Nic Firzli

Director General, World Pensions Council

M. Nicolas J. Firzli is Director-General of the World Pensions Council (WPC), the think-tank & international association of pension and retirement funds. He is a graduate of Canada’s McGill University (Statistics & Financial Economics), an alumnus of the HEC School of Management (MBA Corporate Strategy & Marketing) and the University of Paris Law School (LL.M. Corporate Law, summa cum laude) and has conducted research at the University of Louvain (UCL) Doctoral School of Economics and Management in Waals Brabant.

Mr. Firzli is co-chair of the World Pensions Forum (WPF) held annually in a G7 capital, co-chair & director of the Singapore Economic Forum (SEF APAC Summit) and cofounding-member & advisory councillor of the World Bank Group Global Infrastructure Facility (GIF). He has chaired the main Asset Owners Roundtable of the 2015 Climate Change Conference (Paris COP 21 Summit) and (co)authored and helped develop key notions such as “Modern Trusteeship and Fiduciary Capitalism”, “The SDG–Driven World Economy”, “The Pension Wealth of Nations”, “Sustainable Finance Shifting the Trillions”, “The Geoeconomic Century” and “Infrastructure as an Asset Class”

Find out more: https://www.worldpensions.org

Jeff Gitterman

Co-Founding Partner and Creator of Sustainable, Impact, and ESG Investing Services, Gitterman Wealth Management

Jeff Gitterman is a widely recognized leader in the ESG and sustainable investing field, and the creator of SMART (Sustainability Metrics Applied to Risk Tolerance)® Investing Solutions, a suite of global climate-aware allocation strategies available to financial advisory firms and individual investors.

Jeff is also the co-host of TheIMPACT TV show, which airs on fintech.tv and Bloomberg TV. Noted as an “ESG expert” by Financial Advisor magazine, Jeff has also been featured in the past in Barron’s, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, Morningstar Magazine, Financial Advisor Magazine, Money Magazine, and CNN, among many others.

In 2018, he was named RIA “Thought Leader of the Year” by WealthManagement.com. With over 30 years of experience as a financial advisor, Jeff began realigning Gitterman Wealth Management towards sustainable investing in 2015. In 2020, the firm launched the Gitterman Asset Management brand to house its rapidly expanding ESG investment strategies, thought leadership, and practice management offerings for the financial advisor and institutional markets.

He also speaks frequently about Sustainable, Impact, and ESG Investing at conferences throughout the US, including Morningstar, Fidelity, Barron’s, Bloomberg, and many others. Over the past several years, Gitterman Wealth Management has also hosted several large sustainable investing conferences for financial advisors in New York City, with the 2019 and 2018 conferences, as well as the 2019 Family Office Impact Summit taking place at the United Nations Headquarters. Jeff deeply believes that the migration of investor capital towards Sustainable, ESG, and Impact investing is one of, if not the most effective way to help realize the United Nations supported Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and he is committed to helping both investors and other financial professionals navigate this rapidly growing landscape.

Jeff is also the author of Beyond Success: Redefining the Meaning of Prosperity, and an Associate Producer of the feature documentary film, Planetary. He also serves on the Board of Directors for the Child Health Institute of New Jersey at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical and dedicates much of his free time to raising funds and awareness for the autism community.

For more information please visit www.GittermanManagement.com

Maurits van der Meer

Senior Investment Manager, PGGM

Maurits van der Meer is a portfolio manager in the Systematic Equity Strategies team at PGGM, one of the largest pension investors in the Netherlands. His primary focus is on research to help improve the team’s factor investing strategies, and he is interested in applying machine learning techniques to supplement the traditional style factors that the team uses.

Prior to joining PGGM, Maurits worked at Achmea Investment Management in a similar role, and at FactSet as an Analytics Specialist covering the Benelux region. He holds an MSc. in Mathematics from VU University in Amsterdam and is a CFA charter holder.

Barnabas Acs

Global Business Development Director, Sustainable Finance, Refinitiv, an LSEG Business

Barnabas firmly believes that sustainability will be the defining success factor for the Financial industry in the 21st Century. He is constantly exploring how the combination of data and technology can help to build a more sustainable and circular economy. He published a DuPont Model of Clean Economy, developed the Corporate Emissions Index and built Refinitiv’s Sustainable Finance Certification Material.

He is a permanent contributor to the Refinitiv Sustainability Perspectives Podcast, is a lecturer on the Sustainable Finance Certification Course at the Budapest Institute of Banking, and is a committee member of the Green Frog Corporate Reporting Awards. Barnabas holds a Bachelors in Marketing & Market Research, a Masters in Financial Accounting and a Ph.D. in Statistics and Econometrics.

One of his predictions: Outstanding amount of Sustainability-Linked Bonds, the main mechanism to finance the transition to a hydrogen economy will surpass $100 Billion by mid 2022.