2021

Jeremy Casebeer is a professional beach volleyball player working to use his platform in sport to scale social and environmental impact. He is the Project Manager for the AVP Tour and Waste Management (WM) Climate Action Plan, he is an ambassador for Parley for the Oceans and the Forest Stewardship Council, focuses his sponsorships as an athlete on sustainable brands that share his values, and is on the Board of Players for the Planet and AVP First.

Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum is the Head of the climate change and health unit at WHO Headquarters. He has worked on the issue for over 20 years, playing key roles in the first quantitative estimates of global health impacts of climate change, resolutions of the World Health Assembly, WHO global conferences, and the expansion of WHO’s climate change and health support to over 30 low and middle income countries. Diarmid is author of over 100 journal papers, reports, and book chapters, a lead author on three Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, and of the first health report to the UN Climate Negotiations. A keen cyclist, he rode from Geneva to Paris for WHO’s 2nd global conference on Health and Climate Change,

Ian is the Chief Executive Officer for the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games and for the last 2 years has been overseeing the establishment of the Organising Committee and early stages of planning and delivery of the city and the region’s largest-ever cultural and sporting event.

He brings a wealth of Games, finance and commercial experience to this role, having served as Chief Financial Officer and Company Secretary for the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games from 2009 to 2015, leading the Corporate Services and Support Functions including finance, legal, procurement, HR, programme management and office management. The event procured almost £250m of goods and services, recruited 1,500 staff and exceeded attendance and commercial targets.

Ian’s previous roles include Head of Commercial Finance for AG Barr plc and sat on the Board of Funkin Cocktails Limited.

At Envision Virgin Racing, Jenn forms part of the team’s executive management and is responsible for all non-race specific affairs, from HR to our ‘Race Against Climate Change’ strategy, our Carbon Neutrality status to Partnership Agreements, business optimisation to corporate governance, and anything else you can think of in between.

With over 10 years working in renewables, Jenn is passionate about using Formula E as a platform to accelerate our transition to a zero-carbon future so that she can look herself in the mirror every day and know that she is doing what she can to make a difference.

Prior to joining the Team in February 2019, Jenn was Chief of Staff at the UK Green Investment Bank, the UK’s £3.8bn green investment fund, established to commercialise green investment into renewable energy projects within the UK and was responsible, amongst other things, for advising the Chief Executive on key business and strategic priorities. Before that she was Legal Counsel at Element Power, a wind and solar power producer overseeing their northern European wind and solar developments, and responsible for global tax planning and HR, and before that a Senior Associate at Norton Rose Fulbright, in their London office, specialising in corporate finance and private equity investments.

In addition to her work with the team, Jenn is also Chairman of Fulcrum Group – a leading provider of utility infrastructure and services in the UK.

Born in Middlesbrough, but spending a large part of her early childhood in Kwangyang, South Korea, and then studying Law at Oxford University, Jenn now lives in London with her husband and 2 children.

Karina is a retired Olympic bronze medalist and professional athlete who has the distinguished honor of being one of the longest serving soccer players in Canadian history. With a prestigious career that spanned almost 18 years at the international level, she participated in 5 FIFA World Cups and 2 Olympic Games, winning an Olympic medal at the 2012 London Games and making history for Canada. In her latest achievement, Karina was named to the Canada Soccer Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2020.

Since 2018, Karina has been the Head of Women’s Football for CONCACAF and its 41 countries. This has been the perfect position in connecting her passion with purpose, as she works to lead the confederation in seeing that football has the power to change young girls lives through the sport.

In addition to this, Karina is a Unicef Ambassador, a FIFA Legend and the President of the Karina LeBlanc foundation, a charity that mentors and provides scholarships to young women in sport. Recently Karina was named an Honorary Captain of the Royal Canadian Navy.

