Meet our seasoned team of professionals with a passion for ethical finance and have been actively involved in the sector for over 20 years.
Our Global Steering Group brings together experienced practitioners with deep knowledge in their areas of expertise, such as banking and law. With their combined knowledge, they represent and lead GEFI and its values on a global stage.
Guided by the Global Steering Group, our strong operational team supports their vision with contextual and current knowledge and brings it to life on a daily basis.
Global Steering Group
Dame Susan Rice
Dame Susan is the Chair of the GEFI Global Steering Group.
With a career that spans medical research, leadership roles in higher education and then banking, Dame Susan chairs the Global Steering Group of GEFI (Global Ethical Finance Initiative). She also chairs Forth Green Freeport, attracting investment for industrial regeneration in Scotland, delivering net zero and fair work.
The first woman to head a UK or European clearing bank as Chief Executive of Lloyds TSB Scotland plc, she was also a director of the Bank of England, Senior Independent Director of both J Sainsbury’s plc and SSE plc, chair of Scottish Water and lay member of Court at Edinburgh University. She was founding chair of Scotland’s Fiscal Commission, the country’s official, independent economic and fiscal forecaster and until recently was a non-executive director of the UK’s Office for Budget Responsibility.
Focused on the creation of long-term value in business and enterprise, she helped develop numerous social finance and impact investing entities in the US and the UK, funnelling commercial investment in novel ways into disadvantaged communities and underserved entities.
A leading voice on ethics in finance, she chaired the Financial Services Culture Board which developed a unique analytical framework to raise standards of behaviour and competence in financial services, and she led her industry, with the Chartered Banker Institute, to create for the first time anywhere professional standards for bankers.
Alongside several honorary degrees, professional fellowships and business awards, Dame Susan is a Freeman of the City of London.
Thom Kenrick
Thom, alongside Eva Cairns, advises GEFI’s Ethical Finance Global Summit.
Thom Kenrick is Head of Social Strategy & Impact at NatWest Group. His team is responsible for driving the bank’s approach to social issues (e.g. financial wellbeing, human rights, controversial sectors) and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The team also lead and deliver the bank’s flagship financial education programme, MoneySense, which is used in over 60% of UK schools. Thom is a Fellow of the Institute for Corporate Responsibility & Sustainability (FICRS), and a Fellow of the RSA (FRSA). He is a Trustee of the School for Social Entrepreneurs; a Trustee of B Lab UK; and on the Advisory Board of the Global Ethical Finance Initiative (GEFI).
Lord John Alderdice FRCPsych
Lord Alderdice FRCPsych patrons for GEFI’s Edinburgh Finance Declaration.
John, Lord Alderdice is a psychoanalytic psychiatrist by profession, a life member of the House of Lords at Westminster, where he sits on the Select Committee for International Relations and Defence, and a former president, and now President of Honour, of Liberal International – the world federation of some 100 liberal political parties. As leader of the Alliance Party, he was a key negotiator of the 1998 Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, then appointed the first Speaker of the new Northern Ireland Assembly, and subsequently was one of four international commissioners overseeing security normalization. He is now a Senior Research Fellow at Harris Manchester College, Oxford, an Honorary Fellow at Pembroke College, Oxford, a Visiting Fellow at Jesus College, Cambridge, and a Professor of Practice at both Queens University Belfast and the University of Wales Trinity St David. He lectures, consults, and writes on intractable violent political conflict, religious faith and fundamentalism, and the problems of indigenous peoples and is the recipient of many honorary degrees and professorships. He is the founding chair of The Concord Foundation, and as Co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Islamic and Ethical Finance at Westminster and through his support of GEFI, John has a significant role in promoting ethical finance and pioneering in the world’s first interfaith shared-values framework on finance.
Further members
Lord David Pitt-Watson
Visiting Fellow at Cambridge Judge Business School
Amy Clarke
Non Executive Director & Strategic Advisor, Tribe Impact Capital
Tan Sri Azman Mokhtar
Chairman, INCEIF University
Eva Cairns
Head of Responsible Investment, Scottish Widows
Simon Thompson
Dr Hayat Sindi
Founder & CEO of the Institute for Quality
Tariq Shaikh
President RJ Fleming ME
Satya Tripathi
Secretary General, Global Alliance for a Sustainable Planet
Gail Hurley
Co-Director of the Resilient and Sustainable Islands Initiative (RESI)
Jamison Ervin
Nature for Development, UNDPFounding core partners
Operational Team
Omar Shaikh
Graham Burnside
Amanda Young
Allan Watt
Dalia Aboulenein
Angus Clelland
Varsha Jairam
Managing Director, GEFI
Omar Shaikh
Omar is the Managing Director of the Global Ethical Finance Initiative (GEFI) and Board Member of the UK Islamic Finance Council (UKIFC)
A Chartered Accountant by profession, he specialises in ethical/responsible finance, Islamic finance, and private equity. He has extensive experience in financial services and has advised multiple governments and regulators on ecosystem building as a leading advocate for sustainable and Islamic finance. His background includes working with EY London, where he qualified as a CA and was the former Head of Islamic finance.
