Tariq is a renowned investor and entrepreneur, leading voice for ESG reform. Formerly BlackRock’s CIO for Sustainable Investing, and author of contrarian essay “The Secret Diary of a Sustainable Investor” that went viral in 2021. He is the Founder of Rumie, which pioneered ‘microlearning’ for mobile phones and is today used by millions of youth in over 200 countries, including girls in Afghanistan. Tariq's unique perspective and experience give him unparalleled insights into arguably the most important challenge for global capitalism today: how to merge sustainability and social imperatives with traditional business models focused purely on profit. He has served as a successful investor, hands-on turnaround specialist, and entrepreneur, has lived and worked across North America, Europe, and Asia, and speaks four languages. In 2018 and 2019, he served as BlackRock’s first-ever Global Chief Investment Officer for Sustainable Investing. After leaving he began publishing op-eds challenging the ESG status quo, culminating in a 2021 viral essay entitled “The Secret Diary of a Sustainable Investor” that argued that business leaders are “answering inconvenient truths with convenient fantasies.” The essay was called ‘riveting’ by the Economist and sparked a growing backlash against widespread ESG industry practices that constitute greenwashing with little to no real-world impact. Tariq found himself at the nexus of capitalism’s attempt to merge profit and purpose after a genuine foray across both extremes. On the ‘purpose’ side, from 2013 to 2017 he founded and built Rumie, an award winning digital non-profit that pioneered smartphone-based ‘microlearning’ that is used today by millions in over 200 countries – including by Afghan girls to learn safely from anywhere on a mobile phone. As of 2023, Rumie’s learner base is growing exponentially with improved learning outcomes and exciting new evidence that it is replacing social media time for youth in North America. Rumie is a graduate of Y-Combinator, the elite tech incubator that also produced Airbnb, Dropbox, and Reddit, is winner of Google’s National Impact Challenge, and is the subject of a 2016 Harvard Business School case study.

Rosemary Addis is serious about impact. Rosemary’s portfolio of Chair, board and advisory roles is anchored by her role as Founding Managing Partner of Mondiale Impact, working alongside boards and other decision-makers grappling with social and environmental impact. Her industry experience has seen her appointed Enterprise Professor at the University of Melbourne and Industry Professor at University College London. She is a Global Ambassador for the Global Steering Group for Impact Investment. Rosemary’s unique combination of commercial acumen, strategic insight and transformational leadership has made her a go-to principal for breakthrough solutions to complex issues. She is globally recognised as a director and strategist at the forefront of innovation and investment for impact, sustainability and social innovation. Her 30+ year track record spans a global legal career including as an equity partner of Allens-Linklaters, Social Innovation Strategist for the Australian Government, G8 Social Impact Investment Taskforce and Founding Chair of Impact Investing Australia (Market Builder of the Year 2018 and 2020). Rosemary has led design and execution of ground-breaking impact funds and enterprises. She advised SDG Impact at the United Nations Development Programme, the OECD Social Impact Investing Initiative, the World Economic Forum Ideas to Practice, a World Bank Steering Group for Innovative Finance and clients internationally from major corporates and banks to institutional investors and asset managers, foundations and governments. In 2020 she was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) and has also been recognised as an inaugural Sorenson Impact Leader (2021), by Women in Finance ranking among top thought leaders (2017), Australia’s 100 Women of Influence for contributions to innovation (2015) and by Chambers Global as one of the world’s leading lawyers (2002 and 2003). Her thought leadership is published widely and her work is the subject of numerous international case studies informing a generation of leaders.

