GRESB Accelerates Investment and Announces Leadership Changes

Amsterdam, 28th June, 2021 13:00pm CEST: As GRESB enters a new phase of accelerated growth, we’re pleased to announce a strengthened Management Board to lead our growing team. 

The wave of global interest in ESG, from regulators and market participants alike, is ushering us into a new era of ESG performance assessment and benchmarking. We’re working not only to further standardize ESG data for the capital markets, but also to provide new tools to the industry to assist in meeting new regulatory requirements, enhance the management of sustainability risks, and accelerate the growth of responsible investment. All of this contributes to GRESB fulfilling our mission as a benefit corporation. 

We are growing the GRESB team, adding more capacity to support our stakeholders, and further investing in our data science and technology capabilities to strengthen our platform and will allow us to develop more products and tools to support both our benchmark participants and our investor members. 

New in 2021 

GRESB is working hard on three new products which will be released in 2021 and 2022. We’re introducing an EU Regulatory (SFDR) Reporting Solution to help GRESB participants to meet their regulatory disclosure obligations. For our Members needing support with the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), we’re also developing a reporting solution. Finally, we are working on better understanding the real estate industry’s needs in relation to transition risk analytics built from the bottom-up, leveraging on CRREM’s decarbonization pathways.

GRESB Management Board:

To support this new era for GRESB, we have strengthened the capabilities of our Management Board bringing in key new hires with a diverse range of experience and skills to complement the existing staff.

Our new CEO, Sebastien Roussotte brings extensive experience at the top level of financial services and data firms including Thomson Reuters, Sophis, Finastra and Style Analytics. Our new Chief Commercial Officer, Guido Wagenaar brings more than 20 years experience in sales, marketing and business development, and our new CFO, Roel de Weerd has an accounting background with experience in c-suite roles in the property sector. They join Roxana Isaiu who now heads up our ESG & Benchmarks pillar comprising our Real Estate and Infrastructure teams; and Rick Walters, who has moved into a new role as Chief of Standards and Innovation, our key liaison with the GRESB Foundation and responsible for new product development.

These changes see the departure of GRESB co-founder and former CEO, Sander Paul van Tongeren, who leaves a very valuable legacy to the staff and the industry;

‘In my tenure at GRESB, it has been inspiring to witness the collective industry effort to improve ESG transparency and advance sustainable real assets. I am proud to have contributed to this movement, and I am optimistic that GRESB will continue paving the way for a more sustainable real asset industry’, said Sander Paul.

Sebastien commented : ‘GRESB is uniquely placed to help asset owners and investors with the guidance they need to measure and report on their key ESG indicators. We look forward to building on the successes to date while strengthening our collaboration with existing members and partners to uncover new ESG insights that are essential to support sustainable investment decision making.’

We’re delighted to welcome Sebastien, Guido, and Roel to the team as we embark on a new era for GRESB.