Through his GEFI work, Omar has established a number of initiatives, including the Path to COP, the SDG Financial Products platform with UNDP, which promotes innovative financing structures for the SDGs, the Global Islamic Finance and UN SDGs Taskforce launched with the UK Government and IsDB, and the award-winning interfaith Edinburgh Finance Declaration—the world’s first shared values approach to finance between Islamic finance and the Church. He also served on the Board of the University of Oxford Faith-Aligned Impact Finance Project
Omar received a BAcc and a PhD from the University of Glasgow along with an Honorary Doctorate from Heriot-Watt University conferred for his work in developing ethical finance. Beyond finance, he is actively involved with Colourful Heritage which works with Glasgow Museums to preserve and celebrate South Asian heritage in Scotland, The King’s Trust Scotland and Olivewood Primary School.
Co-founder and Senior Advisor, Host of Ethical Finance Roundtable
Graham Burnside
Graham is Co-founder and senior advisor of the Global Ethical Finance Initiative. He is host of the Ethical Finance Round Table.
Graham is a recognised expert in banking and finance law, who over his working career with a number of senior Scottish law firms specialised in particular in structured finance and capital markets, along with debt trading and financial product documentation. He is the co-founder and now Senior Advisor at GEFI and chairs the Edinburgh Ethical Finance Roundtable series, successfully running since 2010. He pioneered the legal development of Islamic finance within Scotland, on which he became the country’s leading expert, having structured and documented the first (and so far only) Islamic mortgage products operating under Scots law and the first fully Sharia-compliant commercial real estate financing in Scotland. He chairs the Advisory Board of the Islamic Finance Council UK. Chambers & Partners ‘Guide to the Legal Profession’ conferred on Graham the accolade of “Senior Statesman” in banking and finance law in Scotland, the only lawyer so recognised.
Senior Advisor, GEFI
Amanda Young
Amanda was the Chief Sustainability Officer for the Investments business at abrdn, where she led the sustainable investment strategy for the firm and the Investment Sustainability Group. She has over two decades of experience in responsible investment. Previously, Amanda held positions at Newton Investment Management, CCLA Investment Management and Rabobank International. Amanda graduated from Lancaster University with a BSc in Psychology and has completed the University of Edinburgh Business School’s Executive Women’s Leadership Programme. She is the Chair of the Sustainability and Responsible Investment Committee of the Investment Association, a board director for Social Investment Scotland’s SIS Ventures fund and represented abrdn on the Scottish Taskforce for Green and Sustainable Financial Services. Previous appointments include Chair, workstream for the UK Government’s Taskforce on social impact investment, co-Chair of the Scottish Purposeful Business Commission, Board Director of the UK Sustainable Investment and Finance Association (UKSIF) and Chair of the FTSE Russell ESG Advisory Committee. Amanda has appeared on the Financial News top 100 most influential women in European Finance for 6 years. She was the inaugural winner of Women in Investment Awards Sustainable & ESG Investment Woman of the Year in 2021 and was on Financial News’ inaugural Fifty Most Influential in Sustainable Finance list in 2022.
Senior Advisor
Allan Watt
Allan is a senior adviser to Global Ethical Finance with wide experience in public, private and voluntary sectors in the UK and overseas.
He has been UK Chief Executive and also Scotland Director for the Prince’s Trust which helps young people into work or education and provides microfinance and start-up mentoring. Allan spent thirteen years at RBS with responsibility for communication, sponsorship, marketing and CSR activities in Edinburgh-based global roles and for three years in Hong Kong, as a member of the RBS Asia Pacific executive management team. This included work on affordable finance, lending in disadvantaged areas and impact investing.
Earlier in his career, he worked for the Scottish Development Agency and as Development Director for the Wise Group, a UK wide social enterprise. Most recently he has been carrying out interim work and consulting roles, including a year as Communications Director for Abellio, a Dutch-owned UK transport operator. Allan has been an advisor to the UK Government on employment and financial inclusion and has been a board member for a number of community, charitable and trade bodies.
GCC Programme Lead
Dalia Aboulenein
Assistant Manager
Angus Clelland