Variously known as the “Godfather of Sustainability” and an “Ambassador from the Future,” John is acknowledged as one of the founders of the global sustainability movement. Mainly focusing on business and markets, he has worked as an advisor to an A-to-Z of businesses across the globe for 50 years. He has co-founded four companies since 1978, all of which still exist in some form: Environmental Data Services (ENDS, 1978); John Elkington Associates, later Countercurrent and now Elkington Ventures (1983); SustainAbility (1987); and Volans (2008). Over the decades, he has served on over 80 boards and advisory boards—and was a faculty member of the World Economic Forum from 2002-2008. He has addressed over 1,500 conferences around the world. Along the way, he coined such terms as environmental excellence, green consumer and green growth, the triple bottom line (People, Planet and Profit/Prosperity), business-as-unusual and green swan. He is the author or co-author of 21 books, including the million-selling Green Consumer Guide series. His most recent book—Tickling Sharks: How We Sold Business on Sustainability—was published in June 2024 by Fast Company Press. He has received many awards, most recently the 2021 World Sustainability Award.

Jon is the PwC’s Global Energy Transition Lead. Based in Melbourne, he brings more than 25 years of international consulting experience, where he has consistently delivered high value outcomes to address his clients’ needs in both private and public sectors. Jon’s international experience advising Executives and Boards across a variety of industries including Energy and Utilities, Government, Telecommunications, Financial Services, FMCG and Technology in North America, Europe and throughout Asia Pacific. His most recent experiences have focused on pragmatically helping large clients adapt, adopt and develop new ways of working and technologies to better serve customers and shareholders through this era of disruption. Jon is extremely active in pulling together eco systems to solve the most complex issues and is part of a number of world leading initiatives on Energy Transition and Sustainability. In addition, he regularly speaks at and attends international conferences to keep abreast of the latest developments as well as have input into their evolution.

Mark served as a Senior Lecturer of Business Administration at Harvard Business School from 2016 to 2023, and is co-founder of FSG, a global consulting firm which helps develop social impact strategies for many of the world’s largest corporations and foundations. Mark led the firm from 2000 to 2021 and currently serves as Chairman. He is also a Founder and Director of Maternal Newborn Health Innovations and a Partner in the Congruence Capital investment fund. Mark is coauthor of the Harvard Business Review article “Creating Shared Value” (2011), along with Professor Michael Porter, and has spoken and published extensively on topics in philanthropy, corporate social responsibility, shared value, collective impact, strategic evaluation, and impact investing. He also serves as a Senior Fellow in the CSR Initiative at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Mark is a founder and served as initial Board Chair from 2000 to 2004 of Center for Effective Philanthropy, a non-profit research organisation in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Prior to founding FSG, Mark served for twelve years as President of Kramer Capital Management, a venture capital firm, and before that as an Associate at the law firm Ropes & Gray in Boston. Mark previously served as a Director on the Shared Value Project and Shared Value Initiative Hong Kong Boards, and has now transitioned to the role of Chief Advisor for both organisations.

Natalie Kyriacou OAM is an award-winning environmentalist, writer, and company director with a passion for harnessing curiosity to solve nature crises. Natalie was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia and the Forbes 30 Under 30 honour for her services to wildlife and environmental conservation in 2018 and was recognised as one of The Australian’s ‘Top Innovators’ in 2022. She was the United Nations Environment Programme’s ‘Young Champion of the Earth’ Finalist for her innovation in wildlife and environmental conservation and is LinkedIn’s Top Green Voice. She is a Board Director at the Foundation for National Parks and Wildlife, a Board Director at CARE Australia, the Founder and Chair of My Green World, a UNESCO Green Citizens Pathfinder, a member of the XPrize Brain Trust for Biodiversity and Conservation, and an Australian Delegate and Climate Justice Lead at the W20 (the official engagement group of the G20). Passionate about protecting the environment and ensuring everyone has a voice in the process, Natalie’s work focuses on connecting people with the environment in meaningful and impactful ways.

