Voices of the 2026 conference

Seasoned environmental and sustainability executive; visiting professor at Cranfield University and NED board member. Leads the UK delegation to ISO on environmental management standards and contributes opening sessions at the conference for the third consecutive year.

Independent sustainability consultant with deep financial-services and risk-management expertise; former deputy president of IEMA (2010-2012), CISL fellow, and chair of the UK sustainable-finance standards committee SFS/1, having delivered scenario-analysis training for ICAEW.

Founder of Sustainability & Finance Ltd and chair of IEMA's Sustainable Finance Steering Group; former head of sustainability at Numis and FRC stakeholder-insights group member, with senior roles at Jefferies, JP Morgan and RBS.

Szewczak leads the firm's strategic advisory practice and advises senior executives, government entities, infrastructure owners, developers and financial institutions on sustainability, climate resilience and long-term value creation across the Middle East and Europe. His work focuses on the intersection of strategy, climate risk and investment decision-making, helping organisations translate complex sustainability and resilience challenges into practical strategies, investment priorities and implementation programmes. He leads multidisciplinary teams working across infrastructure, transport, energy, real estate, cities and financial services, with a particular focus on embedding climate and ESG considerations into strategic, operational and capital decisions.

Wojciech is a recognised contributor to the global infrastructure community. He has contributed to FIDIC's Future Leaders Booklets from 2023 to 2026, received the Outstanding Achievement Award at the FIDIC Future Leaders Awards in 2023, and was named among the 35 Under 35 in Sustainability in 2024. He is a regular speaker at international industry forums, including FIDIC's Global Infrastructure Conference.

His latest FIDIC thought-leadership paper, “Engineering for Uncertainty: Why Climate Risk Should Become a Core Infrastructure Investment Decision,” challenges conventional approaches to infrastructure planning and investment. He argues that as climate volatility and systemic uncertainty increase, resilience can no longer be treated as a peripheral sustainability consideration. Instead, climate risk needs to inform how infrastructure is planned, financed, designed and managed, shifting decision-making from short-term optimisation towards adaptability, lifecycle resilience and long-term value preservation.

Wojciech holds an Executive MBA from Aalto University Business School and has completed the Leading Strategic and Transformational Change programme at Yale School of Management.

Svenja is dedicated to advancing sustainable finance practices. Combining a rigorous academic background, holding a Master's in Sustainability Management from ESCP Business School, with hands-on advisory experience, Svenja helps investors align their capital with their values without compromising returns.

Svenja specializes in ESG integration, climate risk assessment, and impact investing. She is known for her ability to translate intricate regulatory requirements and scientific data into clear, strategic advice for asset owners and managers. In her current role, she guides clients through the evolving landscape of responsible investment, ensuring that sustainability considerations are embedded into the core of financial decision-making.

A thought leader in the field, Svenja is a frequent contributor to discussions on the future of finance, advocating for a financial system that supports a just transition to a net-zero economy.

Dr. Islam Mohamed Mahmoud is a consultant and academic with over a decade of experience in applied research, management advisory, feasibility studies, and investment planning, with a growing focus on climate change management, climate finance, biodiversity finance, and the integration of nature- and climate-related priorities into business strategies and national development plans. Her work combines market analysis, economic assessment, stakeholder engagement, and strategic planning to support sustainable investment decisions, institutional development, and policy-oriented interventions.

Dr. Mahmoud has led and contributed to several assignments involving market demand and supply assessments, value chain analysis, investment climate evaluations, opportunity mapping, and prefeasibility studies across Sudan and Qatar. Through these assignments, she has developed strong expertise in assessing economic dynamics, identifying competitive advantages, and translating evidence into practical recommendations for sustainable development, private sector engagement, and climate-resilient investment planning.

Her experience is particularly relevant to the management side of climate and biodiversity action, including the mainstreaming of environmental sustainability into business models, sectoral plans, entrepreneurship support programs, and national planning processes. She has worked on feasibility studies and ecosystem analyses in areas such as food processing, agribusiness, SME development, and real estate investment, with attention to financial sustainability, local development priorities, resource efficiency, and long-term socio-economic impact. She is a Certified Climate and Renewable Energy Finance Expert and a Certified Expert in Biodiversity Finance from the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management.

Seasoned risk and governance executive with over 20 years of experience across developed and emerging markets, including senior leadership roles at an LSE Premium-listed systemic banking group and Westpac Institutional Bank. Former Deputy Chief Risk Officer / Head of Enterprise Risk Management and Chief Audit Executive, with deep expertise in enterprise risk, risk appetite frameworks, capital adequacy, financial and non-financial risk oversight, and Board-level governance.

