Stockholm (NordSIP) – Helsinki-based boutique bank Evli announced the appointment of Petra Hakamo (Pictured) as the new Head of Sustainability starting on January 1, 2022
Hakamo serves as Vice-Chair of the Finnish Venture Capital Association’s Sustainability Working Group. She joins from Evli Growth Partners where she worked as Head of Sustainability and Investment Manager. Prior to this, Hakamo also worked at SEB. Se holds an M.Sc. Economics from the London School of Economics & Aalto University and a B.Sc. in Business Administration and Political Science from Stockholm University.
“I very much look forward to working on sustainability with the portfolio managers across all asset classes at Evli, and to further develop Evli’s sustainability practices. To date Evli has systematically developed responsible investing as one of its strategic priorities, laying out a strong foundation for future work,” says Hakamo.
The new Head of Sustainability sees the EU taxonomy, climate work and social responsibility as notable trends in 2022, driving the work on sustainability across both investors and corporates. First on Hakamo’s to-do list is tackling Evli’s climate targets, which aim to halve the carbon emissions of its investments by 2030 and make Evli fully carbon neutral for all its investments by 2050.
“These are ambitious goals and now is the time to get down to work to achieve them. At Evli, we are working to ensure that our operations are in line with the 2015 Paris Agreement target to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. This is important to us, and we want to take our responsibility through concrete actions,” Hakamo adds.
“Evli has been actively and systematically developing its responsible investment practices for years and has made sustainability one of its strategic priorities. Our sustainability work has also been rewarded on several occasions, the most recent example being the SFR Responsible Investment Award 2021 in recognition of the best responsible investment expertise in Finland. A big thank you goes to our former Head of Sustainability, Outi Helenius, who took on the chief role for responsible investment at Evli for the past five years. Now it is time to pass on the responsibility and I am very happy that we have found a new Head of Sustainability, Petra Hakamo, from within Evli. Petra has strong expertise in sustainability and a good understanding of the challenges that investors face in seeking returns responsibly,” says Kim Pessala, Head of Institutional Wealth Management at Evli.
“Sustainability has been a key focus area for me over the past 10 years, both professionally and academically. I did a Master’s Degree in Corporate Sustainability and trust that having experience in finance and investing is valuable in helping to better understand sustainability issues also from an investor’s perspective,” she continues.
“Climate work is, of course, a key area driving both the corporate and investor community. The EU taxonomy and regulatory developments will be very much on the table, in setting both climate and other environmental targets. Finally Social responsibility is also an important topic to highlight, given the new ways of working and effects of Covid,” Hakamo concludes.
