SG The Climate Issue: Impact on Asia Business Models

After a 30-year career in international corporate banking, most recently as CEO Asia-Pacific for ABN AMRO Bank, Maureen joined WWF (Worldwide Fund for Nature) Singapore as CEO in April 2019, inspired by its compelling vision of humans living in harmony with nature.

With strong credentials in emerging markets, natural resources, sustainability and governance, Maureen oversaw ABN AMRO Bank's business in Asia-Pacific from 2013 till 2019, which included corporate advisory, structured finance and clearing covering clients in the natural resources, transportation, food and beverage and trade and commodity industries.

Maureen previously worked for Standard Chartered Bank based in Singapore where she first started in 2005 as global head of natural resources and commodities and was later appointed as group chief operating officer for the wholesale bank's client business covering 52 countries. She was appointed to the sustainability and corporate responsibility board of Standard Chartered Bank and was chairman of the liquidity committee during the financial crisis.

Before joining Standard Chartered Bank, Maureen built the global structured commodity product capability for Citigroup based in New York and headed its Americas business. She was on the board of Citigroup's International Trading Company as well as the editorial board of Euromoney's Trade Finance Magazine. Prior to this, Maureen ran the North Americas structured commodity business for ABN AMRO Bank based in Chicago.

Maureen holds a master's degree in corporate law (LLM) from the Rijksuniversiteit Leiden in the Netherlands and an MBA degree from the University of Chicago (Booth). She also attended the Cambridge Prince of Wales business and sustainability programme.

Maureen serves on the advisory board of Singapore Management University's Lee Kong Chian School of Business, the International Advisory Council of Law Asia and was till recent on the board of the Singapore World Wide Fund for Nature and the Singapore International Chamber of Commerce.

Simon Baptist is the global chief economist at The Economist Intelligence Unit and is currently based in Singapore. Simon’s focus is on the global economy, national and international political developments, and public policy. He engages with business, government and international organisations, helping them to understand the operational and strategic implications of the EIU’s forecasts.

Simon is also the managing director for The EIU in Asia, with oversight for The EIU’s research, consultancy and C-suite advisory services in the region.

He has a doctorate in economics from and was a lecturer at Oxford University, along with degrees in economics and science from the University of Tasmania. His academic research investigated technology and the determinants of productivity in manufacturing firms.

Simon has published a number of academic articles, including in World Development, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A and Global Journal of Emerging Market Economies. He is frequently invited to participate on TV and in other international media.

Joris started his career in 1995 as graduate trainee at Generale Bank in Belgium. In 1997 he was appointed as trade finance manager in Mumbai, India. He moved to Ireland to work as vice president EMEA in project finance in 1999.

In 2001, Joris was appointed as vice president for export & project finance Asia at Fortis, which was later merged into the BNP Paribas Group and became BNP Paribas Fortis. In 2004 he was made head of export & project finance Asia and served until 2010 in Singapore and Tokyo. From 2008 until 2010, Joris was country head for Japan at Fortis while also serving as interim head of merchant banking Asia during the integration process with BNP Paribas.

In 2010, Joris was named country head of Greece for BNP Paribas and in 2012, he was appointed as country head of South Korea. From 2015 until August 2018, Joris served as country head for India and CEO of BNP Paribas S.A, Indian branches.

Joris holds a postgraduate diploma in sustainable development from the University of London, a postgraduate degree in finance from the University of Leuven, a master of laws degree from the University of London and master’s degree from the University of Antwerp. He is a Belgian national and speaks English, French and Dutch, born in 1969 and married with three children.

Ai Ai is a member of multinational law firm Baker McKenzie's global executive committee and chair of the Asia Pacific region. During her 20-year career with Baker McKenzie, Ai Ai has held several leadership positions, including serving as head of the Singapore Corporate & Securities Group and chair of the Asia Pacific Private Equity Group.

Ai Ai is recognised as a leading individual for Corporate/M&A matters by publications including Chambers Asia Pacific, Legal 500 Asia Pacific and IFLR1000.

Ai Ai currently leads a number of key areas of strategic focus for the firm, including building out Baker McKenzie's transactional strength in money centres such as London, New York and HK/China, and overseeing the firm’s financial institutions group globally. As chair of the firm's environment committee, she also leads Baker McKenzie’s global waste and emissions reduction drive, and champions the firm’s involvement in some of the world's most significant sustainability initiatives.

Outside of Baker McKenzie, Mrs Wong serves as chair of the Yellow Ribbon Fund, a charitable foundation that supports rehabilitation and reintegration programmes for ex-offenders and their families. She is a board member at Singapore Tourism Board and a director of Singapore Tyler Print Institute.

Pieter is currently the president Asia Pacific for DSM Nutritional Products, the world’s leading supplier of vitamins, carotenoids and other fine chemicals to the feed, food, pharmaceutical and personal care industries. The business has a long tradition as a science driven pioneer in the discovery of new nutritional products, formulations, and applications.

Over the span of his career Pieter has built a track record of building high performance teams within both corporate and private manufacturing and service organisations in Europe, Asia and Central America.

Having spent the first sixteen years of his career with Quest International as part of the former Unilever Specialty Chemicals Cluster (acquired by ICI in 1997), he was first based in The Netherlands and was subsequently expatriated in various leadership positions to Australia, Singapore, Indonesia and Mexico. Subsequently Pieter set up a management buy-in to take over as the CEO of Siam Food Services, a leading provider of cold chain marketing and distribution services in Thailand. He exited the venture after five years following a successful trade sale of the business. Prior to eventually joining DSM in 2009 he also was the vice president for South and South-east Asia for Symrise, a global major in the flavor and fragrance industry.

Pieter earned his bachelor of science degree in business administration in The Netherlands and furthermore completed executive development programs at UCLA, INSEAD, WHARTON, and Human Capital Leadership Institute.

Yulanda Chung joined DBS in 2017 and is currently head of sustainability of DBS institutional banking group in Singapore. She spearheads the development and implementation of the bank’s responsible financing framework and advises on environmental and social issues pertaining to client activities and transactions.

Yulanda was previously the head of sustainable finance at Standard Chartered in London, where she shaped the bank’s policies and governance procedures on sustainable lending and investments.

Before joining the banking sector, she was an equity analyst for the mining and building materials sectors at RobecoSAM (previously known as Sustainable Asset Management).

She graduated with a Master of Science in Environmental Change and Management from Oxford University.