 

Niclas Svenningsen is the Manager for the Global Climate Action team in the UNFCCC Secretariat (“UN Climate Change”). In this capacity he is responsible for the development and implementation of UN Climate Change’s work with non-party stakeholders to take action to help governments to reach the well-below-2-degrees- target, set in the Paris Agreement. This includes a wide ranging cooperation and coordination with climate action initiatives across a range of sectors and topics; Tracking and reporting of climate action commitments by private sector and civil society; and Outreach and support, including to youth, for awareness raising, education, training and public participation in the climate action agenda.

Niclas was previously working in the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), where he was in charge of the climate neutral strategy of the UN system, as well as for the implementation of UNEP’s programmes for sustainable buildings, urban development, and sustainable procurement. He also spent ten years at UNEP’s regional office for Asia and the Pacific in Bangkok where he managed a range of different technical support programmes. Niclas has a background in civil engineering and environmental law from Lund University in Sweden

Isabella Burczak is the Advocacy & Development Manager for the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), the world governing body for cycling. She is responsible for the UCI’s initiatives and partnerships with regard to the promotion of cycling for all, collaborating with cities and regions, national federations, NGOs and cycling advocacy organisations worldwide to promote the growth of cycling as both a sustainable form of transport and healthy recreational activity, whilst developing strategies to ensure elite cycling can drive and inspire wider participation and social impact. Isabella previously worked for the International Olympic Committee, involved in the delivery of five Olympic Games between 2006 and 2016.

Dr Natalia Kurek graduated from the University of Nottingham Medical School and is currently the Senior Clinical Lead for the Greener NHS National Programme at NHS England and Improvement.

 Following completion of core surgical training, Natalia joined Professor the Lord Ara Darzi at the Institute of Global Health Innovation, Imperial College London, as his clinical advisor and private secretary. Throughout her time there she supported with the policy and research developed across the institute, whilst also supporting Lord Darzi directly with parliamentary engagements, and industry collaborations. In 2020 Natalia published a report with Dr David Nabarro, ‘Health in the climate crisis. A guide for health leaders’ which was presented at the World Innovation Summit for Health in Doha.

 She has since joined the Greener NHS team where she contributed to the ‘Delivering a Net Zero NHS‘ report and her current portfolio focuses on delivering sustainable models of care in partnership with the whole NHS workforce, looking at the role that research and innovation have to play in this agenda and the importance of health system resilience to climate change.

Maarten de Fockert was a professional footballplayer at S.B.V. Excelsior until summer 21. He joined the player community in We Play Green, and has been involved in the creation and is also the spokesman and stand in for Morten Thorsby and the foundation. In the Netherlands he works for Team Players using football as a platform for abetter world. Maarten is hosting the Cor Potcast, a weekly show with 3 (ex)professional players who give insight behind the scenes. Besides that they discus social themes such as mental health and climate change. Maarten is also a podcasthost, student in cultural sciences and most of all aguy who wants to make this world a better place.

Lauren Tracy is the Director of Strategic Initiatives for the United States Tennis Association, a not-for-profit organization which serves as the national governing body for the sport of tennis in the U.S. and the leader in promoting and developing the growth of tennis at every level — from local communities to the highest level of the professional game. The USTA owns and operates the US Open, one of the highest-attended annual sporting event in the world. Lauren is responsible for executing many of the USTA’s organizational priorities, including the US Open’s award-winning environmental sustainability program, which is uniquely tailored to accommodate the more than 800,000 fans visiting the tournament grounds during the three weeks of the event. For this program, she develops and maintains relationships with the USTA’s environmental partners, handles the marketing and communications, and oversees the program’s overall growth. Since the US Open environmental sustainability program’s inception in 2008, she and her team have increased the event’s diversion rate by more than 200 percent, with plans for continued success in the future.

Lauren also oversees and manages the USTA’s athlete safety program which includes the activities and functions related to the USTA’s efforts to foster safe, healthy, and positive sport environments. Lauren received her B.A. from the University of Delaware and her M.B.A. from Marist College.