About the Speakers

​Professor Andreas G.F. Hoepner, Ph.D., is a Financial Data Scientist working towards the vision of a Conflict-Free Capitalism, reducing abusive conflicts of interests and enhancing the fairness of our society’s financial system. Formally, Andreas is Full Professor of Operational Risk, Banking & Finance at the Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School & the Lochlann Quinn School of Business of University College Dublin (UCD), serves on the schools’ management team as Vice Principal (VP) for Research, Innovation & Impact (2021-) and leads the GreenWatch research group (2020-), a.o. Prof. Hoepner is serving as Head of the Data Science Hub of the European Union’s 2nd Platform on Sustainable Finance (PSF2), having also served on the EU’s 1st Platform on Sustainable Finance (PSF1, 2021-2023) and the EU’s Technical Expert Group (TEG) on Sustainable Finance (2018-2020). Before joining UCD in June 2017, Andreas was Associate Professor of Finance at the ICMA Centre of Henley Business School (2013-17), where he remains a Visiting Professor of Finance. He is also Visiting Professor in Financial Data Science at the University of Hamburg. Andreas received his PhD from St. Andrews in June 2010, where he was on faculty (2009-13). He co-founded and co-chair(ed) two socially motivated enterprises: ReFine Research which praised transparent pension funds (2013-21) and Sociovestix Labs (SVL), a spin-off from the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence [DFKI]). Prof. Hoepner also advised the United Nations (2021) and EU’s DG INTPA (2022-23) on Green Taxonomies across continents and consulted for organisations such as EBRD, EIB, EIF, EU JRC, GIZ, NZ Super, UNICEF or the World Bank.Beyond academic honours too numerous to include here, Prof. Hoepner’s research and views have been covered in a wide range of international media When interpreting academic behaviour, Andreas follows the credo: evidence is discovered, theories are promoted.

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​Fabiola Schneider is Asst. Prof. in Accountancy at the University College Dublin (UCD) School of Business. As an Ad Astra Fellow, her research is dedicated to advancing UCD’s strategic theme of creating a sustainable global society. Previously Fabiola was appointed Asst. Prof. of Finance at Dublin City University (DCU).

Fabiola's current research addresses the climate emergency and sustainable transitions, with papers on fossil fuel financing published. Moreover, publications on emission reporting and impact investing are in progress. Her PhD thesis at the University College Dublin (UCD) Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School revolved around climate transition accounting and finance.

This research is complemented with policy related work. Fabiola was appointed as a member of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) Sustainability Standing Committee and the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Scope 3 Technical Working Group. For the last two mandates, she served as Sherpa to the European Commission's Platform on Sustainable Finance, working on the EU Green Taxonomy.

Fabiola co-leads GreenWatch which - funded by Enterprise Ireland - applies AI to detect greenwashing in the market (https://greenwatch.ai/).

She frequently engages with media and features on podcasts. See here for her Financial Times opinion piece: https://www.ft.com/content/37ac4900-a0d8-4e82-9850-ba4a5ad3ac6d

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​Eila Kreivi is a former Director, Head of Capital Markets and Chief Sustainable Finance Advisor of the European Investment Bank (EIB). She left the Bank in retirement in 2024 after 29 years. Subsequently, in March 2024 she joined the Board of Directors of Finnvera, a state-owned special financing company in Finland and in July 2024, she joined the Board of Directors of the International Finance Facility for Immunisation, which raises funds for Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.

Ms Kreivi joined EIB in 1995 as a capital markets officer. She went on to become the Head of Funding for the Americas, Asia & Pacific and headed the Capital Markets Department as its Director from April 2011 to January 2022. Between March 2018 and January 2022, and she was an alternate Board member of the European Investment Fund (EIF). She served as Chief Sustainable Finance Advisor reporting to the Secretary General from February 2022 to February 2024. Prior to joining EIB, she worked at the Union Bank of Finland and Société Générale in Helsinki and Paris.

Ms Kreivi chaired the Executive Committee of the Green Bond Principles (2015-2018), represented the EIB at the High Level Expert Group on sustainable finance (2017-2018), Technical Expert Group on Sustainable Finance (2018-2020) and the Platform on Sustainable Finance (2020-2025).

She was a member of the Board of Directors of the International Capital Market Association (ICMA) from July 2020 to August 2024.

Additionally, she has been involved as an external expert to the High-Level Working Group on the Environmental Consequences of the War in Ukraine. She also acted as an expert of the Geostrategic Europe Task Force, hosted by Jacques Delors Energy Centre.

She holds a Master of Science degree in Economics from the University of Abo Akademi in Finland.

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Anthony Smith-Meyer is the Executive Director of the Institute for Financial Integrity and Sustainability and a specialist within Governance, Compliance and topics relating to organisational behaviour and company direction. He is the author of “Unlocking the Potential of Diversity in Organisations: Governance of Inclusion in a Racialised World”.  Published by Springer October 2022 and the undergraduate textbook “Surviving Organisational Behaviour”. After over 30 years in mainstream banking, he founded, and was Editor-in-Chief of, the Journal of Business Compliance in January 2012 until 2016. In 2016 he launched a governance idea creation platform “theGovernanceProject.org”, many of which objectives are now integrated into IFIS.  Previously Head of Group Compliance at Fortis Group and a member of the Group Executive Committee of Compliance and Control at BNP Paribas.  From 2009 to 2023 Anthony taught International Business and Management courses, amongst other at Miami University and as an  independent executive lecturer and instructor delivering Master Classes in Company Direction and Compliance Management at the UK International Compliance Association and Manchester Business School. Anthony holds the Institute of Directors Diploma in Corporate Direction and was awarded Certified Director status by the Institut Luxembourgeois des Administrateurs in 2013.