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AGES Speaker

Shameela Soobramoney is the CEO of the National Business Initiative (NBI), an independent coalition of local and multinational businesses focusing on taking action to achieve social and environmental sustainability, underpinned by good governance.  

Shameela, formerly the Chief Sustainability Officer at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), led the JSE’s Sustainability and Climate Change Disclosure Guidance initiative, which won the 2022 award for Thought Leadership in Sustainable Investing: Africa from Environmental Finance.  

Her notable contributions include advancing the JSE’s exploration of climate change, carbon credit trading, and sustainable finance frameworks. She has served as chair of the World Federation of Exchange’s (global) Sustainability Working Group, a member of the Strategy Group of the Global Investors for Sustainable Development Alliance (GISD), and chair of the Sustainable Finance Working Group of the National Treasury of South Africa. 

 Shameela is the winner of the SERAS Africa CSR/Sustainability Professional 2021 and the IRMSA ESG Sustainability Professional 2020 awards. She currently serves as a non-executive director for WWF South Africa and the Green Building Council South Africa. Shameela holds a Master’s in Sustainability Leadership from the University of Cambridge and an MBA from the University of Pretoria’s Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS). She is an alum of the Chevening and Mansion House scholarships.