City of Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa
I hold 4 first class degrees across universities in South Africa and the Netherlands covering Law, Economics, Philosophy and Politics, all of which were awarded with the highest possible academic distinction. In addition, I have also completed a series of international courses in Economics, Psychology, Politics, Philosophy, Marketing, Business, and French in universities across The Czech Republic, The Netherlands, Portugal, and France. Beyond my studies, I have been conducting research and building tech products for the sustainable finance industry at GRESB, in Amsterdam. Here, I run an SFDR reporting product to facilitate the disclosure of the Principal Adverse Impacts of Infrastructure and Real Estate Funds. I am also the global company lead on regulatory research with expertise in a variety of major sustainability regulations and climate frameworks including the CSRD, ESRS, CSDDD, EU Taxonomy, UK SDR, US SEC, ISSB IFRS S1 & S2, EDCI, SDGs etc. I also perform a number of additional functions at GRESB which include creating custom ESG datasets for index providers (S&P, Dow Jones, GPR, Nikkei etc), managing GRESB's Public Disclosure Products, working across multiple topics with the Standards and Innovation teams, and delivering a variety of technical implementations across the business as a Lead Product Manager. Prior to this I worked for a year in Cape Town as a Legal Consultant specializing in strategic commercial litigation and was involved in numerous multi-jurisdictional, large-scale international arbitrations across South Africa and the Seychelles. I have also spent 9 months working for a Climate Change Law Clinic in Amsterdam where I conducted legal and policy research on behalf of NGO’s aimed at finding innovative pathways to stop fossil fuel projects. My experience also includes economic and political analysis that I performed during an internship at a commodities trading firm in the USA. I am always aiming to combine my multi-disciplinary academic knowledge, consulting experience, research skills, policy fluency and climate change specializiations into making a tangible difference to the world.
GRESB is the global benchmark for assessing the sustainability performance of Real Estate and Infrastructure portfolios. Combined, GRESB represents USD 8.8 trillion in real asset value and more than 150 institutional investors, with over USD 50 trillion AUM, use GRESB data to monitor their investments. At GRESB, I cover the following areas: Global Sustainability Regulations Lead - responsible for GRESB's research, content & strategy on major sustainability regulations such as the CSRD/ESRS, IFRS, SFDR, EU Taxonomy, UK SDR, US SEC, ASRS, ESMA ESGR, EPBD. Policy Research & Framework Analysis - responsible for GRESB's data mappings on emerging climate & sustainability frameworks such as the EDCI, ARESI, SDGs, INREV SDDS, SRI. Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) Product Manager - responsible for developing, implementing & managing GRESB's suite of SFDR Products for Infrastructure Assets, Infrastructure Funds & Real Estate investments. Public Disclosure Product Manager - responsible for managing GRESB's Public Disclosure Products that assess sustainability disclosures across Real Estate & Infrastructure Funds. Index Provider Lead - responsible for creating and curating custom datafiles for sustainability index providers (S&P, GPR, SGX, NZAM, Nikkei) Lead Product Manager - responsible for coordinating a team of software developers, data scientists and quality assurance engineers to deliver a variety of products and projects across the business (salesforce integration, data migrations, technical debt cleanups, bespoke tableau projects, LLM modelling etc) Cross-functional collaboration across the Product, Innovation, Infrastructure, Real Estate & Climate Change Teams where I provide input and research on the intersection of our standards with international sustainability frameworks. I am an accredited GRESB Professional in both Real Estate and Infrastructure. I received the highest score in the company for the Real Estate accreditation (98%).
I was selected to work for the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam's Climate Change & Sustainability Law Clinic under the supervision of faculty members and on behalf of NGO's. I was involved in a complex project that entailed legal research and policy analysis in order to assess the possible legal avenues available to shut down a large fossil fuel project. Our team conducted detailed analysis of EU Legislation such as the CSDDD, SFDR, CSRD, UCPD and EU Taxonomy as well as Dutch Legislation such as the NCR and CDR. Moreover, I was responsible for conducting research into Dutch Environmental Policy, Consumer Law, Greenwashing, and Climate Change Litigation. The outcome of the project was a 100 page report that will now be used for building future legal claims pertaining to shutting down fossil fuel projects. I received the highest grade in the Law Clinic of a 9.5/10 for my efforts and was recognised as the key strategist and guiding nexus for the project. I also designed a poster and presented our research at the Conference on the Future of Experiential Legal Education hosted by the Amsterdam Law School at the University of Amsterdam.
I worked for a year as a Legal Consultant for various Advocates of the South African Cape Bar wherein I specialized in strategic commercial litigation and was involved in multiple multi-jurisdictional large-scale arbitrations performing legal research, providing written legal opinions and guiding general strategy. I was involved in a multi-million-Dollar International Arbitration regarding a construction dispute in the Seychelles where I worked on behalf of a South African senior counsel advocate and the Seychelles based Victoria Law Firm. I was heavily involved in this matter and conducted a broad array of tasks from the beginning to the end of the arbitration, spanning from putting together the trial bundle, drafting pleadings, researching international arbitration law as well as local Seychellois Law, briefing the clients Board of Directors on legal strategy, conducting interviews with independent experts, compiling witness statements, assisting with drafting applications to the Seychelles Supreme Court and a variety of tasks spanning every contour of both the arbitral and judicial process. I was also involved in a multi-billion-Rand arbitration regarding copyright infringement and unlawful competition between two South African medical aid administration giants. I assisted in drafting witness statements, providing legal research into various areas of delict, contract and competition law and I wrote multiple strategy memos to help guide counsel. In addition, I was also involved in a variety of different cases spanning across topics including Hedge Funds, Insurance, Trusts, and a slew of complex commercial matters.
I founded and ran a small business in which I sourced and provided high quality local food products to a customer base of 50+ clients. This was an excellent experience in managing supply chains, dealing with customers, developing a business plan, understanding price and market dynamics and effectively running a small business with a customer base, a diverse product and a monthly income and order list. I used the income from this business to self-fund a variety of summer school courses in different academic disciplines around the world.
I spent time in the offices of McVean Trading & Investments in Memphis Tennessee. This is a large commodities trading firm in the USA and I was rotated amongst members of the trading, economics and analytics divisions in order to gain an understanding of commodities trading. During my time here I assisted the head of economics and policy in conducting policy research to help provide policy guidance to the traders on the floor.