Reshma Shah 2023 Speaker

Group Director, Sustainability

Equity Group Holdings Plc

Biography

“Reshma has over twenty years’ experience on a broad and rare combination of expertise spanning Business Strategy & Performance, Risk Management, Finance, Tax and Sustainability. In the last fifteen years, her work has focused on the Extractives and Infrastructure Sector primarily in Africa and the Middle East.

Reshma brings practical experience of working in highly complex operating environments having led and worked on areas such as mergers & acquisitions; government and third-party negotiations; litigation and arbitration; new country entry; risk and performance management; shared infrastructure projects. She has also managed a number of Above Ground Risk areas such as Corporate and External Affairs, Local Content and Capacity Building, Land Acquisition, Water Resource Management, Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) studies, Security and Conflict Management and Shared Prosperity including strategic partnerships.

Her work to date has been at both corporate and operational levels with experience ranging from Board and Senior Leadership to working with communities on the frontline. Some of the corporates she has worked with include KPMG UK, Shell, BP, Tullow Oil Plc as well as some small to mid-cap organisations. She is now the Group Director for Sustainability for Equity Group Holdings Plc and a non-executive board member of the Kenya Shipyards Ltd. Reshma also sits on a number of international advisory boards.

Reshma’s career has shown her ability to both design strategy that embeds Sustainability in commercial businesses, from SMEs to large corporates, and also the ability to implement this from a risk management to driving increased impact. Given this experience, Reshma is a regular speaker at regional and international events including UNDP, UNFCCC and IFC Forums, African Natural Capital Alliance (ANCA), Global Association for Risk Professionals (GARP) and United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27).

Reshma holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Manchester in the UK and an Executive MBA from École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées (ENPC) in Paris. She is also a UK qualified Chartered Accountant and a Chartered Tax Advisor. Reshma is also certified in Sustainable Finance from the University of Cambridge and in Green, Social and Sustainability (GSS) Bonds from the IFC and the International Capital Market Association (ICMA).”