Brendan Wintle is Professor in Biodiversity Conservation and Director of the Melbourne Biodiversity Institute at the University of Melbourne. He develops economic methods to support conservation decisions and policy. He has been Director of Australia’s Threatened Species Recovery Research Hub and UN IPBES coordinating lead author. He teaches Applied Ecology, Global Environmental Change, and 1st year Biology. He serves on the Zoos Victoria Board and was recently elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Victoria. He publishes on biodiversity assessment, monitoring and reporting design, cost-efficient conservation spending, and species loss under environmental change. He has held an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship and was theme leader of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions. He is a Lead Councillor on Australia’s Biodiversity Council. He harbours strange obsessions with a gliding marsupial called the greater glider, spider orchids, playing football (with a round ball), and watching Tigers play the ovoid ball version. He once met the Queen and Michael Parkinson in the same week, but was too polite to admit he was a republican.

Katherine is a political economist, writer and advocate for economic system change. Her roles include writer-at-large and co-director of the Compassion in Financial Services hub at the University of Edinburgh, Economic Change Lead for The Next Economy, and Strategic Advisor for the Centre for Policy Development. She co-founded the Wellbeing Economy Alliance (WEAll) and WEAll Scotland, its Scottish hub, and she instigated the group of Wellbeing Economy Governments (WEGo). She is a member of the Club of Rome and her board roles have included a range of groups such as Hands Across Canberra, Denmark’s Wellbeing Economy Lab, the Centre for Understanding Sustainable Prosperity, and The Democracy Collaborative. She is Distinguished Visitor at ANU’s Planetary Health Hothouse, a New Economics Senior Fellow at the ZOE Institute and was 2024 thinker-in-residence at the Australian Health Promotion Association. Katherine has Bachelor Degrees in Economics and in Politics (University of Melbourne) and holds a PhD in Political Science from the Australian National University. Her book The Economics of Arrival: Ideas for a Grown Up Economy (co-authored with Jeremy Williams and published by Policy Press) was published in January 2019 and her major report Being Bold: Budgeting for Children’s Wellbeing was launched in March 2021.

Carsten Murawski is a decision scientist, Professor in the Department of Finance at the University of Melbourne, and Director of the Centre for Brain, Mind and Markets (CBMM), an interdisciplinary research centre focused on human and machine decision-making. He is Graduate Research Director of the doctoral program Decision, Risk and Financial Sciences and the academic lead of the joint PhD program between the University of Bonn and the University of Melbourne. His primary research and teaching areas are decision theory, experimental economics, decision neuroscience, consumer decision-making, computational psychiatry and cognitive science. Most of his current research investigates the neurocognitive computations underlying decision-making and how computational resource constraints affect decision-making in healthy and clinical populations. He uses a variety of methods including behavioral experiments, eye-tracking, pharmacological interventions, and neuroimaging in both human and non-human animals. His translational research spans consumer decision-making, decision-making and health, and high-performance decision-making. He is a co-editor, with Ulrich Ettinger and Bert Heinrichs, of the book Decision Making: Mechanisms and Applications (Springer, 2025). His research has been published in leading journals in biology, cognitive science, finance, neuroscience, psychiatry and psychology and been covered by leading media outlets including CBS, The Economist, Financial Times, Guardian, National Geographic, NBC, New Scientist and The Washington Post. Before joining the University of Melbourne, Carsten was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Zurich. He has been a visiting researcher at New York University and Columbia University. His teaching experience includes undergraduate and graduate courses at the University of Melbourne, the University of Zurich, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich. In addition to his academic career, he has several years of experience in the finance industry. Carsten holds a PhD from the University of Zurich, Switzerland, and a Master’s degree from the University of Bayreuth, Germany.

Sally Capp AO was the first woman to be directly elected as the Lord Mayor of Melbourne. Sally served for 6 years between 2018-2024 and led the city through the pandemic period. Sally is currently CEO of Create Advisory group operating in the infrastructure sector. Sally is also a Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow at the University of Melbourne. Prior to being Lord Mayor, Sally was the first woman to hold the post of Agent-General for Victoria in the UK, Europe and Israel from 2009 – 2013. She was the CEO for the Committee for Melbourne and the Victorian Executive Director of the Property Council of Australia. Sally began her career as a Solicitor, after completing Law (Hons) and Commerce degrees at the University of Melbourne. She has held senior roles at both KPMG and ANZ, and co-founded a small business which she took to the ASX. Sally has been active in international networks and forums dedicated to cities including the Centre for Liveable Cities, C40, the Bloomberg Cities Network and presented at COP 28 in Dubai. Sally received the award of Officer of the Order of Australia in 2023 and won the McKinnon Prize for emerging political leadership in 2019.

