Dive Brief:
- HSBC has tapped Denise Odaro, formerly a senior ESG executive at private equity firm PAI Partners, to lead its sustainable finance and transition business across Europe and the Americas, the British bank announced last week.
- Odaro, who will be the head of HSBC’s sustainability-focused business in the regions, has had a two-decade career in the ESG space. Most recently, at PAI, she served as a managing director and head of ESG and sustainability, overseeing accountability for the firm’s ESG value creations plans, due diligence, and how it embedded sustainability across its health care, business services, industrials and consumer goods-focused portfolio companies.
- “[Odaro] brings over 20 years of experience to partner with our clients as they seek to decarbonize and support the scaling of critical transition ecosystems,” HSBC said in a Friday LinkedIn post.
Dive Insight:
Odaro was also responsible for driving decarbonization, supply chain resilience, and diversity initiatives across PAI’s portfolio, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Before joining the Paris-based private equity firm, Odaro spent nearly a decade at the International Finance Corporation — the World Bank Group’s private sector arm — steering its investor relations and sustainable finance coordination.
In the role, she facilitated the issuance of green bonds, oversaw sustainability reporting and “positioned IFC as a sustainable finance innovation leader” through partnerships inked with the World Bank, United Nations, G20 and institutional investors, per her profile.
Odaro’s appointment comes after HSBC announced in January it had hired a former BNP Paribas executive, Chaoni Huang, to lead its sustainable finance and transition business in Asia.
At the time, Huang said she would seek to build on the bank’s sustainability strategy and provide her expertise to clients as “sustainability and climate challenges continue to face significant funding gaps.”
HSBC’s recent appointments come after the bank unveiled an updated net-zero transition strategy in November, which included watered-down sector-specific 2030 targets for energy-intensive sectors including the oil and gas, power and utilities, automotive and aviation industries.
Last year, the bank also delayed its net-zero goal, appointed a new chief sustainability officer and departed the United Nations-aligned Net-Zero Banking Alliance, a climate group which has since ceased its membership-based model.
