John McGeown
Head of SME Sustainability in AIB Business Banking
John has recently been appointed as Head of SME Sustainability in AIB Business Banking – with his role focused on helping businesses in the SME segment transition to a more sustainable footing.
John started his career working in audit and accountancy, subsequently spending over 10 years working in commercial lending in AIB.
Sarah Moran
Director at KPMG Sustainable FuturesSarah Moran is a director in Sustainable Futures, KPMG’s dedicated sustainability advisory practice.
Sarah trained in KPMG’s global centre of excellence for climate risk in the UK and now leads out Sustainable Finance and Climate Risk service lines. Sarah lectures in sustainable finance, climate risk and ESG reporting with UCD Smurfit Business School and Chartered Accountants Ireland and has presented to the Central Bank of Ireland’s Climate Risk Forum on climate-related risk identification, best practices for embedding climate risk within financial institutions and evolving data sources
David
Owens
Sustainable & Climate Finance
David currently works on sustainable and climate finance in the
Department of Finance and was appointed to the Board of the Housing Finance
Agency last year.
He has extensive public service experience gained in Ireland
and overseas including in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and
the European Commission.
He has worked in financial services in the private
sector and also in the Central Bank of Ireland and was previously appointed to
serve on the Pensions Board
Ann Shiels
Founder FinLexSus
Ann Shiels established FinLexSus in January 2022, a sustainable finance regulatory business, working with regulated fund management companies and asset managers to upskill on, understand and implement EU sustainable finance regulatory requirements. Ann worked in the Irish funds and regulated financial services industry for over 20 years, mainly as a qualified solicitor in a large corporate practice. Ann holds a certificate in Sustainable Finance from the University of Cambridge's Institute for Sustainability leadership, is a Green Team Network executive member and lectures in sustainable finance at the UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School and the Institute of Bankers in Ireland
Sponsor Representative
Richard Kelly, Partner, Matheson
Richard Kelly is a partner in the Finance and Capital Markets Department at Matheson. Richard’s practice includes advising corporates, financial institutions, investment banks, asset managers and institutional investors on all aspects of capital markets transactions involving Irish elements, including corporate bond issuances, asset backed securitisations, CLOs, repackagings and segregated managed account structures.
Richard’s practice also includes advising Irish corporates and investment funds and their counterparties in relation to derivatives transactions, repurchase and reverse-repurchase transactions, securities lending and prime brokerage and on the regulation of derivatives, the application of the Financial Collateral Directive and the operation of netting and set-off in Ireland. Richard has acted for many of the world’s leading financial institutions in providing bespoke legal opinions on the enforceability of close-out netting provisions and collateral arrangements documented using industry standard or client-specific derivatives, repo and prime brokerage documentation.
Richard has been active in the Irish Debt Securities Association (IDSA) since its formation, regularly participating in sub-groups of the IDSA’s legal committee to prepare submissions on proposed legislation. Richard also regularly represents Matheson at meetings of the EMIR working group at Irish Funds.