Janette is a partner at PwC focused on supporting clients on sustainability strategy & implementation. Janette draws on over 28 years’ experience in sustainability, strategy, and people & culture to provide the support and guidance clients need to identify, prioritise and address often complex and interconnected sustainability issues and deliver on their sustainability objectives. Janette is also the Chief Sustainability Officer for PwC Australia. As CSO, Janette has the day to day responsibility for the firm’s sustainability agenda. She leads a team that develops and implements the Firm’s approach to sustainability including the management of associated governance, strategy and targets, business integration, performance monitoring, engagement, learning and reporting. Janette started her career as a strategy consultant with Andersen Consulting before moving into sustainability consulting with PwC UK. She has since worked in management positions in banking and energy before most recently working with QBE in both sustainability and People & Culture. Janette is a member of the AICD Reporting Committee and has a number of governance roles with not-for-profit organisations including Accounting for Sustainability, the Arise Leadership Circle and the Shared Value Leadership Council.

Linda is Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Regis Healthcare. Linda has been a chief executive for almost 15 years with broad experience in health and aged care, including substantial growth and transformation execution. During the year, Linda was reappointed as Director of Ageing Australia and is a member of the Finance and Risk Management Committee. Linda is also a Board Director of Mercy Community Services Ltd and its subsidiaries including Mackillop Family Services, and a member of the Governance Committee. Linda was formerly Chair of the Aged Care Reform Network, Chair of the Aged Care Guild, Chair of the North Eastern Metropolitan Integrated Cancer Service, Co-Chair of the Victorian Metropolitan Hospital Chief Executive group, Board Member of the Parent Infant Research Institute and Board Director of the South West Melbourne Medicare Local. Linda holds a PhD in Cardiac Physiology, Bachelor of Science with first class Honours, Bachelor of Arts and is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. She is also a graduate of the Williamson Community Leadership Program and a member of Chief Executive Women.

David Spriggs is the CEO of Infoxchange, a not-for-profit social enterprise with the vision of ‘technology for social justice’. He is passionate about creating a more digitally inclusive society and the role technology can play in improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the not-for-profit sector. In addition to his role at Infoxchange, David is Chair of the Australian Digital Inclusion Alliance (ADIA) and Deputy Chair of Specialisterne Australia, working to create careers for people on the autism spectrum. David is also a Non-Executive Director of the Alannah & Madeline Foundation, a charity dedicated to keeping children and young people safe from violence wherever they live, learn and play. David holds a Bachelor of Information Technology from the University of Queensland, a Certificate in Theology from Trinity College at the University of Melbourne and is a Graduate of the Harvard Business School Executive Education Program and the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Sasha is a strategy and sustainability leader with over twenty years’ experience in driving systems change at the intersection of business, government, research and civil society sectors. At Natural Capital and Climate, part of the Alluvium Group, Sasha provides expertise to clients on corporate and sustainability strategy development, climate risk and resilience planning and on how to integrate nature into business decision-making. As a senior executive at Bank Australia and at NAB, she led the integration of sustainability into core business strategy, focusing on shared value responses to challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, First Nations reconciliation and affordable housing, creating commercial opportunities and positive societal outcomes. Previously, Sasha was Executive Director of the London-based ISEAL Alliance, the global association for sustainability standards and assurance systems. She has also worked as an international consultant on social justice and environmental sustainability issues in soft commodity sectors, and as an academic at the ANU. Sasha was deeply involved in setting up the Fairtrade labelling system in Australia and New Zealand and is currently the Chair of the Aluminium Stewardship Initiative.

