Keynote speakers

Short description:

Louisianna will be giving a brief history of The Vegan Society, the work they do, and their world renowned Vegan Trademark. Additionally, she will talk through their largest ever campagin – the Future Normal.

Biography:

Louisianna WARING is the Insight and Commercial Policy Officer at The Vegan Society. With an educational background in both food policy and animal science, she is passionate about promoting veganism to businesses, consumers and policy makers. She provides organisations with data-driven, vegan insights to keep them up to date in a constantly changing market and help drive the vegan movement forward. Additionally, she develops policy positions and represents the needs of vegan businesses to industry and political bodies.

Additional information:

https://www.vegansociety.com/

Short description:

The vegan marketplace is booming right now, with companies like Beyond Meat and Oatly being valued in the billions. But if only 2% of the global population identifies as vegan, then where is all this demand for plant-based products coming from? David Pannell, co-founder of consumer consultancy Promote Vegan and co-founder of business community Vegan Business Tribe, takes a look at the plant-based marketplace as a whole, why so many consumers across all demographics are changing their buying behaviour, and what companies can do to respond to it.

Biography:

David PANNELL is the co-founder of consumer consultancy Promote Vegan, co-founder of business community Vegan Business Tribe and a passionate advocate for the vegan business scene.

Having spent over 20 years working in marketing and helping businesses grow, alongside acting as a former ambassador for the Chartered Institute of Marketing, David now works with high-street brands and large food manufacturers to help them better understand and connect with vegan consumers.

In 2020, David and his partner Lisa Fox launched Vegan Business Tribe, a business community of over 1,000 grass-roots vegan companies and entrepreneurs. David is also the UK agent for The Vegan Society's Vegan Trademark and Lisa writes the monthly business column for Vegan Food & Living Magazine, the UK's best-selling vegan magazine.

David is also the host of the weekly Vegan Business Tribe Podcast, available on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Additional information:

https://promotevegan.co/

http://veganbusinesstribe.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/davepannell/

Short description:

Investing in vegan stocks in line with ones’ values can be quite motivating but challenging: how to define vegan compliant activities? On which principles and material landmarks are based a fair assessment? How to evaluate a multi-businesses corporation? To answer these questions, Vegan Finance LLC built a vegan rating methodology that will be explained with concrete cases during the Vegan Finance Conference.

Biography:

Van Dinh TRAN has 8 years’ experience in Business Analytics. From Governance Risk Compliance SAP Consultant in the consumer goods sector until 2017, he has worked since as an Investment Research Analyst and ESG/SRI consultant in the investment industry.

In 2018 he founded Vegan Finance LLC (VF), a registered company in Wyoming (United States). VF targets to enhance animal rights by assessing activities of companies and their impacts on animals and engage dialogue with corporates and regulators. VF delivers advisory services to Individuals, Non-Profit Organizations (NPO), Financial Advisers (FA), Asset Owners (AO), Asset Managers (AM).

Van Dinh is a Fundamentals of Sustainability Accounting (FSA) Credential holder from the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB). He holds the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF) Professional Certification and a Master’s degree in Portfolio Management from IAE Gustave Eiffel School of Management / University of Paris-Est Creteil.

Additional information on Vegan Finance LLC can be found on the following sources:

https://www.assetnews.com/markets/ratings-vegan-perspective

Biography:

Olivia BLANCHARD can leverage over 10 years’ financial experience in a wide array of sectors, including private banking, investment banking, asset management and institutional broking. She has held several executive compliance & control roles in the French and international arena. Four years ago, she founded her consultancy in London and subsequently in Paris. She sits on the management committee of various companies and assists executives with implementing a compliance framework geared towards their core business. She trains and coaches compliance officers on how to strike the right balance between top management and employees. She pioneers changes to the compliance profession by encouraging firms to engage with social and environmental matters. She is the President of a French Assocation “Les Acteurs de la Finance Responsable” which promotes a responsible finance for Human and Environment.

Additional information:

https://afresponsable.com/

Short description:

“As a pure play global pioneer with privileged access in the Food 4.0 ecosystem, Blue Horizon has shaped the growth of the alternative proteins market. In this session, you will gain insights into what drives the transformation of the global food industry and in particular how impact capital is used to replace animal proteins with healthy and sustainable alternative sources of protein.”

You can consult the alternative protein report as a pre-read.

Biography:

Robert BOER is the Program Director at Blue Horizon responsible for several strategic initiatives. He has over 15 years of experience managing programs in large financial services firms across Europe either as management consultant (KPMG) or project manager (ABN Amro Bank).

Most recently Robert built and ran UBS's Global Visionaries program identifying and supporting impact-driven entrepreneurs at the forefront of tackling some of the world's most challenging social and environmental problems. At UBS, Robert was also leading the plant-based movement moderating Future of Food panels at UHNW and GFO events, integrating the topic in CIO research and facilitating access to plant-based investment opportunities. Using his global network in the plant-based entrepreneurship space, Robert is responsible for growing our (pre-)seed portfolio. He holds two Master degrees (MSc) in business and consulting from the Rotterdam School of Management.

Biography:

Claire SMITH is the founder of humane investment platform Beyond Investing. She is a vegan and environmentalist with 34 years’ experience in finance and investment at top-tier banks and investment houses, including UBS and Albourne Partners.

Beyond Investing creates investment programs designed for animal advocates and climate-conscious investors in both public listed equity markets and venture capital. Beyond Investing is the architect of the US Vegan Climate Index, a stock index which screens out all animal exploitation and fossil fuel from a US market benchmark, and the sponsor of the US Vegan Climate Exchange Traded Fund (ETF). Beyond Investing affiliate Beyond Impact focuses on early stage and growth companies that provide vegan, plant-based and cruelty-free products and services.

Based in Switzerland, Claire is the founder of Beyond Cruelty Foundation, formed to campaign for zero animal exploitation and to fund safe havens for animals, which will also receive a portion of profits of companies under the Beyond Investing umbrella.

Together with IT strategist Dhanesh Kothar, Claire co-founded the Beyond Animal integrated digital platform, which aims to accelerate the growth of the global vegan economy.

Previously, Claire was a research analyst, partner and shareholder at alternatives advisory firm Albourne Partners, covering managers globally across systematic quantitative equity, convertible and volatility and hedging strategies. Claire also led a project to expand Albourne's proprietary database on alternatives managers and digitize the research process.

Prior to joining Albourne in 2004, Claire provided bespoke hedge fund research to London funds of funds and published well over 100 articles in the financial press, including the Financial Times and The Economist.

From 1986 to 1998 Claire was employed at various UBS group companies as a derivatives broker, marketer and structurer. Claire started her career in 1985 as a credit analyst at Chase Manhattan Bank after completing a Masters program in Chemical Engineering and Management at Imperial College, London.

Claire founded 100 Women in Finance in Geneva in 2007 and oversaw its growth in Switzerland through till 2014, as a member of the London Board, organizing over 100 events, including seven galas which raised well over $1 million for charity.

Since 2013 Claire has served on the Board of AVVEC, a Geneva-based charity that provides support to victims of domestic violence.

Additional information:

www.beyondinvesting.com

www.veganetf.com