Georg Kell established the Global Compact as the foremost platform for the development, implementation and disclosure of responsible and sustainable corporate policies and practices. In a career of more than 25 years at the United Nations, he also oversaw the conception and launch of the Global Compact’s sister initiatives, on investment, the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), and on education, the Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME), together with the Sustainable Stock Exchanges Initiative (SSE).

Georg is Chairman of Arabesque Partners, an Anglo-German ESG Quant fund manager that uses self-learning quantitative models and big data to assess the performance and sustainability of globally listed companies. Its investment technology processes over 100 billion data points to select an investment universe of equities with the aim of delivering superior returns, integrating Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) sources across 15 languages.

Barbara J. Krumsiek is a globally recognized leader in sustainable investing, with a professional background spanning four decades in the asset management field, including most recently as the CEO and Chair of Calvert Investments, Inc. During her tenure at Calvert from 1997 to 2014, Krumsiek helped to triple the firm’s assets under management and developed Calvert Women’s Principles, a global code of conduct adopted by the U.N. Global Compact and U.N. Women as the basis for the U.N. Women’s Empowerment Principles.

She additionally served as co-chair of the U.N. Environment Programme Finance Initiative from 2010 to 2012, a partnership between the United Nations and 200 global financial institutions mandated to develop and promote the links between sustainability and financial performance.

Dr. Carolyn Woo currently serves as the President’s Fellow for Global Development at Purdue University. In 2016, she retired as President and CEO of Catholic Relief Services (CRS), the official international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States, having joined in 2011. Before her role at CRS, Dr. Woo served as dean of the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business where, during her tenure, the college was frequently recognized as the nation’s leading business school in ethics education and research.

Dr. Woo was the first female dean to chair the accreditation body for business schools, AACSB: Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, and directed its Peace Through Commerce initiative. She also helped launch the Principles for Responsible Management Education for the United Nations Global Compact.

Yolanda Kakabadse is recognised as one of the world’s most prominent environmental leaders, and a global champion of sustainable development and biodiversity preservation. Between 2010 and 2017, she served as President of WWF International, one of the world’s largest independent conservation organisations with more than 5 million supporters worldwide, and a presence in over 100 countries. Prior to that, Ms. Kakabadse was the Executive Director of Fundación Natura in Quito, President of the World Conservation Union (IUCN), and Minister of Environment for the Republic of Ecuador. In the late 1970s, Yolanda Kakabadse became dedicated to protecting the natural environment.

In 1993, she created Fundacion Futuro Latino Americano, an organization dedicated to promoting the sustainable development of Latin America through conflict prevention and management. In 1990, she emerged onto the international stage when she worked for the United Nations in Geneva, and has served as a board member of several international organisations, including the Ford Foundation and the Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction.