Summer School 2022

As Managing Director for WWF CEE, Andreas is responsible for leading and coordinating the efforts of WWF, the global conservation organisation, to ensure a living planet for nature and people in and from Central and South-eastern Europe. WWF-CEE seeks to preserve the ‘Green Heart of Europe’, including globally important forests, wetlands, and wildlife, and promotes long-term sustainable local development. Andreas has served on the boards of a number of organisations including the Czech and Slovak Environmental Partnership Foundations, Greenpeace Czech Republic, WWF-Hungary, WWF-Romania, WWF-Bulgaria, WWF-Slovakia, WWF-Ukraine, the WWF-Mediterranean Programme and WWF-Adria, and has written extensively about the environment and local development in Central and Eastern Europe.

Landscape Finance Lab is a global platform for incubating and financing sustainable landscapes recently spun out of the conservation organisation, WWF. Paul is a specialist in the fields of sustainability, climate change, land use and biodiversity. Through the Lab, he supports a global community innovating on landscape solutions. During an extensive career with WWF, Paul has catalysed results including the first provincial scale forest and climate (REDD+) program in Africa and Asia, Europe’s longest river protected area and the largest rainforest reserve in the Pacific. He co-authored the Little Sustainable Landscape Book and is co-initiator of Meridia www.meridia.land, a mobile app to provide affordable land tenure to rural communities. Paul has been an advisor to the Climate Bonds Initiative, Gold Standard, World Economic Forum, Australian Futures Project and Forest Stewardship Council among others.

Born and bred Namibian with a passion for helping where she can, figuring out complex problems by making sense of them and identifying local solutions for complex challenges.

Geraldine is fun, quirky and with a passion for community development and enhancing sustainable development in Namibia. With over 15 years of experience working in Civil Society and Private Sector and for the past 5 years with UNDP Namibia, she has been supporting the Governance, Gender and Disability work of UNDP Namibia and more specifically exploring, data visualization and communication of emerging development trends, data, technologies, and issues with a particular focus on the edges and “below the radar screen” events. Additionally, her expertise includes provision of programmatic and technical support towards scale up and quantification of the importance of Gender Responsive Budgeting within the National Budget cycle, creating strategic convergence of data between, informality, entrepreneurship and governance in Namibia. She continues to work towards building resilience for vulnerable communities and advocating for the rights of persons with disabilities, LGBTIQ+ community and communities often left behind in development. She has been learning to navigate and master the space of innovation and fast-tracking the attainment of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through new disruptive methods of thinking, investing, learning, and managing development.

Geraldine continues to engage and explore different solutions to some of Namibia's wicked and often very complex development challenges. Currently in her role as the Head of Exploration for the UNDP Accelerator Lab Namibia, she is working to explore new ways of disrupting thinking, delivering and investing in sustainable development for Namibia.

Geraldine has attained her honors degree, in Sociology and Industrial Psychology from the University of Namibia (UNAM) and is currently completing her Master’s in Business Administration (MBA), through a distance learning with the University in Bradford in the United Kingdom.

Saira is an award-winning landscape architect and is the lead on several EU-funded projects linked to Blue-Green infrastructure and health. As a landscape architect in Bradford, Saira supports local communities by working directly with people to create meaningful places in the local area by creating stronger communities, better neighbourhoods and encouraging healthier, greener lives and tackling climate change.

Gina-Maria is an Operatoions Director with over 30 years of history within Warehousing, Logistics and Transport with experience of working in Thailand, Vietnam and Holland for some of the largest Third-Party Logistics Providers. She has also worked in industries including Construction, Grocery, Automotive, LPG. As leader in Cookware, Gina-Maria is responsible for introducing innovations that are brought to market globally by the Meyer Group.

Jennifer is a CIMA qualified Fellow (FCMA CGMA), MBA trained proactive and strategic Finance professional (CFO/FD) with substantial experience of working internationally (UK, Asia & USA) in both the Not for Profit (NFP) and the corporate sectors.

Don has served as the Global Managing Partner of Oil & Gas at ERM. He has over 35 years of industrial experience including process operations, project management, process design, insurance, business risk management. He has worked in several roles/sectors including Head of Technical Services with CIGNA International Insurance; VP, Technical Services with Amersham plc; Dean of Brunel University Business School & Professor of Risk Management and Group Senior Vice President of HSSE & Asset Integrity at BG Group. Don has been a Non-Executive Director of London Waste Limited since 2016. He serves as a Non-Executive Director of RoSPA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents).

