Head of Asia Sustainable Finance

**Position title**: Head of Asia Sustainable Finance

**Reports to**: CEO WWF Singapore

**About World Wide Fund for Nature, Singapore (WWF)**:
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is one of the world’s largest and most experienced conservation organizations with a global network of 6000 experts working across the areas most critical to global sustainable development, including food systems, climate and energy, and freshwater, forests and oceans, active in more than 100 countries. Our approach is deeply rooted in science and our mission is to stop the degradation of the planet’s natural environment and to build a future in which people and nature thrive.

WWF views the Finance Sector as a global driver that we must engage successfully to deliver on our long-term conservation mission.

Positioned at the cutting-edge of sustainable finance internationally, WWF’s Finance Practice of 80 experts - including 30 in Asia - is dedicated to supporting and advocating the finance sector to transition to a sustainable and resilient economy by working with key finance sector players including banks, investors, regulators, and stock exchanges, across six focus areas:
**Regulations and Guidelines**: We provide recommendations and facilitate dialogue between regulatory authorities and financial institutions (FIs) to issue harmonized regulations and guidelines that raise the bar for sustainable finance at the national and regional level.

**Standards**: We help FIs understand what makes certain standards and certification schemes credible to help them ensure that their due diligence and verification processes assure robust sustainability practices.

**Capacity Building**: We empower FIs through capacity building on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues through industry-wide workshops and bilateral training sessions. Our trainings cover a range of sectors and thematic focus areas and help FIs to better assess and price risk, value companies, and develop new products.

**Research & Tools**: We conduct research, develop best practice guides, and benchmark FIs’ progress on ESG integration to ensure timely progress towards a resilient and sustainable financial system. We also help FIs to understand and implement cutting-edge tools so they can better understand, measure, and manage evolving ESG risks and opportunities.

**Engagement**: We help investors exert their influence and facilitate large scale, meaningful change by providing research and analysis that supports their engagement with portfolio companies over key ESG issues.

**Green Financial Solutions**: We work with FIs to support the development of green and sustainable financial solutions based on science-based criteria that create measurable environmental and social impacts alongside competitive financial returns. Such solutions include building a pipeline of bankable projects for nature.

In Asia, we work across seven (7) ASEAN countries - Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam - as well as in Japan and South Korea. We focus on sustainability issues related to soft commodities (e.g. agriculture, forestry, and seafood) and infrastructure (incl. energy), in addition to cross-cutting issues such as climate, water and biodiversity.

This is an external-facing position that will lead, develop and support action working with financial sector stakeholders in Asia to help drive sustainable finance best practice in a variety of ways. The position requires the selected individual to lead a team of sustainable finance specialists spread across the Asia region and also work closely with the commodities, food, markets and climate specialists based in other WWF Offices. This position will work closely with WWF Singapore Conservation Director to design and implement sustainable finance interventions that drive impact in WWF’s regional conservation programmes. The position also includes oversight of fundraising strategy, in particular the development of strategic donor relationships.

The work in this area will be broad and diverse, including the oversight of strategy development across WWF’s regional offices, collaboration with WWF Singapore conservation programmes, development of innovative sustainable finance interventions, policy guidance with partner FIs, and the development of new financial products that support more sustainable businesses and supply chains. It is envisaged that this post will facilitate bilateral and multilateral partnerships and alliances with financial institutions/platforms and other relevant stakeholders in Asia, lead and guide key research activities, and collaborate with, and assist other WWF offices as they begin to work with FIs. This is a challenging position that requires thought leadership, flexibility and an entrepreneurial mind-set. It is a strategic and highly visible role which will help shape WWF’s ambition and impact in the financial sector in Asia.

Objectives:
To lead and accelera