Satara Uthayakumaran is an advocate, dedicated to legal and social reform, most recently having been appointed Australia’s Youth Representative to the United Nations for 2025 by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. She serves on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Youth Advisory Council, is a National Youth Advisor for Amnesty International, and has worked with the ACT Human Rights Commission. She also served as the youngest board member of the Domestic Violence Crisis Service (ACT). Satara frequently appears on the ABC and writes for prominent outlets like SBS and the Canberra Times. While pursuing a Bachelor of Arts/Law at ANU, she also worked as a Policy Advisor at PM&C. In 2024, she was named a Young Woman to Watch in International Affairs.

Janet is the Group Head of Social Impact and Community Partnerships at ANZ. She is responsible for the strategy, governance, reporting and implementation of ANZ’s social impact initiatives across 29 markets in which ANZ operates. Janet is a Board member of the largest digital inclusion charity in Australia – Good Things Foundation and the Chair of Business for Societal Impact, global standard in measuring and managing social impact. In her very limited spare time she enjoys listening to non-fiction books while painting by numbers.

Peter is Chairman of AIA Australia Limited, a Director of Linfox Australia Pty Ltd and Mutual Trust Pty Ltd. He is Chairman of the Royal Institution of Australia, the Australian Science Media Centre, the Faculty of Business and Economics at Melbourne University, the Royal Children’s Hospital Foundation, the Shared Value Project and the NHMRC Centre for Personalised Immunology at ANU and the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology at UNSW. From 2004-2007 Peter was Managing Director of Oceania Capital Partners and held the position of Chief Executive Officer of Publishing and Broadcasting Limited from 2001-2004. Until 2001, he worked in the Investment Banking industry including 15 years with Macquarie Bank. He holds a Doctorate of the University from Murdoch University, a Masters degree from Stanford University Graduate School of Business and a Commerce degree from University of Melbourne. He speaks Japanese, having studied at Keio University in Tokyo. Until May 2021, Peter was Chairman of Colonial Mutual Life Assurance Society Limited. He has been Deputy Chairman of The Myer Family Investments Ltd, a Director of the Royal Children’s Hospital and the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Asialink, Publishing and Broadcasting, Crown Ltd, Foxtel Ltd, The Nine Network, Ninemsn, Ticketek, Veda Ltd, Oceania Capital Partners Ltd, the National Portrait Gallery, The Melbourne International Arts Festival, Centre for Independent Studies, MOKO.mobi and the Australia-Japan Foundation. In the June 2011 Queen’s Birthday Honours, Peter was awarded a Member of the Order of Australia for service to education, to the financial services industry and to a range of arts, science and charitable organisations and in 2017 was made a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering (ATSE). He has also recently been awarded the Australian Academy of Science Medal for 2019.

Mel has worked across the private sector, consulting and government in management and leadership roles, including at EPA Victoria and Sustainability Victoria. Mel became the CEO of the UNESCO Western Port Biosphere Foundation in May 2021. Passionate about environmental issues and a proud UNESCO Biosphere Reserve local resident, Mel is committed to driving impactful outcomes at the Foundation. Mel has a Bachelor of Information Science from the University of Adelaide and a Master of Environment from the University of Melbourne.

Sarah is an accomplished executive and strategist, with a particular talent for transforming, leading, and activating purpose-led organisations. As CEO for the Shared Value Project Australia and New Zealand (SVP), she builds on 20 years’ experience in the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors to champion a better future for business and society collectively, through shared value. Driven by the belief that corporate assets, resources, and innovation can unlock unrivalled social progress – whilst increasing business prosperity and sustainability – Sarah is committed to advancing a new kind of capitalism; fit for the times. A member of the Shared Value Global Steering Committee, she directs the Shared Value Australian team to deliver the evidence, tools, education, and inspiration required make this urgent shift. She has completed Harvard Executive Programs; Sustainable Business Strategy (2019), Profit and Purpose: Creating Shared Value (2021) and Sustainability Leadership (2024).