European Senior Executives Seminar

Will Day is a former Chairman of the UK Sustainable Development Commission (SDC). His current roles include Fellow of the University of Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership (CPSL), Chairman of Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP), a non-profit company bringing together private sector and NGO member organisations to pursue the Millennium Development goal for water and sanitation in the poorest parts of the world, recently and Sustainability Adviser to PricewaterhouseCoopers UK. He also recently joined British Land's CR Panel. Until October 2012 he was Chairman of the Overseas Development Institute (ODI).

Sandrine Dixson-Declève is the Director of CPSL's EU office in Brussels and The Prince of Wales’s EU Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change, and is a faculty member of our Executive Programmes. Sandrine is an international expert with over 25 years' experience in environmental, sustainability, climate, and energy policy and implementation, She ran the EMEA office of a leading energy consultancy and has been the personal advisor to major chemical and energy companies, Members of the European Parliament, the European Commission, Governments in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, and international organisations including OPEC, ADB, OECD, UNEP, and USAID. She sits on the advisory board of a large African oil company, is the Vice Chair of the European Biofuels Technology Platform, a member of the Guardian’s Sustainable Business Advisory Board, and a member of CPSL’s Right Value for Externalities Advisory Committee.

Read an article by Sandrine for the Guardian Professional Network: 'Concentrating on building efficiency is Europe’s new climate-change mantra'.

sandrine.dixson@cpsl.cam.ac.uk

Fuel Cells are a non-polluting, low or zero carbon power source for phones, laptops, buildings, buses and cars.  Jack has chaired the Government's Environmental Innovation Advisory Group, served as a Board Member of the Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership, is a member of the Sustainable Procurement Task Force and is on the Commission on Environmental Markets and Economic Performance. He is also on the Board of the Centre of Excellence for Low Carbon Vehicles and Fuel Cells and is Johnson Matthey's representative on The Prince of Wales's Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change working group and the London Climate Change Agency. He received his BSc and then PhD from the University of Exeter, and worked at major scientific research facilities in France, Britain and the USA before taking up a lectureship at Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh. Jack then moved to British Petroleum where he spent 9 years leading different areas of BP's industrial research and development in catalysis. In 1993 he joined Johnson Matthey as Technology Manager. He was appointed Director, JM Fuel Cells; the company created fuel cells as a separate business in January 2000.

Ylva Lindberg is founder and managing director of SIGLA – a Norwegian consultancy on the role of business in society, in particular risks and opportunities related to issues such as development, climate change, ethics and environment – what is often referred to as sustainability. She has more than fifteen years' business experience, including as a consultant with McKinsey & Company, marketing manager in Orkla, and equity analyst at KLP Asset Management. Ylva's expertise is in strategy, corporate responsibility and marketing from Scandinavia and Russia. Ylva has a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Oxford and is a member of the Council on Ethics for the Norwegian Government Pension Fund - Global and is a board member of WWF-Norway.

Ramon provides direction and leadership for InterfaceFLOR in the area of sustainability across the EMEA region. His focus as European Sustainability Director is on continuing to develop the company’s sustainability strategy towards Mission Zero (InterfaceFLOR’s promise to eliminate any negative impact it may have on the environment by 2020), at the same time as reviewing offerings and business processes to ensure that they are as sustainable as possible.  Ramon’s responsibilities also include co-ordination of the European activities of the InterfaceRAISE consultancy service (launched in collaboration with Ashridge Business School), with the objective of successful development and implementation of the programme within the marketplace. Before joining InterfaceFLOR, Ramon spent five years at the Vodafone Group, where he was Senior Group Corporate Responsibility Manager.

Lies Craeynest is EU policy advisor on Oxfam's campaign for a just and sustainable global food system. She specialises on Climate Change and Agricultural investment at the EU Advocacy office of Oxfam International. Her focus is on raising substantial and predictable, new and additional finance for climate adaptation and mitigation in developing countries. She also works to improve the quality of European aid to smallholder agriculture in developing countries. She is Belgian, and has worked for over 10 years in the development and environment NGOs in the United Kingdom and Belgium.

On Feb 1st 2012, he became Special Advisor to the Chairman & CEO for Environment and Sustainable Development matters. He was more specifically in charge of Strategy & Development for the whole group (Power, Grid, and Transport); Philippe was also responsible for Environment & Sustainability issues and supervised the worldwide Alstom International Network of Country Presidents. In 2011, Philippe was appointed Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the Alstom Group by the Alstom Board. In 2000, he was appointed President of Alstom's Transmission & Distribution Sector and member of the Alstom Group Executive Committee in France. He ran this business until its divestment in January 2004. In February 2004, he became Executive Vice-President of Alstom, Member of the Executive Committee, as well as President of Power Systems Sector. He also was in charge of Alstom’s International Network. In March 2009, he was appointed President of the newly formed Alstom Power Sector. Philippe Joubert started his career in 1976 as Secretary for the Chamber of Commerce in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Between 1977 and 1982, he held various positions in Brazilian bank BFB, part of Credit Lyonnais; in 1983, he moved to the USA where he was promoted to Commercial Vice-President of Credit Lyonnais USA. He joined Alstom in 1986, as Finance Director of GEC ALSTHOM Mecanica Pesada in Brazil. In 1991, he was appointed President & CEO of GEC ALSTHOM Mecanica Pesada, and additionally, in 1992, General Delegate of GEC ALSTHOM in Brazil. In 1997, he became Country President, GEC ALSTHOM Brazil, and also ran the Transport Unit.

