage and Public Sector, The Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

Former Managing Director of InvestChile, the country’s foreign investment promotion agency; former head of trade and investment policy at the World Economic Forum, where he was also a member of the B20. Served at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Chile, including as Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) lead negotiator on trade and environment, and at the UNFCCC’s COPs. He holds masters of Laws and in Public Administration from Harvard, and is a Chilean and a Swiss national.

Cristián serves on the boards of Start-Up Chile – the leading start-up accelerator in Latin America –, Chapter Zero Chile, and the Climate Governance Initiative, where he chairs the governance committee.


Emily Farnworth

Emily Farnworth

Head of the Secretariat

Emily Farnworth is Director of the Centre for Climate Engagement at Hughes Hall, University of Cambridge. She has over 25 years of experience working with businesses, governments and non-profit organizations to support the transition to a low-carbon economy. She was previously the Head of Climate Initiatives at the World Economic Forum where she was involved in setting up the Climate Governance Initiative (now hosted at the Centre for Climate Engagement), the Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders, the Mission Possible Partnership and the Natural Climate Solutions Alliance. She is a member of the Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition Advisory Group, a member of Brightstar Capital Partners Advisory Council and a member of the University of Cambridge Sustainability Committee. Emily holds a Masters in Environmental Science, Management and Law from Brunel University London.



Our Advisory Board


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Laura May-Lung Cha

Chairman, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd.

Mrs Cha is also an Independent Non-Executive Director of Ant Group Co., Ltd. , a Senior International Advisor of Foundation Assets Management Sweden AB and a member of Sotheby’s International Advisory Board. In addition, she is also Vice Chairman of the International Advisory Council of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, and a Director of the World Federation of Exchanges.

Mrs Cha became the first, and to-date, the only person outside Mainland China to join the Central Government of the People’s Republic of China at the vice ministerial rank when she was appointed as Vice Chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission in January 2001. She served in that position until 2004. Mrs Cha worked for the Securities and Futures Commission in Hong Kong from 1991 to 2000, becoming its Deputy Chairman in 1998.

Mrs Cha was a member of Executive Council of the Government of Hong Kong from 2004 to 2022. She was also Chairman of The Financial Services Development Council of Hong Kong from January 2013 to July 2018, and Chairman of the University Grants Committee from 2007 to 2011.
She was awarded a Silver Bauhinia Star in 2001, a Gold Bauhinia Star in 2009 and the Grand Bauhinia Medal in 2017 by the Hong Kong Government for her public service. 


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Alejandro Díaz de León

Alejandro Díaz de León has been Corporate Director of the BAL Group since March 2022. He provides strategic advisory services to the group, which includes leading Mexican enterprises across multiple sectors.

As Governor of Banco de México his 4-year tenure focused on attaining stability, increasing transparency, sustainability and competition, his achievements in those areas were recognized by numerous international and regional awards. He included Banco de México as a founding member of the Central Banks and Supervisors Network for Greening the Financial System.
Alejandro has served on boards for the Bank for International Settlements, Financial Stability Board and IMF as well as representing Mexico at the G20 finance meetings.

Throughout his career he has participated in numerous international working groups and economic research projects, as well as in collegiate bodies dealing with central banking, development banking and pensions.


Angeles Garcia Poveda CGI Advisory Board photo

Angeles Garcia-Poveda

Angeles Garcia-Poveda has been chairperson of the Board of Legrand since July 1, 2020. She joined the Board as an independent director in 2012 and chaired the Nominations and Governance Committee and the Remuneration Committee, sat on the Strategy and CSR Committee, and has served as Lead Director since 2013.

Angeles is a senior advisor at Spencer Stuart within the Governance practice. She joined the firm in 2008, and prior to this worked at The Boston Consulting Group (BCG). She sits on the Board of Directors of Edenred and on the Board of Directors of Bridgepoint. She is a member of the Executive Council of MEDEF. She also sits on the Boards of Directors of IFA and NEOMA.

