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Latifahaida Abdul Latif Abdul Latif
Assistant Director for Analysis and Monitoring on Finance and Socioeconomic Issues of The ASEAN SecretariatLatifahaida is an international trade negotiator specialising in the financial sector. She joins the ASEAN Secretariat as Assistant Director responsible for the analysis and monitoring of finance and socioeconomic issues which include sustainability agenda for the ASEAN Economic Community. Prior to this, Latifahaida was a Trade and Commercial Advisor with the British High Commission, Kuala Lumpur; Deputy Director of International Department at Bank Negara Malaysia; and Assistant Director at the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, Malaysia.
Latifahaida is a passionate advocate of feminist economics. She graduated with a Bachelor degree in Accounting from Universiti Sains Malaysia and completed her Masters degree (MSc) in Political Economy of Development from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London.
Esther An
Chief Sustainability Officer at City Developments Limited (CDL)An active advocate for green building and sustainability for over two decades, Esther has been instrumental in establishing CDL’s leadership in sustainability. It is ranked top real estate company on the 2021 Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World. It became the first real estate conglomerate in Southeast Asia to sign the WorldGBC’s Net Zero Carbon Buildings in February 2021. Key ESG initiatives she has spearheaded include publishing the first sustainability report in Singapore in 2008; issuing the first green bond by a Singaporean company in 2017 and building an integrated sustainability reporting framework since 2015.
A forerunner in embracing the UN SDGs, Esther was conferred 2018 SDG Pioneer for Green Infrastructure and A Low Carbon Economy by the UN Global Compact. She is also a signatory for the UNGC Caring for Climate network and an executive council member of the UN ESCAP Sustainable Business Network. She sits on the boards or advisory platforms of several organisations, including World Green Building Council, Global Reporting Initiative, GRESB Asian Real Estate Benchmark Committee and UNEP FI Real Estate Work Group. She chairs the Asia Pacific Real Estate Association’s Sustainability and ESG Committee; Co-Chairs the Urban Land Institute Singapore’s Sustainability Product Council and is the Vice-Chairperson of the Singapore Institute of Directors’ ESG Committee.
Karim Ghannam
Co-Founder & Partner of 8F Asset ManagementKarim has 24 years of experience in fund management and investment banking. Prior to founding 8F, Karim joined Deutsche Bank Group in 2011 where he headed Alternatives & Fund solutions in Asia Pacific for Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management. Prior to that, Karim was the global co-head of DB Private Equity & Private Markets and co-chair of the Global Investment Committee. He was the Global Head of Private Markets within Deutsche Bank’s Wealth Management business with overall responsibility for product selection, structuring and management within the private equity, real estate and credit space.
Before joining Deutsche Bank, Karim was at Argan Capital, a European mid-market private equity fund whose predecessor was Bank of America Capital Partners, where he spent 10 years, most recently as a Partner responsible for principal investments. A member of the investment committee at Argan, Karim helped oversee over €600m of investments and led a number of European private equity deals, including structuring financing, implementing strategic change and exercising executive and board control.
Prior to joining the Argan team in 2001, he worked with Merrill Lynch in London and Lehman Brothers in New York, where he concentrated on financing and M&A transactions for industrial growth, energy and power, and telecommunications companies. Karim holds a Masters degree from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales and a Bachelor of Commerce from McGill University.
U-Yun Wong
Principal, Private Equity, Asia Pacific at DuPont Sustainable Solutions (DSS)U-Yun is the APAC leader for the Private Equity Practice at DuPont Sustainable Solutions (“DSS”). At DSS, he advises private equity firms and principal investors on value creation for their portfolio companies, leveraging on DSS’ deep subject matter expertise across operational risk management, operational excellence, and ESG.
Ralph Justin Dixon
Director of Environmental Investments at YTL Corporation BerhadRalph Dixon is the Director of Environmental Investments at YTL Corporation Berhad, The Group’s core businesses are ownership and management of regulated utilities and other infrastructure assets, serving more than 12 million customers on three continents. Ralph has been with YTL for more than fourteen years managing the environmental investment and sustainability divisions for the Group. Ralph is also the CEO of their carbon consulting subsidiary (YTL-SV Carbon).
Ralph has also served as a Trustee of the Malaysian AIDS Foundation, Chairman of the Pediatric AIDS Fund, and is an alternate Trustee of Reef Check Malaysia, and Chairman of Save Wild Tigers (M) LLP.
Previously, Ralph worked in investment banking for 15 years with Hoare Govett, Hong Leong and Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein. Following that, he moved into manufacturing in 2001 as the Chief Executive Officer of the paper converting factories of Detpak in Indonesia and South Africa supplying to McDonalds, Starbucks, KFC and other major quick service restaurants, hotels and bakeries. He then worked with Hong Leong Asia in Singapore as Chief Executive Officer for their recycled wood packaging subsidiary, GPac Technology before joining YTL Corporation Berhad in Malaysia in 2007. Ralph Dixon graduated from the University of Warwick, United Kingdom, with a B.Sc. (hons) in Management Sciences. He also has a Diploma in Mandarin from the National Taiwan Normal University.