Chris is responsible for the development of investment in ecosystems and nature-based solutions for climate action. The Green Climate Fund – a critical element of the historic Paris Agreement – is the world’s largest climate fund, mandated to support developing countries raise and realize their national ambitions towards low-emissions, climate-resilient pathways. One of his key tasks is coordinating and supporting the GCF’s Africa’s Great Green Wall program which aims to mobilize public and private sector funds to tackle climate change goals in sub-Saharan Africa. Previously he served as Deputy Director for the Investment Policy Division of the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI’s), and he has held positions with the UN Development Program (UNDP), and non-government organizations including the global conservation organization - WWF.

Cultinova is a boutique hardware and software engineering company, providing customised monitoring, control and data solutions for improved efficiency and sustainability of agriculture and urban green infrastructure. Nicole is committed to leveraging digital technologies to make a difference in the way we produce and consume our food, design our cities and look after our and our planet’s health. During her career as a co-founder, director, consultant as well as board and advisory board member, Nicole has gained a deep understanding of the sustainability challenges surrounding our cities and food systems with a strong emphasis on urban agriculture and controlled environment-growing. In her roles as Vice-Chair of the FarmTech Society and Advisory Board member of UKUAT, Nicole works alongside industry experts committed to laying solid foundations for the Controlled-Environment Agriculture industry.

Erin leads the implementation of York and North Yorkshire LEP’s ambitious Circular Economy Strategy, which aims to transform the region to a competitive, carbon-negative circular economy that benefits businesses, communities and the planet.

Erin’s work includes developing resources and pilot programmes to support businesses and communities realise circular economy opportunities, including leading the LEP’s Circular Towns project to provide towns with the knowledge, practical tools and tips to trial circular approaches and initiatives.

Erin originally joined York and North Yorkshire LEP in a business support capacity, and moved to the Low Carbon and Environment Team to follow their passion for sustainability.

After having worked for maritime transportation and logistics industries from 2003 to 2009, Ceren received her PhD degree from Dokuz Eylul University, Izmir, Turkey on customer-oriented business service development in logistics centres. Her research interests include container shipping, port management, logistics services and supply chain management, with a particular focus on sustainability and customer-orientation.

Sankar’s passion for research and teaching is interdisciplinary in nature focusing on the use of emerging digital technology for the betterment of society. He carries out research focusing on how businesses and organisations are transitioning to Circular Economy. . He has a successful track record of Research and Innovation and consultancy projects funded by the European Commission, Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF), Innovate UK/DEFRA and British Council focusing on projects addressing business and societal challenges surrounding themes such as AI Innovation Strategy Development, Smart Cities and Sustainable Societies.

Amir has worked in academia for several years and held several senior leadership positions. Prior to joining academia, Amir worked in industry including in the Financial and Professional Services sector (JPMorgan, UBS Investment Bank and KPMG Consulting). Amir continues to be research active in a range of topical areas including systems thinking, food security/waste, and the circular economy which he also teaches. An active member of several national and international research funding bodies such as UKRI and the national science foundations of China, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Qatar, and Switzerland, Amir continues also work with and contribute to CE100 projects with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

Stuart is the Chief Finance Officer at University of Bradford. He has extensive experience in financial leadership having held a number of senior jobs with strategic and advisory responsibility and oversight, operating in complex and politicised environments. His experience has been within large, multi-service organisations including the City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council and the Department for Work and Pensions, where his portfolio has concerned areas such as corporate resources, welfare benefits, spending reviews and financial planning. Stuart leads a multi-stakeholder sustainability project at University of Bradford.

Rohit is a teacher, researcher, consultant and corporate trainer with more than 14 years of experience across India, Germany and now United Kingdom. Rohit has been teaching various subjects in the realm of Marketing, Multivariate data analysis and Entrepreneurship to students and executives. With this, he has also designed and conducted MDPs attracting participation from various MNCs including Mahindra & Mahindra, Google, Cadila Healthcare, Viacomm 18, Kansai Nerolac, Eureka Forbes, Hafele, Emami, DDB Mudra, ERDA and Omnicom Global. Rohit has also successfully completed consulting assignments with companies and institutes of international repute like UNICEF, TTK Prestige, DDB Mudra and Accusol Technologies LLC among others.

economy, environment and sustainability. Anand has held various leadership positions including as the Head of Centre for International Development at Bradford (2010-2015). Anand has led various funded R&D projects on ‘inclusive, smart and sustainable cities’ and is principle author of the Mongolia National Human Development Report 2011 titled ‘From vulnerability to sustainability’ for UNDP.

Irene leads the Ethics, Responsibility, and Sustainability (ERS) agenda for the School of Management. She specialises in Cross-cultural Studies, Business Ethics, especially virtue ethics, and the institutional environment in an international context. She has publications in the Journal of Business Ethics and Research in International Business and Finance. Irene is the school’s lead for accreditation with the UN PRME (Principles for Responsible Management Education) agenda.