Aged 52, Angeles graduated from ICADE in Madrid and NEOMA in Reims, and completed the Business Case Study Program at Harvard University


Mauro Guillen CGI Advisory Board photo

Mauro F. Guillén

Mauro F. Guillén is Dean and Professor of Management Studies at Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, and a Professorial Fellow of Queens’ College.  A former Fulbright and Guggenheim fellow, he is the winner of the Aspen Institute’s Faculty Pioneer Award and a member in the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton.  His research has won prizes from the Academy of Management, the American Sociological Association, and the Social Science History Association.  He is the author of 2030, a book about the future of markets and societies, which reached the Wall Street Journal bestseller list and has been translated into 18 languages.


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Sheila Murray

Sheila Murray has been a director of Teck since April 2018 and was appointed Chair of the Board in February 2020. 

She is a graduate of Queens University (B.Comm and LLB). Ms. Murray served as President of CI Financial Corp. from 2016 to 2019 and was previously Executive Vice-President, General Counsel and Secretary of CI Financial Corp. Ms. Murray played a key role in directing the operations and setting corporate strategy for CI Financial Corp. and its operating companies, including CI Investments Inc. and Assante Wealth Management. Her role included leading CI’s mentoring program, which fosters the advancement of high-potential female employees. Prior to that, Ms. Murray had a 25-year career at Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP, where she practised securities law with an emphasis on mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance, and corporate reorganizations.

Ms. Murray is the past Chair of the Dean’s Council at Queen’s University Law School and has also taught Securities Regulation at Queen’s University and Corporate Finance at the University of Toronto’s Global Professional LLM in Business Law Program. Ms. Murray is also a director of BCE Inc. and Bell Canada, and a trustee of Granite REIT.


Feike Sijbesma

Feike Sijbesma

Feike Sijbesma, CEO Royal DSM from 2007 till 2020, transformed DSM from a bulk-chemical company into a purpose driven science-based company, focused on nutrition, health & sustainable living.

He is DSM’s Honorary Chairman; Royal Philips Chairman, and Unilever and Dutch Central Bank board member.

Feike is co-chair Global Center on Climate Adaptation, World Bank Climate Leader (carbon pricing). Feike is co-chair CEO Climate Leaders Alliance and IMF advisory board member, and advisor of Africa Improved Foods and The Ocean Cleanup.

He is UN Humanitarian of the Year; received honorary doctorates from Maastricht and Groningen University; was listed on Fortune’s World’s 50 Greatest Leaders, and a world’s 100 most successful CEO’s by Harvard Business Review.

Feike studied molecular biology and business administration.


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Sharon Thorne

Sharon is the Chair of the Deloitte Global Board. She has 35 years of experience auditing and advising clients across a broad range of sectors and has spent more than three decades on boards.

An advocate for collective action on environmental sustainability and climate change, Sharon regularly engages with global leaders from businesses, governments, and NGOs, and frequently speaks about ESG-related matters in public forums. She is a strong believer in the need for greater diversity, equity, and inclusion in business and civil society, and she has long championed greater diversity in senior leadership roles to build a more equitable future for all.


Networks in 51 countries worldwide

There are currently 23 Chapters, in:

  • Australia
  • Brazil
  • Brussels
  • Canada
  • Central America & Caribbean
  • Chile
  • France
  • Germany
  • Greece
  • Hong Kong
  • Ireland
  • Italy
  • Malaysia
  • Mexico
  • Netherlands
  • New Zealand
  • The Nordic countries
  • Poland
  • Romania
  • Singapore
  • Switzerland
  • UK
  • Ukraine & Caucasus
  • USA

Chapters in development include:

  • Egypt
  • India
  • Slovenia
  • Turkey

Members

Some of the host organizations of local chapters have an extensive membership of NEDs, for example:

Chapters

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Join a chapter

If you would like to join a chapter, please use the Twitter, Linkedin and website links on our chapters page to make contact with your local chapter.