In this episode of ESG Talks, Karen Daly, Senior Managing Director and head of KBRA’s Public Finance Team interviews Lia Cairone, the first Director of Sustainability & Resiliency at the NYC Mayor's Office of Management and Budget, and Louise Yeung, the first Chief Climate Officer to serve at the City’s Office of the Comptroller. Karen, Lia, and Louise discuss the risks that climate change poses to NYC and how city agencies are working to mitigate the City’s climate risk exposure while...

In this episode of ESG Talks, Peter Giacone, Senior Managing Director and head of KBRA’s Insurance team interviews Dr. Ryan Truchelut, Co-founder, President, and Chief Meteorologist of WeatherTiger. WeatherTiger provides customized seasonal weather forecasts and full-spectrum decision support for commodity, weather risk, public safety, and retail markets with a proprietary technology fusing meteorological insights and the power of Big Data. In Ryan’s eleven years as a lead professional...

In this episode of ESG Talks, Karen Daly, Senior Managing Director and head of KBRA’s Public Finance Team interviews Kim Bizor Tolbert, Deputy City Manager of Dallas and Liz Cedillo-Pereira, Assistant City Manager. Kim provides executive leadership to the Office of Risk Management, Aviation, Dallas Water Utilities, Human Resources, Communications, Outreach, & Marketing, Office of Homeless Solutions, and the Small Business Center. As Assistant City Manager, Liz provides executive...

In this episode of ESG Talks, Jim Nadler, KBRA’s President and CEO interviews economist, Rob Johnson. Rob is the Co-founder and President of the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET). Founded in the wake of the financial crisis in 2009, INET is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization devoted to developing and sharing the ideas that can repair our broken economy and create a more equal, prosperous, and just society. To meet current and future challenges, INET conducts and commissions...

In this episode of ESG Talks, Joan Feldbaum-Vidra, Senior Managing Director and Head of KBRA’s Sovereigns ratings team, sits down with Mike Spence, an internationally recognized economist focused on economic growth and development, dynamic competition, and the economics of information. In 2001, Mike was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his tremendous contributions to the analysis of markets with asymmetric information and the field of economics in general. Joan and Mike...

In this special episode of ESG Talks, Jim Nadler, KBRA’s CEO and President, and Kate Kennedy, Senior Managing Director and Co-Head of KBRA’s Business Development Group discuss the importance of ESG on the Royal Gazette (RG) Business Podcast with Shivani Seth. RG Business is a podcast that examines global business in Bermuda, the industries and sectors that lead its economy, and the impact it has globally. In this episode of the Navigate Series, learn about how KBRA has changed the landscape...

In this episode of ESG Talks, Karen Daly, the head of KBRA’s Public Finance team, interviews Dr. Stanislav Shmelev, an ecological economist and Director of Environment Europe. Environment Europe is a think tank and research center focused on macroeconomic sustainability, sustainable cities, renewable energy, ecosystems and biodiversity and sustainable waste management. Dr. Shmelev has experience in teaching, research, consultancy and international project management through work with...

In the first episode of season 5 of ESG Talks, Pat Welch, KBRA’s Chief ESG and Ratings Policy Officer interviews Bill Curry, president and CEO of the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS), Peter Schlosser, Vice President and Vice Provost of Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory at Arizona State University (ASU), and Kenro Kusumi, Dean of Natural Sciences at ASU. In October 2021, BIOS and ASU announced a strategic partnership to elevate awareness around the critical role that the...

In the final episode of season 4 of ESG Talks, Emilie Nadler, an Associate Director on KBRA’s ESG team interviews Mike Brotschol, Managing Director at KBRA Analytics and Co-Head of KBRA Credit Profile (KCP), a subscription based CMBS surveillance platform. Mike’s team recently enhanced the KCP product offering with various environmental and social metrics on commercial real estate properties. Mike and Emilie highlight investor interest in ESG data and how KCP is aiding in the investment...

In this episode of ESG Talks, Andrea Torres Villanueva, an Associate on KBRA’s ESG team speaks with Bill Cox, Global Head of Corporate, Financial and Government Ratings, and Andrew Giudici, Global Head of Corporate, Project, and Infrastructure Finance. Bill and Andrew highlight findings from a recent KBRA research publication, “It Is Time to Measure the Real Impact of a Carbon Tax,” that details how corporations use internal carbon pricing, the challenges with carbon prices, and how...

In this episode of ESG Talks, Gordon Kerr, KBRA’s Head of European Research interviews Ken Egan, an Associate Director on KBRA’s Sovereigns team. Gordon and Ken give an overview of the European Union’s net-zero plans and delve into how the EU’s climate mitigation strategy may impact the credit profile of sovereigns in the region. They also discuss a recent Centre for European Reform research piece, highlighting the need for the EU to remove tariffs on environmental goods.

In this episode of ESG Talks, Joan Feldbaum-Vidra, Head of KBRA’s Sovereigns group interviews Representative Jake Auchincloss. Rep. Auchincloss is a Democrat from Massachusetts’ 4th congressional district and is currently serving his first term in Congress. He is the Vice-Chair of the House Financial Services Committee and a member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. His areas of focus include infrastructure, housing, the life sciences, and energy policy. Joan and Congressman...

