James is a sustainability strategist and systems thinker with a background of twenty-five years senior management experience in sustainable finance and business. He has provided leadership for organisations and projects and served on a wide range of business and charity boards and governing bodies.
James is CEO of Repattern.org, supporting organisations and their stakeholders in effective ecosystem innovation and strategy for sustainability transformation. Through Repattern, James acts a strategy advisor to a number of regenerative businesses, NGOs and projects. He led the development of the WWF Nature-based Solutions Accelerator. He was the Executive Director and Chief Catalyst of the Climate Safe Lending Network – a multistakeholder initiative to catalyse the decarbonisation of the banking sector. And before that was Group Director of Strategy for Triodos Bank – Europe’s leading international sustainable bank and investment manager). In his 21-year career at Triodos, James set up and managed the UK investment business comprising corporate finance and crowdfunding services, venture capital fund management and fund distribution.
James served on the Global Steering Committee for the UNEP Finance Initiative and was one of the founding developers of the UN Principles for Responsible Banking launched in 2019. He is on the advisory panel for the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), the delivery group of the UK Government’s Transition Plan Taskforce and on the advisory group of the Horizon Europe landscape restoration project, NATURESCAPES.
James is a Senior Associate of the Cambridge Institute and senior fellow of the Finance Innovation Lab having previously served as the Chair of the Board of Trustees. James is a non-executive director of Regen and a Senior advisor for Club of Rome. He is also an advisor and investor in the Cambridge-based climate solutions venture-builder, Carbon-13. He is the author of several reports and papers on sustainable finance and impact investing (including the UN’s Global Environment Outlook on Sustainable Finance and G7 Taskforce on Social Impact Investment), and a regular speaker at events and conferences on sustainable business, innovation and positive impact finance.