A former professional athlete and executive in an oil company, Marc Le Menestrel is a decision scientist who works on rational behavior, the foundations of measurement and ethical business. He is especially interested in the articulation of economic values with subjective values such as ethical values, aesthetic feelings, cultural tastes or spiritual concerns. Marc holds a PhD from INSEAD. He is Associate Professor at the Department of Economics and Business of University Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona, Spain) and Visiting Professor of Ethics at the Social Innovation Center of INSEAD (Fontainebleau, France).

Derry Newman recently retired as Chief Executive Officer of Solarcentury – the UK’s leading solar energy company. Prior to Solarcentury Derry worked in Sony Europe, responsible for considerable transformational change in the rapidly evolving and competitive arena of consumer electronics. He was appointed Managing Director, Sony United Kingdom in 2004. Prior to Sony, he was Director, Operations, EMEA for Motorola Inc. He is a Non-Executive Director of SolarAid, a not for profit organisation. SolarAid/Sunny Money implements solar energy and lighting projects in the most needy communities in Africa and has the goal to eliminate domestic kerosene lanterns.

David’s earlier career was in the aerospace sector in an engineering role, including a position at Lucas Aerospace (later Goodrich) as a Project Manager. Following this 16 year period of senior global organisational experience he then moved into higher education with Senior Lectureships at first Coventry (engineering management) and then at Anglia Ruskin Universities (operations management). A move into the field of industrial design with first with The Open University (design innovation group) and then Coventry University (industrial design) allowed him to explore the developing field of inter-disciplinary sustainable product innovation.

His current research at TU Delft, aims to establish the state of the art with respect to the level of awareness and understanding of the critical materials phenomena in companies. The chosen companies are involved within the product design - manufacturing domain. There is a focus on product innovation risk management activity in businesses.

The research will establish not only if the chosen companies are aware of the phenomena but also what their awareness comprises of. For those companies who do have an awareness the research will establish what actions are currently underway or are being planned in the near future (up to 2015). This research has a focus around the so called fuzzy front end (FFE) of the new product development process as the start point to a more sustainable critical metals response from the product design & innovation community.

Jonathon is the Co-Founder of Forum for the Future. He is a writer, broadcaster and commentator on sustainable development. He was Chairman of the UK Sustainable Development Commission (2000–2009), and is Co-Director of The Prince of Wales's Business & Sustainability Programme. He is a Non-Executive Director of Wessex Water and Willmott Dixon Holdings, and a Trustee of Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy. He was formerly Director of Friends of the Earth (1984–90); co-chair of the Green Party (1980–83); chairman of UNED-UK (1993–96); chairman of Sustainability South West (1999–2001); Trustee of WWF UK (1991–2005), and Board member of the SW Regional Development Agency (1999–2008).

David is Director, MPhil in Technology and University Senior Lecturer in Technology for the Judge Business School. He is also Assistant Director of the Electricity Policy Research Group at Cambridge.  Current research activities include the geopolitics of climate change, international surveys of public and stakeholder perceptions of low-carbon technologies, grassroots activism, siting controversies over large-scale energy supply infrastructure, public communications on a new technology such as carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS), and a UK survey of demand response to smart meters and energy efficiency measures.

Simon Upton was appointed to lead the Environment Directorate in April 2010.

In doing so, he furthered an engagement with the OECD that dates back to 1998 when he became Chairman of the Round Table on Sustainable Development – a role he continues to play.

Mr Upton is a former New Zealand Parliamentarian whose political career, between 1981 and 2000, included nine years as a Minister.  His portfolios included Environment, Research, Biosecurity, Health and State Services.

As Environment Minister he chaired the 7th Session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development and the 1998 meeting of OECD Environment Ministers.

After retiring from political life in 2000, he assumed the chairmanship of the Round Table on Sustainable Development at the OECD on a full time basis until 2005.  Thereafter, he continued this role part-time, returning to New Zealand where he worked in a variety of private sector roles as well as being a Visiting Fellow at Otago University.

He is a Fellow of the Royal New Zealand Society and a member of the board of the Institute for Climate and Society at Columbia University.

Mr Upton is a Rhodes Scholar with degrees in English literature, music and law from the University of Auckland and an MLitt in political philosophy from Oxford University.

Fokko Wientjes is Director, Corporate Sustainable Development of DSM. He has a degree in psychology enhanced by several courses in the field of marketing and management. Since 1988, Fokko has worked at DSM in HRM, logistics, marketing & sales and change programme management. Fokko has worked on business development in South America, starting engineering plastics activities in Brazil. He led the DSM antibiotic activities in Cairo, Egypt, after which he returned to Europe to work in Schaffhausen, Switzerland as HR director.