Our Team
Our team is comprised of university professors and investment professionals with economics, finance and sustainability background and years of experience in sustainable finance.
Timo Busch
Timo Busch is a full professor at the School of Business, Economics and Social Science of University of Hamburg (Germany) and Senior Fellow at the Center for Sustainable Finance and Private Wealth of University of Zurich (Switzerland). He gives lectures at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich and taught at the Duisenberg School of Finance (The Netherlands). Timo Busch had several research stays including John Molson School of Business (Canada), Amsterdam Business School (The Netherlands), Nanyang Business School (Singapore), and University of Berkeley (US). He was United Nations delegate at the Rio +20 Conference on Sustainable Development. Timo Busch is a member of the Scientific Board of the Association for Environmental Management and Sustainability in Financial Institutions (VfU). He is a member of the editorial board of the journals Organization & Environment, Journal of Business Ethics, and Business Strategy and the Environment. His work was published in international journals including Business & Society, Business Strategy and the Environment, California Management Review, Ecological Economics, Energy Economics, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Industrial Ecology, Long Range Planning, Scandinavian Management Journal, and Strategic Management Journal.
Alexander Bassen
Alexander Bassen is a full professor of capital markets and management at the University of Hamburg, Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Science (Germany). He teaches courses in finance and investment, ESG and capital markets and reporting. Alex Bassen is a member of the German Council for Sustainable Development – advisory body of the German Federal Government, the Sustainable Finance Advisory Council of the German Federal Government, and the German Advisory Council on Global Change of the German Federal Government. He is an Honorary Research Associate at the University of Oxford (Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment) and a Visiting Professor at the Hong Kong Baptist University. In addition, he serves as a member on several advisory committees for sustainable finance. His work has been published in e.g. Energy Economics, Organisation and Environment, Energy Policy, Journal of Sustainable Finance & Investment, Journal of Business Economics, and Applied Economics.
Wolfgang Drobetz
Wolfgang Drobetz is Full Professor of Finance at the University of Hamburg. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of St. Gallen and completed his Habilitation at the University of Basel. Wolfgang taught financial theory at the Bucerius Law School, the WHU Otto Beisheim Graduate School, and the IAE Business School. His research interests include corporate finance, corporate governance, asset management, and ship finance. Wolfgang’s research has been published in leading academic and practitioner journals. He is a member of the editorial board of several academic journals, served as co-president of the European Financial Management Association, and is a director of the Hamburg Financial Research Center (HFRC).
Kerstin Lopatta
Kerstin Lopatta is Chair Professor of Financial Accounting, Auditing and Sustainability at the School of Business, Economics and Social Science of the University of Hamburg and Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Law, Economics and Finance of the University of Luxembourg. She has worked as an auditor at a Big 4 audit company and has completed several international research stays including City University Hong Kong and New York University’s Stern School of Business. Her work in sustainable finance and sustainable accounting is published in international high ranked journals. In her research, she investigates empirically the effects of environmental, social, and governance factors on business and society. She also analyzes the impact of financial accounting regulations on business decisions. Finally, she covers corporate governance topics such as board structure and diversity. Kerstin Lopatta serves on the management committee of the Sustainable Finance Research Platform and is a director of the Global Research Alliance for Sustainable Finance and Investment (GRASFI).
Falko Paetzold
Falko Paetzold is assistant professor in Social Finance at EBS University and the Initiator and Director of the first university unit focused on the intersection of sustainability and private wealth, the Center for Sustainable Finance and Private Wealth (CSP) at University of Zurich. The Center is a spin-off from the Impact Investing for the Next Generation program for owners of private wealth that he co-initiated when he was a Fellow at the Initiative for Responsible Investment at Harvard University. Falko was a sustainability analyst at Bank Vontobel AG in Zurich, and advised banks and family offices as a partner with the Contrast Capital consultancy. He founded the network GreenBuzz that enables intra-preneurs to drive sustainability in their firms. Falko holds a PhD from University of Zurich and an MBA from University of St. Gallen (HSG) in Switzerland. During and after his PhD he was a researcher at ETH Zurich, Fellow at Harvard University, and Post-Doc at MIT Sloan.
Matthias Stapelfeldt
Matthias Stapelfeldt, a qualified banker, worked in two major German banks from 1984-1992 in private wealth management in Germany and abroad, as well as in portfolio management. Since 1992, he has held various management positions at Union Investment in the areas of market, strategy and communication. Until February 2020, he was responsible for the development and implementation of the sustainability strategy for the Union Investment Group. Further, he was a member of the German government’s Sustainable Finance Advisory Council until February 2020. He currently holds board positions at the Verein für Umweltmanagement und Nachhaltigkeit in Finanzinstituten e.V. (VfU), in the Green and Sustainable Finance Cluster Germany e.V. as well as in FIRST e.V.
Sebastian Utz
Sebastian Utz is a Professor of Climate Finance at the University of Augsburg. Before, he was an Assistant Professor at the University of St. Gallen. He studied mathematics and business administration at the University of Augsburg and completed his PhD in business administration at the University of Regensburg in 2012. His research and teaching focus is on sustainable investments and in particular the integration of ESG criteria into portfolio models and investment solutions. He also investigated the impact of various ESG and climate criteria on financial performance and investment risk. His research has been published in leading international academic journals such as Operations Research, Journal of Business Ethics and Financial Analysts Journal and has been awarded various prizes such as the HSG Impact Award 2021. Since 2012, he has been a member of the CRICTANK of the Association for the Promotion of Ethics and Sustainability in Investment (CRIC).
Ulrich Eilebrecht
Management
Ulrich Eilebrecht, who studied administrative science, is currently self-employed as a management consultant and project developer after holding various management positions in different municipalities, most recently as one of the first full-time mayors in North Rhine-Westphalia and managing director of a housing association.
Julian Kölbel
Julian Kölbel is assistant professor of sustainable finance at the University of St. Gallen, School of Finance and Center for Financial Services Innovation. He is also a research affiliate at MIT Sloan, where he is a co-founder of the Aggregate Confusion Project, and faculty member of the Swiss Finance Institute. His research covers the real-world impact of sustainable investing, analysis of environmental, social and governance (ESG) metrics, and investor preferences for sustainability. Julian has studied at ETH Zurich and the University of Oxford. Next to his academic work, he serves on the investment committee of the Swiss pension fund Abendrot.
Roland KölschT
Standards & Labels
Roland Kölsch, former traditional and Lipper award winning SRI fund manager is responsible for SRI standards & labels, especially for the german-speaking SRI quality standard, the FNG-Label.
He has been active in the field of sustainable investments since 2005: Initially as a fund manager and team leader at one of the major SRI pioneers in Brussels (Dexia AM, today Candriam), then as an SRI product specialist at LGT Capital Management in Switzerland before becoming Head of Asset Management at Alternative Bank Switzerland, where he helped build up the sustainable asset management division. Classically trained as a banker and portfolio manager at Deutsche Bank and following university lectures, he currently also contributes his expertise to working groups of the EU and the Sustainable Finance Advisory Board of the German Government out of Paris. His private passion is rowing.