Benjamin Tembo is the Character Development Coordinator at Ascent Soccer Academy in Malawi, South East of Africa. He is passionate about working with young people and building future leaders that are not only educated and ethical, but also aware of environmental sustainability. He graduated from The Masters University in California with an International Business Degree in 2019 and played four years of collegiate soccer.
Main Summit
Nevena Vukašinović
Nevena works as communications and public affairs consultant at BCW in Brussels, working on sports and politics. She is part of the #BeActive team, managing the European Week of Sport’s communication campaign for the European Commission. Nevena is one of the co-founders of the Green Sports Hub Europe, pioneering sustainability efforts for European sports through the positive engagement of the multi-stakeholders.
Over the past ten years, she had an executive/advisory role within different sports bodies: ENGSO Youth, International School Sport Federation, and UNESCO’s Asia-Pacific Youth and Sport Task Force, always at the forefront for giving youth a real say in sports. She has worked on the international development programmes for the Olympic Committee of Serbia and served as General Secretary for ENGSO Youth.
Nevena is connecting the dots across sectors. She is the specialist for strategic partnerships, specifically interested in climate diplomacy, digital diplomacy, and intercultural dialogue with empowered youth and girls at the heart of it. Nevena is UNAOC’s and UNMGCY’s alumni.
Nevena holds a master’s degree in international affairs and politics (University of Belgrade), Mini MBA (WPP), and is currently obtaining an executive certificate in Strategic Management of Innovations (HEC). After her sports career in athletics (running 400m) she pursued her passion for biking, beach volleyball, and water sports.
Mie Kajikawa
Mie Kajikawa is an award-winning social entrepreneur and a social responsibility consultant for sports teams and leagues in Japan. With experience with the NBA’s Detroit Pistons and high profile sports charity events such as NBA’s Basketball Without Borders and Michael Jordan’s Senior Flight School, Mie has worked for Japan’s newly integrated pro basketball league to grand-design its “B LEAGUE Hope,” the first-ever league-wide social responsibility initiative in Japanese sports, suggesting the uphold of the SDGs with promotion of “Off-Court Three-Point” concept, which encourages fans to take actions targeting Planet, People and Peace.
She currently helps pro basketball teams in Japan, mainly for B LEAGUE’s top team Chiba Jets Funabashi to establish and implement its SSR initiative “Jets Assist,” which includes innovative circular economy project that collects old T-shirts from fans and players to create new ones to transform memories of the Jets’ community into the hope of the future.
Mie is also active in the non-profit space, serving as Founder and Representative Director of Sport For Smile, the first-ever platform in Japan to use sport as a social change, and has led projects collaborating with UN and World Bank as well as being funded by FIFA’s official NGO partner.
Roger McClendon
Roger McClendon is the Executive Director of the Green Sports Alliance. In his role, he leads the Alliance of international sports and stadium executives, as well as sustainability experts, to use sports as a vehicle to promote healthy, sustainability communities throughout the world
McClendon is a results-driven executive with deep global experience in the development and deployment of engineering innovation and sustainability/supply-chain management strategies for domestic and international operations.
Prior to this role, he was the first-ever Chief Sustainability Officer for Yum! Brands, Inc. Roger created corporate social responsibility strategies, global environmental policies and restaurant sustainability development standards and implemented them company-wide, making the company the second largest developer of green restaurants in the world. He ensured all brand restaurants operated efficiently and minimized environmental impact through innovation, helping the company be named to the Dow Jones Sustainability North America Index and among the Top 100 Best Corporate Citizens by Corporate Responsibility Magazine (2017). Earlier at Yum!, Roger was Senior Director YUM Global Engineering and Facilities, Restaurant Excellence for Yum Restaurants Global – A&W, KFC, Long John Silvers, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, responsible for developing the standards, strategies and tactics to ensure global quality standards, engineering standards and operational standards.
Roger has held a number of roles and board positions, including positions with the University of Louisville Speed School of Engineering, Kentucky Center for African American Heritage, Habitat for Humanity, Louisville Sports Commission, Kentucky Minority Business Council, and McClendon Institute for Learning Community Outreach Programs.
Roger’s other passion is basketball. He was a McDonald’s All-American in 1984, one of the top 25 high school basketball players in the nation and went on to be a four-year starter who closed his University of Cincinnati men’s basketball career as the No. 2 scorer, second only to Oscar Robertson at the time. He was inducted into the UC Athletics Hall of Fame in 1998.
Russell Seymour
Russell Seymour is a pioneer in Sustainability and Sport in the UK. With an academic background (with degrees in Ecology, Environmental Sciences and Biodiversity Management) Russell started work in the sports sector through a convoluted career path. He soon realized that the sport sector had significant environmental impacts, was being impacted by environmental changes and, importantly, had an opportunity to raise awareness as a trusted, non-partisan ambassador by using the powerful influence of sport on participants and fans. Working at Lord’s Cricket Ground as the first Sustainability Manager at a major UK sports venue, Russell integrated sustainability principles into business functions across the venue.
With this in mind, he set up BASIS (the British Association for Sustainable Sport) in 2010, with the intention of bringing together like-minded individuals at all levels of sport, to share ideas, experiences and strategies around sustainability. Russell recently became Chief Executive of BASIS.
Russell is a visiting lecturer in Sports Management at Loughborough University and in Event Management at the University of Greenwich; he sits on two British Standards committees on Organisational Change and Sustainable Development and Sustainability, Sustainable Consumption and Production; and is a member of the Advisory Board for the Sport Ecology Group. He was also presented with the London 2012 Sustainability Ambassadors Award for his contribution towards a sustainable Olympic and Paralympic Games.
