Mona is Senior Director, Head of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Product Strategy, North America at S&P Dow Jones Indices (S&P DJI). In this role, Mona leads the strategy for developing ESG indices for the North American market, from best-in-class approaches like the world-renowned Dow Jones Sustainability Index, to broad-market ESG alternatives and core solutions like the S&P 500® ESG Index. She also serves as the global spokesperson for S&P DJI’s ESG Indices, educating the market on the values of ESG investing and our industry-leading ESG lineup.
Prior to joining S&P DJI, Mona was Director at Trucost (part of S&P Global) and advised some of North America’s biggest institutional investors on low-carbon and fossil fuel free strategies, energy transition alignment, and meeting the recommendations of the TCFD for investors. Mona also led the North American presence of the 2° Investing Initiative, a prominent sustainable finance think tank focused on aligning the finance sector with climate goals. In addition, Mona served as an advisor to the Obama Administration on climate and energy policy and worked for several years as an economist at the UK’s Bank of England. Mona also ran for public office in UK local government elections of 2010 and 2014 and devised the local Liberal Democrat party’s communication strategy around education and the environment.
Mona graduated Summa Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Science degree (with honors) in Government and Economics (double major) from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). She is an experienced public speaker and regular market commentator on sustainable finance issues, with published works on topics as diverse as disruptive technologies to the problem of “short-termism” in mainstream finance. She is a recipient of the FiNext Excellence in Finance Leadership Award 2019 and was a shortlisted nominee for the Women in Asset Management Awards in the Index Category of 2019.After markets closed on April 30, 2020, the S&P 500® ESG Index underwent its second annual rebalance since it launched in January 2019. Last year, the rebalance resulted in some changes that hit the headlines—most notably, the removal of Facebook from the sustainable version of the iconic S&P 500. With markets currently in turmoil due Read more […]
As the world continues to pump the gas on a one-way street toward catastrophic climate change, market actors are attempting to slow down the traffic by limiting global temperature rise to within 1.5°C since pre-industrial levels.[1] To date, climate-conscious investors have largely focused on reducing relative portfolio carbon exposure. However, divergent methodologies make fertile ground Read more […]
As green investing becomes ever more mainstream, there is greater scrutiny of the myriad “environmentally friendly” investment products that have emerged. Several green-labeled benchmarks have been criticized for including oil and gas stocks, for instance, sparking some controversy within the sustainable investment community. However, while efforts to make financial products more transparent are laudable, not Read more […]
Socially responsible investing (SRI) has deep roots in the South African market. Indeed, some of the earliest records of this type of investing date back to the boycotts against South African companies during the era of Apartheid. The movement paved the way for a generation of socially conscious investors seeking to affect social Read more […]
The landmark Paris Agreement to accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy marked a sea change in the global fight against climate change. A swelling tide of carbon-limiting regulations has since emerged, shifting the narrative from a largely ethical debate to a material set of risks and opportunities for the financial markets, today. As the Read more […]