Chairs

Jess is a presenter, commentator and content creator across sport, sustainability, adventure & nature. She works with the likes of Sky Sports, Eurosport and ITV covering events such as Formula E, Extreme E, Golden Trail World Series and SailGP. She is also co-founder of environmental start-up Carbon Jacked – where they believe that saving the planet shouldn’t be boring and focus on helping organisations get the people part of sustainability right. Most recently, Jess co-founded Second Nature Sisters with Fiona Morgan – a free and fierce kick-ass community for women who work (or want to work) in sustainability. Jess is all about adding spice to sustainability and everything she does.

Lauren Teague knows the secret to building a great business is cultivating fandom rather than followers. She is a sought-after business strategist, an acclaimed speaker, and the founder of the re-commerce startup FanWagn.

As an original sports social media lead, Lauren spent seven seasons as the voice of @PGATOUR and transformed how professional golf connects with fans online.

Lauren’s entrepreneurial endeavors are powered by collaboration. She is President of the National Speakers Association Oregon chapter and active in Women in Sports & Entertainment (WISE). Previously, she was a Marketing Strategist with Convince & Convert and Brain+Trust Partners, co-produced Sports PR Summit, co-hosted the Mom Buns Podcast, and was the President of her children’s co-op preschool.

Lauren used to be a single-digit handicap golfer but now gets in 9 at a time — usually on the local par-3 course — with at least one of her three #TinyTeagues. You can find and follow her on social media as @LaurenTTeague.

Meredith recently joined IUCN as Programme Leader – Sports for Nature, leading the long-term strategy and implementation of the initiative to engage sport organisations to contribute to the global goals for biodiversity.

Meredith brings more than 15 years of experience in international sports business, sponsorship marketing, and events. She has worked on Olympic and Paralympic Games, FIFA World Cup and Women’s World Cup tournaments, Formula 1, Expo 2020 Dubai, and a variety of U.S. professional sports. Prior to IUCN, Meredith led the Sustainable Sport Index (SSI), a survey and benchmarking report published by APTIM, a U.S.-based environmental and sustainability services firm.

Lindita Xhaferi Salihu leads work on sectors engagement in climate action as part of UN Climate Change wider Global Climate Action work. She led development of both Sports for Climate Action and Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action and works closely with a variety of stakeholders to mobilize key actors and catalyze ambitious action towards decarbonization. Before joining UN Climate Change, Lindita worked in public relations and coordinated projects promoting multi-stakeholder engagement in policy and sustainability. Lindita has an educational background in engineering, international relations and global energy & climate policy.

Brynn is a Manager with WM Advisory Services. They lead the Special Projects team, focusing on comprehensive sustainability reporting, zero waste initiatives and strategic planning for sports leagues, global events, and industry.

They head up the community impact work on the Advisory Services team and works to expand the traditional ideas of sustainability in the field of sports and events. With over a decade of experience in intensive sustainability research throughout Asia, Europe, and North America, Brynn specializes in holistic, data-centered approaches to environmental management and sustainable program development.

They work on formulating sustainable solutions through systems thinking and pragmatic approaches, including zero waste operations, supply chain impact analysis, science-based targets, sustainable event management, stakeholder engagement and global reporting initiatives.

Brynn graduated with a BA in Sustainability, BA in Anthropology, Minor in Italian, and Certificate in International Business from Arizona State University and received their MSc in Environmental Studies and Sustainability Science from Lund University, Sweden, where they co-founded an organization which emphasized the nexus of intersectional approaches to sustainability education. They are a LEED Green Associate and TRUE Advisor.

Having joined World Sailing last year as Head of Sustainability, double Paralympic medallist Alexandra Rickham has been working in sustainability in the sport sector as a consultant since retiring from full time competition in 2017. She combines her academic knowledge and insight with her practical experience in competitive sport and environmental operations to focus both on changing the sports industry and its practices, and on utilising sport’s platform to inspire change. Alexandra is very passionate about diversity and inclusion and ensuring the athlete’s voice is heard on sustainability and regularly participates on panels, podcasts and other speaking opportunities on these subjects.

Dr Sheila Nguyen is a leading regenerative built environment design professional who has consulted with several sport organisations and professional clubs, globally, on strategic and operational environmental sustainability issues with the most recent work with the Australian Olympic Committee’s Climate Action Plan.

Sheila was given the Honorary Lifetime Member award from the British Association for Sustainable Sport (BASIS) and recognised as an Australian Financial Review Top 100 Women of Influence (2019) for her leadership in galvanising the sport industry to protect and respect the natural environment.

She has contributed to over 50 internationally peer-reviewed research outputs and media outlets, has been an invited speaker for TEDx and as a presenter at a number of natural environment and sport industry forums, most notably, at COP21 in Paris (2015), the first-time sport has been invited to the climate agreement discussions. Sheila was the invited Chairperson & MC for the Sustainable Innovations in Sport Forum in Amsterdam (2018) (Ajax Stadium) among other changemaking forums over the years.

Sheila is on a number of boards and advisory committees including as an Independent Director on the World Lacrosse Sustainability Committee.

Sheila is the Co-Founder and an NED of the Sports Environment Alliance, the coalition of sport & planet leaders in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand working to protect the places where we play so we can continue to do what we love- watch an

After retiring as a professional athlete in 2021, Melissa founded non-profit Athletes of the World with Double Olympic Champion Hannah Mills. Athletes of the World builds athlete-led campaigns for climate action, and works with elite sports teams and federations to deliver climate education and climate-focussed media training for athletes.

Qasa Alom is a presenter, investigative journalist & director with credits on documentaries, current affairs and radio. He has been with the BBC since 2010. In November 2020 Qasa was awarded with Best Radio Presenter at the Asian Media Awards.

Qasa freelance presents for BBC Radio 5, BBC Radio London and presents a weekend show for BBC WM. Qasa further presents shows for Radio 4 that include Costing The Earth and From Our Own Correspondent.

Qasa hosted an event for the UN at COP26 and is passionate about preventing climate change because of how he has seen it affect his family and ancestral home in Bangladesh.

This year Qasa has reported for BBC Sport at Wimbledon and The Commonwealth Games on sustainability in sport. Qasa has reported on the whole of the Commonwealth Games 2022 that included the athletes parade on the opening day.

Qasa loves sport, particularly cricket and tennis. 2021 Qasa launched @realtennispod with @dominglot. 2021 also saw Qasa host @thehundred @Edgbaston . He also presented the 2019 ATP World Tour Finals for BBC 5 Live Sports Xtra, the season ending tennis tournament between the top 8 men’s players in the world, from London’s 02 Arena.