In this episode of ESG Talks, Karen Daly, a Senior Managing Director on KBRA’s Public Finance Team interviews Gavin Taves, the Climate and Energy Program Manager for the City of Chicago. In his role, Gavin focuses on built environment decarbonization policy for Mayor Lightfoot, program managing Retrofit Chicago (a voluntary building retrofit challenge) and the City’s benchmarking ordinance. Gavin also spearheads the industrial decarbonization strategy, which aims to bring industrial...

In this episode of ESG Talks, Emilie Nadler, an Associate Director on KBRA’s ESG team interviews Kim Kovacs, the newly appointed CEO of Santa Fe Farms. Santa Fe Farms is a fully integrated company leading the growth and development of the industrial hemp industry. Kim and Emilie discuss highlights from COP26 regarding climate mitigating technology and innovation and the role emerging industries, such as the industrial hemp industry, will play in the low carbon transition.

In this episode of ESG Talks, Andrea Torres Villanueva, an Associate on KBRA’s ESG Team interviews Gordon Kerr, Managing Director and KBRA’s Head of European Research. Gordon was in Glasgow, Scotland for the 26th Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP26) and discusses with Andrea key takeaways from this year’s event.

In the last episode of the third season of ESG Talks, Emilie Nadler, an Associate Director on KBRA’s ESG Team, interviews Pat Welch, KBRA’s Chief ESG and Ratings Policy Officer, and Van Hesser, KBRA’s Chief Strategist. As interest in ESG investing grows, financial market participants are increasingly interested in accessing better quality ESG information to make investment decisions and are also looking to rating agencies to understand the relevance of ESG to financial metrics and the risk of...

In this episode of ESG Talks, Steve Weinstein, Chair of the Bermuda Business Development Authority, moderates a conversation between Jim Nadler, KBRA’s President and CEO, and Bermuda’s Minister of Finance, the Honorable Curtis L. Dickinson, JP, MP. Bermuda has a proven track record in balancing the needs of the business community with prudent policy under a unified regulatory system. Steve, Jim, and Minister Dickinson discuss the rise in ESG investing and how Bermuda’s culture of innovation...

In this episode of ESG Talks, Pat Welch, KBRA’s Chief ESG and Ratings Policy Officer, interviews Steven Gluckstern, the Chairman and CEO of Santa Fe Farms. Santa Fe Farms is a fully integrated company leading the growth and development of the industrial hemp industry. The company Santa Fe Farms spans the growth, transformation, and impact of industrial hemp into key wellness, chemical and physical ingredients and components which can be incorporated into thousands of products in categories...

In this episode of ESG Talks, Emilie Nadler, an Associate Director on KBRA’s ESG Team, interviews Langston Emerson and Chris Brown from Mindset, a bipartisan public policy firm based in Washington, D.C. Their clients range from household names in financial services to key change makers in energy, insurance, trade, technology, and beyond. Over the years, Mindset has become known for its deep expertise in financial services policy. “[There] has been a huge rise in the topic of ESG in public...

In this episode of ESG Talks, Andrea Torres Villanueva, an Associate on KBRA’s ESG team, interviews Eric Thompson, Senior Managing Director and Global Head of Structured Finance Ratings. Eric and Andrea discuss ESG trends in securitization, the challenges of ESG integration, and KBRA’s process of incorporating ESG into structured finance transactions.

In this special episode of ESG Talks, Jim Nadler, KBRA’s CEO and President, discusses the importance of ESG on Economics & Beyond with Rob Johnson, a podcast of the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET). Jim and economist Rob Johnson discuss the profound influence that bond ratings have on shaping social and economic outcomes, how they can contribute to environmental and social responsibility, and why a new approach to bond ratings is urgently necessary.

In this episode of ESG Talks, Miten Amin, a Managing Director on KBRA’s Business Development Team in London, interviews Tina De Baere, Head of ESG and Macro Strategy at Cairn Capital. Cairn Capital is a London-based alternative credit asset manager with $6 billion in assets under management. Tina joined Cairn Capital in 2008 as a portfolio manager. Since 2017, Tina’s focus has included ESG, and she spearheaded Cairn Capital’s push into responsible investing. Tina also developed Cairn...

In this episode of ESG Talks, Bill Cox, Global Head of Corporate, Financial, and Government Ratings at KBRA, sits down with Wesley Misson and Katie McShane from Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft. Cadwalader has a globally recognized Fund Finance practice, which spans the U.S. and Europe. Wes is a partner in the firm’s Finance Group, where he leads the ESG initiative. He is also co-lead of Cadwalader’s U.S.-based Fund Finance practice and has experience in subscription, hybrid, and ESG fund...

In the final episode of the second season of ESG Talks, Emilie Nadler, an Associate Director on KBRA’s ESG Team chats with Pat Welch, KBRA’s Chief ESG and Ratings Policy Officer. Pat and Emilie discuss trends in ESG investing, KBRA’s recent ESG initiatives, highlights from the second season of ESG Talks plus what’s to come in the third season.

In this episode of ESG Talks, Dana Bunting, Senior Managing Director of KBRA’s Business Development Team interviews Judy Wesalo Temel, Senior Vice President and Director of Credit Research at Fiera Capital. Judy leads the fixed income credit research team and is responsible for approving or not approving the purchases of a broad range of municipal and corporate credit including state and local governments, higher education, health care, infrastructure, utilities, transportation, financials,...