Brings a practitioner perspective on integrating climate and sustainability-related risks into enterprise risk management, governance, and strategic decision-making. Currently advises financial institutions on ESG/ERM frameworks, IFRS S2 alignment, and evolving regulatory expectations through GRC Consulting and as a Senior Climate Risk Expert with the European Investment Bank's Greening Financial Systems Programme.

Selected leadership roles: Deputy CRO and Head of Enterprise Risk Management, and previously Chief Audit Executive, at an LSE Premium-listed systemic banking group; Head of Operational Risk and Compliance at Westpac Institutional Bank; Senior Climate Risk Expert with the EIB Greening Financial Systems Programme; and founding and managing partner of GRC Consulting.

Her core expertise spans enterprise risk management and risk appetite; climate and sustainability advisory; ESG integration into risk and governance; capital adequacy, stress testing and financial risk; IFRS 9, risk models and portfolio risk; board and executive risk governance; regulatory and prudential risk; and corporate and institutional banking.

She is a Chartered Accountant (CA ANZ) and holds the GARP Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR) certification, completed the European Women on Boards Programme, and holds a BCom in Accounting from the University of Tasmania, finance studies at Tulane University and an MIT Digital Transformation certificate. She is fluent in English, Russian and Georgian.

Award-winning sustainability leader, educator and author with 30 years shaping environmental management, sustainability strategy and impact investment in Qatar; certified environment and safety professional holding a PhD in Environmental Management and Technology, with credentials from MIT, Oxford, Cambridge, Columbia and Harvard Business School.

Qatari economist and banking expert, holding a Ph.D. in Islamic Banking from the University of Wales - Lampeter (United Kingdom), an M.Sc. in Financial Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (USA), and a B.Sc. in Accounting from Qatar University.

With over three decades of professional experience, Dr. Al-Sayed has held senior leadership positions at the Qatar Central Bank and Qatar International Islamic Bank. Since 2001, he has been the Managing Director of his own accounting and auditing firm. He also serves as a consultant to numerous companies in Qatar and is a faculty member at Ahmed Bin Mohammed Military College.

He is the author of more than 30 published books, spanning banking encyclopedias, novels, plays, and specialized works on anti-money laundering, corporate governance, and financial corruption. He writes a weekly column in Qatari newspapers and frequently appears as an economic expert on various satellite channels and radio stations.

Dr. Al-Sayed is an active member of several national and international bodies, including the Qatar Ministry of Justice, the GCC Commercial Arbitration Centre, the Qatar Accountants and Auditors Association (where he previously served as Chairman), and the Qatar Fund for Development, among other financial and academic institutions.

He delivers training and lectures in areas such as anti-money laundering, corporate governance, auditing, financial analysis, and anti-corruption. He has also contributed to numerous scientific research papers and conferences, both in Arabic and English, covering a wide range of financial and economic topics.

Before joining Aamal Company as Chief Executive Officer in June 2022, Mr. Rashid Al Mansoori worked across a number of leading commercial and governmental organisations. Until recently he served as Chief Executive Officer of the Qatar Stock Exchange, and he remains a non-executive board member of the Qatar Financial Centre. He has also served on the board of the Qatar Finance and Business Academy, and served with distinction as a board member of the World Federation of Exchanges from 2017 to 2021.

Under his leadership, and through the COVID-19 pandemic, the Qatar Stock Exchange emerged as one of the leading equity markets in the Middle East and the GCC. Mr. Al Mansoori pursued ambitious and sustainable objectives to strengthen and promote Qatar's capital market in support of the national economy - work that culminated in Qatar's inclusion in the emerging-market indices of MSCI, Standard & Poor's and FTSE.

He additionally led the Qatar Stock Exchange into the United Nations Sustainable Stock Exchanges Initiative (SSEI), and issued environmental, social and governance guidance to support every listed company.

Chief Risk Officer of Qatar International Islamic Bank for the past seven years, previously Chief Risk Officer of Jordan Kuwait Bank (KIPCO Group) for fourteen years and repeatedly its acting compliance manager, after a decade across credit, operations, audit, finance, strategic planning, total quality management and corporate governance. His mandate covers credit, market and operational risk alongside cyber security, service quality, data privacy and sustainability; he is a founding board member of the Risk Management Professional Forum in Jordan, a former board member of a leasing company, sat on the Central Bank of Jordan working groups that implemented Basel II across the Jordanian banking sector, and serves on several committees of the Institute of International Finance.