Marc-André Blanchard

Executive Vice-President and Head of CDPQ Global, Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ)

Mr. Blanchard is responsible for coordinating CDPQ’s international operations. He oversees CDPQ’s international offices, ensuring the organization’s positioning as an investment partner of choice. He also supports the international growth and development of Québec companies. In addition, he oversees the organization’s sustainability orientations and activities and leads CDPQ’s strategy to integrate ESG factors into all investment activities.  

Before joining CDPQ in September 2020, he was Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Canada to the United Nations in New York from 2016 to 2020.  Prior to that, he was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of McCarthy Tétrault, one of Canada’s leading law firms.  

Gaya Herrington

Vice President, Sustainability Research, Schneider Electric

Gaya is an internationally known sustainability researcher and wellbeing economist, living in Seattle. A regular guest lecturer and keynote and TED speaker, Gaya has been shaping conversations at local and global levels with her message that true sustainability will not be achieved without transforming our economic system away from an obsession with perpetual growth to one that centers around human and ecological wellbeing. Her work, which also includes a book publication and a peer-reviewed article in Yale's Journal of Industrial Ecology which went viral in 2021, offers a vision for something society would want to do even if it was not faced with impending ecosystem breakdown: re-design our economy to something that meets all human needs – physical, emotional, and spiritual – within planetary boundaries by design.  

Showcasing her multidimensional approach to effecting change, Gaya has held pivotal roles in both policy and the corporate world. She's currently working as Vice President at Schneider Electric, a multinational working in the energy transition, which was voted most sustainable corporation in the world by Time Magazine in 2024 and by Corporate Knights in 2025. Gaya is a Member of the Club of Rome, a global think tank, and of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Working Group for a Wellbeing Economy in the US. She has one Master's degree in Econometrics from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and another in Sustainability from Harvard University. 

Catherine McKenna

Founder and CEO, Climate & Nature Solutions; Chair of the United Nations high-level expert group on net zero emissions commitments of non-state entities.

Catherine McKenna is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Climate and Nature Solutions. She is Canada's former Minister of Environment and Climate Change as well as Minister of Infrastructure. She is Chair of the UN Secretary General’s High-Level Expert Group on Net-Zero Commitments of Non-State Entities which released its Integrity Matters report at COP 27 setting out criteria for net zero commitments of business, financial institutions, cities and regions. She founded Women Leading on Climate and a Visiting Professor in Practice at the Grantham Research Institute at the London School of Economics. She is an advisor to the Climate Data Steering Committee for the Macron/Bloomberg Net Zero Data Public Utility, Singapore's International Advisory Panel for Carbon Credits, the Taskforce on Net Zero Policy, the LSE Just Transition Finance Lab, as well as to the University of Ottawa's Information Integrity Lab. She is a graduate of the University of Toronto, the London School of Economics and McGill Law School and is called to the Bars of Ontario and New York.  She advises many private sector boards. She is a frequent speaker on climate action, net zero leadership and women empowerment. 

Philippe Zaouati

CEO, Mirova

A pioneer of green and sustainable finance, Philippe Zaouati leads Mirova, an asset management company specializing in sustainable investment, which he founded within Natixis in 2014. After a career in various financial institutions, he is fully dedicated to the development of responsible investment. In particular, he chaired the Responsible Investment Commissions of the French Association for Financial Management (AFG) and the European Association for Funds and Asset Management (EFAMA) and participated in the emergence of the theme of sustainable finance in several international organizations, including the International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN). Eager to make Paris one of the leaders of greener and fairer finance, Philippe Zaouati co-founded in 2016 the Finance for Tomorrow initiative (newly called the Institute of Sustainable Finance), which he chaired until 2019. 
 

In addition to his professional duties, Philippe Zaouati contributes to the political debate in France and is committed to a profound transformation of economic and financial systems. It promotes an impact economy that strives to preserve nature. Involved in the public debate, Philippe Zaouati contributed to the drafting of Emmanuel Macron’s presidential program on the environment, before being the referent of La République en marche in Paris from 2017 to 2018. 
Author of several books including “Green Finance Begins in Paris” in 2018 and “Finance Faced with Planetary Boundaries” (dialogue with the philosopher Dominique Bourg, 2023), he contributed to market and regulatory developments in France and Europe. 
 

Philippe Zaouati is also the author of several novels, including “The Refusals of Grigori Perelman”, whose English translation was published by the American Mathematical Society, “State of the Union” (2022) and “Naufrages” (2024). 
Philippe Zaouati graduated from the National School of Statistics and Economic Administration (ENSAE), he teaches and lectures on sustainable finance in different French and foreign schools and universities. 
He also works with young entrepreneurs and press and publishing companies (So Good, Chut Magazine, The Publisher Apart) as a business angel.