Stockholm (NordSIP) – With the unparalleled increase in regulatory demands in sustainable finance, the financial industry is struggling to find sufficient human resources to fulfil its needs. It is, therefore, unsurprising to observe a strong turnover among sustainability professionals in the sector. After catching up with Ylva Hannestad earlier this week, as she told NordSIP about her exciting move to private equity giant EQT after 14 years at Nordea, we took a closer look at the turnover of the Nordics’ largest bank.
In mid-September, Nordea’s Head of Group Sustainability, Anders Langworth, who worked in close collaboration with Hannestad, stepped down to take another role at the bank. Nordea announced that he was replaced by Anja Lidgren Hannerz, who was appointed Acting Head of Group Sustainability from 19 September 2022. The last time a similar role change was performed at Nordea, it was both Langworth and Hannestad who received simultaneously an ‘Acting co-Head’ title after Sasja Beslik left the bank unexpectedly in June 2019. It took about six months for management to decide between the two contenders, eventually settling on Langworth as the new official Head of Group Sustainability in November of the same year.
Heading the sustainability efforts of the biggest bank in the Nordics is hardly just an internal Nordea concern. It has much wider implications for the way the banking sector in Europe and globally is tackling sustainability issues. Just like Beslik, who had an active assignment with a working group of the UNEP FI when he abruptly left Nordea, Langworth was active (and still is, according to LinkedIn) on the UNEP FI Banking Board. In parallel, Langworth is also still spearheading ‘Banking for Climate’ an initiative he launched in 2019, to gather momentum among banking employees to react to the threats posed by climate change.
