Standard Chartered announced today the appointment of Kerry Constabile to lead its net zero and sustainability strategy teams.
Kerry is a climate change leader with more than 20 years’ experience driving global organisations to decarbonisation and climate tech investments, founding industry coalitions, and developing climate and ESG funds, policies, metrics and reporting. She joins from Google, where she led the company’s sustainability strategy and company-wide climate plans including net zero, carbon market and removal strategies and incubated the 24/7 Carbon Free Energy Compact. She also drove the data centre water strategy and was a lead advisor on climate risk products.
Most recently, Kerry represented Alphabet on its US$200M investment in early-stage carbon removal and the launch of the first carbon removal Advanced Market Commitment through the founding of Frontier. She served on Frontier’s Founder Advisory Board together with Stripe, Meta, Shopify and McKinsey.
Prior to Google, Kerry spent seven years managing climate change and energy initiatives in the United Nations Secretary-General’s Office, spanning the terms of two Secretary-Generals, Bahn Ki Moon and Antonio Gutierrez. She led the Paris Agreement cities and municipal finance strategies with Climate Special-Envoy Michael Bloomberg’s office and developed country strategies for the Paris Agreement with UNFCCC and the French government. Kerry led UN-wide energy programmes and funds and advised on several climate finance initiatives. These included, the launch of the Secretary-General’s first Special Envoy on Climate Finance, the Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), Climate Action 100+, the Global Investors for Sustainable Development (GISD) and the Net Zero Asset Owners Alliance.
Originally trained in economics and environmental science, Kerry has worked in climate finance both in and with banks, pension funds and hedge funds throughout her career. She serves on the Energy Technical Advisory Committee for the Gold Standard, conducts research on economic incentives for net zero and renewable energy transitions with the Oxford Environmental Change Institute, and has contributed to three IPCC reports.
At Standard Chartered, Kerry will report directly to the Chief Sustainability Officer, Marisa Drew, and will be responsible for driving the emerging market-focused bank’s global sustainability strategy. Her responsibilities will include managing key strategic sustainability initiatives for the Group, overseeing net zero target setting and delivery of the bank’s commitments across scope 1, 2 and 3 and the bank’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting and disclosures.
Marisa Drew, Chief Sustainability Officer at Standard Chartered, said: “I’m delighted to welcome Kerry to our CSO team. As a globally-respected sustainability industry professional with extraordinary expertise across the public and private sectors, Kerry is uniquely positioned to help us achieve our sustainability aspirations. Kerry’s hire reinforces Standard Chartered’s ability to attract best-in-class talent to our franchise and our commitment to sustainability.”
Kerry Constabile commented: “I’ve always admired Standard Chartered’s leadership in sustainable finance in emerging markets and its commitment to mobilise US$300 billion by 2030 for green and transition financing. The bank’s unique global footprint put Standard Chartered in a ground-breaking leadership position to accelerate the net zero transition at the speed and scale the world needs. I am thrilled to join this critical work.”
