ESG investing-the New Normal
Organizer: Professor Michel Librowicz, PhD., Department of Strategy, Social and Environmental Responsibility, ESG-UQAM
LAB Chair and moderator: Professor Marie-France Turcotte, PhD., Department of Strategy, Social and Environmental Responsibility, ESG-UQAM
Date: June 15, 2021
Time: 4 p.m. – 5: 30 p.m. (CET – Central European Time); 10– 11:30 a.m. (Montreal Time).
Description:
Virtually non-existent in the 21st century, the integration of ESG criteria has become widespread over the last decade, to the point of becoming almost unavoidable in recent years. The current pandemic has amplified this trend, which is becoming the “new normal”. Indeed, the awareness of social and environmental inequalities by various stakeholders around the world is bringing ESG issues to the forefront of all investments, whether they are individual, corporate, or even governmental. The integration of ESG criteria is now taking a new form and becoming THE NORM.
To discuss this change, this lab invited key players from three stock exchanges – Canada, Morocco, and Poland – as well as an academic researcher who has been studying this type of investments for decades. They will debate past, present and future developments in sustainable finance. Panelists will address questions such as:
- How have ESG performance metrics evolved and how can these measures be compared?
- How attractive is the demand by foreign investors for companies demonstrating outstanding ESG performance?
- Do individuals, companies, and governments have different approaches to ESG screening?
- What does the research tell us about the financial performance of investments that have incorporated ESG criteria?
Panelists:
Dr. Marek Dietl, President of the Warsaw Stock Exchange
Dr. Tarik Senhaji, President of the Casablanca Stock Exchange
Luc Fortin, President of the Montreal Stock Exchange
Professor Bouchra M’Zali, PhD., Department of Strategy, Social and Environmental Responsibility, ESG-UQAM, head of the African Chair of Innovation and Sustainable Management at University Mohammed VI (Morocco)
Dr. Marek Dietl is the CEO of GPW (Warsaw Stock Exchange) and the economic adviser to the President of Poland. He has spent almost 20 years in the consulting and venture capital industries. He has also been a non-executive board member of more than 25 organizations.
Dr. Dietl frequently undertakes community and academic activities. He used to serve as a mediator at the arbitration court of Financial Supervision Commission and adviser to the President of Energy Regulation Office. Marek Dietl is also an assistant professor at the SGH-Warsaw School of Economics.
Dr. Tarik Senhaji is the General Manager of the Casablanca Stock Exchange.
He is a graduate of the École Polytechnique de Paris and the Ecole Nationale de la Statistique et de l’Administration Economique (ENSAE) in Paris. He began his career as a financial manager at the International Finance Corporation (World Bank Group) in Washington DC. He then held various management positions in London related to capital markets at Société Générale, Dresdner Kleinwort Benson, Calyon CIB and Natixis CIB.
Dr. Tarik Senhaji has accumulated more than 23 years of experience in the financial sector in the Moroccan and international markets. Prior to his appointment as General Manager of the Casablanca Stock Exchange, he was General Manager of Ithmar Capital, Fonds Stratégique d’Investissement and President of Société Marocaine d’Ingénierie Touristique.
Mr. Luc Fortin is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Montréal Exchange (MX) and Global Head of Trading, TMX Group. His key responsibilities include leading growth in TMX’s equities, derivatives, and fixed income trading businesses and delivering a world-class experience to our global client base. In 2021, his mandate expanded to include oversight and strategic direction of CDCC and CDS, TMX’s post-trade businesses and crucial components of Canada’s capital markets infrastructure.
Mr. Fortin joined MX as Managing Director, Derivatives Trading in June 2016, following a 25-year career in Canada’s capital markets industry leading client-facing teams in fixed income and derivatives. Prior to joining MX, he served as Managing Director, Canadian Head of the Institutional Client Group at HSBC (Canada). In this role, Mr. Fortin led HSBC’s institutional client-facing businesses in rates and credit, derivatives, foreign exchange and money markets across Canada. Prior to HSBC, he held senior leadership positions at TD Bank and TD Securities. Mr. Fortin is a graduate of the TD Securities Leadership program at Ivey Business School and holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Ottawa. He has served as Board Chair of CANMarket Data and was an Investment Industry Association of Canada board member from 2006-2010.
Bouchra Mzali, Ph.D., CFA is a senior professor at ESG-Université du Québec à Montréal (Canada) and head of the African Chair of Innovation and Sustainable Management at University Mohammed VI (Morocco). She is also a researcher at the Chair on Social Responsibility and Sustainable Development at ESG-UQAM and at the International Academy of the Interdisciplinary Research Centers (AICRI). Holder of a Ph.D. in finance and of a CFA, she has supervised numerous Ph.D. and master’s students in Canada, Europe, and North Africa. She has developed various international collaborations, including her previous students. She co-published numerous academic papers, book chapters and articles. She organized and participated in numerous scientific international conferences, where some of their work received awards and recognition (Canadian Award: ASAC: in 2005, 2006 and 2011; the SAB Trophy for Sustainable Finance: in 2013).
In 2018, with her co-authors, she received the award for best research in finance granted by Finance Montreal (IFD-Principles for Responsible Investment: United Nations, Canada). Also in 2018, her paper (in co-authorship) was selected by the Journal of Business Ethics as one of the seven publications that will mark research for the next decade. She is also involved in executive training in many countries, including Algeria, Cameroon, China, Guinea, Malaysia, and Morocco, Poland, and Vietnam.
Marie-France Turcotte, Ph.D., is a professor of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) at the School of Management Sciences of the Université du Québec à Montréal (ESG, UQAM). She has been teaching CSR for the past 25 years. She is also the director of the French-speaking office of the Réseau entreprise et développement durable (REDD) since its inception. REDD works to mobilize scientific knowledge among decision-makers in organizations (https://redd.nbs.net/). She is actively engaged in research in the fields of CSR and ESG investments. She has obtained several grants and research contracts since the beginning of her career. As an author or co-author, she has published nearly one hundred texts – articles in scientific journals, book chapters and conference proceedings. She recently published a CSR guide for business managers. This guide includes a CSR diagnostic tool and practical examples.
Michel Librowicz holds an MBA from Columbia University, New York, and a Ph.D. from the Université de Paris 1 – Sorbonne, Paris. He has been teaching at the École des Sciences de la gestion of the University of Quebec in Montreal (ESG-UQAM) since 1975. In 1984, he established the academic unit in International Business at the ESG- UQAM. In 1995, he was elected Director of the Philippe-Pariseault Chair for training in Agro-food Market Globalization, a position he held until June 2010. Professor Librowicz is co-founder and current Canadian Director of the Canadian Executive MBA program (CEMBA) at the Warsaw School of Economics, the oldest economics and business school in Poland. The CEMBA program has been ranked among the top three Executive MBA programs in the Republic of Poland.
Besides teaching international business at the ESG-UQAM, he also taught in the Executive MBA program established by UQAM in China, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, France, Mexico, Peru, and Poland.
During the period 1987-1997, Professor Librowicz was Chairman of the Board of the Quebec Chamber of Commerce Association (Association des Maisons de Commerce du Québec). He currently holds the position of President of the Canada-Poland Chamber of Commerce in Montreal.