The Accounting for Sustainability (A4S) Chief Financial Officers Leadership Network has appointed Rishi Kalra as the co-chairperson of its newly-formed Asia Pacific chapter.
Kalra, executive director and group chief financial officer (CFO) of Olam Food Ingredients of Singapore-based agribusiness firm Olam, is one of the founding members of the Asian chapter that was launched at the A4S Annual Summit held on Monday.
His role will involve collaborating with global peers to progress sustainability in business as part of the global A4S CFO Leadership Network, which brings together over 60 leading CFOs from large businesses seeking to incorporate environmental and social issues into business processes and strategy.
In a statement, Kalra noted how integrating sustainability into business strategy is “increasingly critical to the resilience of any business” particularly for Asia Pacific, with 11 of the top 20 countries worldwide experiencing the greatest level of economic impact due to climate risks being from the region.
“An ever more urgent global focus on climate, nature, people and society means organisations in the Asia Pacific region must move to more sustainable business models coupled with robust environmental, social and governance (ESG)-related data, enabled by the finance team and CFOs,” he said.
“I look forward to working with, and learning from, my peers in the region to embed sustainability and ESG-related considerations at the scale and pace needed.”
The other founding members of A4S’ Asia Pacific chapter include CFOs from Singapore like Andrew Lim of property firm CapitaLand, Kevin Monteiro of agri-food company Japfa, Manfred Seah of food services company SATS; Australia’s Martyn Roberts of hospital operator Ramsay Healthcare; New Zealand’s Marc Rivers of dairy firm Fonterra Co-operative Group; and the Philippines’ Chaye Cabal-Revilla of holding company Metro Pacific Investments.
