Topics - Conference on Sustainable Banking & Finance

Lucia Alessi

European Commission – Joint Research Centre

Lucia Alessi is Team Leader at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, where she is responsible for research in support of EU policymaking in the field of finance, including banking and financial stability, corporate finance, as well as digital and sustainable finance. From 2007 to 2015 she worked at the European Central Bank. Lucia chairs the EC Sustainable Finance Research Forum. Her more recent research focuses on the assessment of the greenness of financial assets, climate risk and sustainability in financial markets, and the development of climate stress tests for financial institutions.

Pilar Gutierrez

European Banking Authority

Within the European Banking Authority (EBA), Pilar Gutierrez is responsible for the Unit in charge of reporting and transparency, including the definition of the supervisory reporting and the Pillar 3 frameworks, and together with the Statistics Unit, for the implementation of the EBA data strategy and data hub. Prior to this position, Ms. Gutierrez led the EBA work on Pillar 3 as a Senior Policy Expert, and beforehand she worked as a Senior Bank Sector Analyst, in the risk analysis and stress testing unit, where she coordinated the EBA EU wide stress test work. Before joining the EBA in 2011, Ms. Gutierrez worked in the Bank of Spain for more than 6 years, as a banking supervisor in the Directorate General of Banking Supervision. Prior to that, she worked in the financial services consultancy sector, first in Accenture and then as a manager in Everis. Pilar Gutierrez holds a Master’s degree in law and a Master’s degree in business administration, all from ICADE – Comillas Pontifical University (Madrid).

Simonetta Iannotti

Financial Stability board

Simonetta Iannotti joined the FSB Secretariat in January 2010. In her current role, she coordinates the FSB work on climate. She has worked on several financial sector reforms and policy evaluation projects in the areas of climate-related financial risks, non-bank financial intermediaries, systemically important financial institutions, insurance, interest rate benchmarks reforms. For the FSB she also served as Secretary of the FSB Standing Committee on Supervisory and Regulatory Cooperation (SRC). Before joining the FSB, she worked in the Supervision and Regulation Department of the Bank of Italy, in the areas of macroprudential research, supervisory methodologies and stress testing. Simonetta holds a PHD in Banking and Regulation from Università La Sapienza, Rome, where she was also Lecturer in banking and financial regulation. Simonetta is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA).

Anna Sciortino

European Securities and Markets Authority

Alumna of Cambridge University and Sciences Po Paris, Anna joined ESMA in June 2017 after several years in consulting. At ESMA, she worked on a variety of topics within the remits of the Corporate Finance and Reporting team, including most notably the European single electronic format for annual financial reports and sustainability reporting under the NFRD/CSRD. Anna has recently returned to ESMA to lead the policy work on the European Single Access Point and contribute to a variety of other data-related topics, after serving for over a year in the cabinet of Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi. She is a chartered certified accountant.

Andreas Hoepner

University College Dublin

Prof. Andreas G. F. Hoepner is a Financial Data Scientist and Full Professor at University College Dublin, where he also serves as VP for Research. He leads the GreenWatch group and is Principal Investigator for the €5m EU Nature-3B project. Hoepner contributed to all three phases of the EU’s Sustainable Finance platforms and co-invented impactful tools like the EU Climate Transition Benchmarks and Paris-Aligned Benchmarks. He previously held academic posts at Henley Business School and University of St. Andrews. His advisory roles span BJSS, RepRisk, the UN, and the World Bank. He is a Visiting Professor in Hamburg and a prolific, award-winning researcher published in top journals including Science and Nature Climate Change. Recognized as a top global SSRN author, he actively promotes sustainable finance via EU events and policy collaboration. He is also a patent holder and dedicated Ph.D. mentor with alumni in leading institutions.

Monica Billio

Ca’ Foscari University of Venice

Monica Billio is Full Professor of Econometrics at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. She holds a PhD in Applied Mathematics at the University Paris Dauphine. She is participating in many research projects financed by the European Commission, World Bank, European Investment Bank, Eurostat and the Italian Ministry of Research (MIUR). She has been the scientific coordinator of the SYRTO EU-FP7 project devoted to systemic risk measurement, the coordinator of the H2020 project TrAnsparEEns dedicated to the development of ESG ratings for small and medium enterprises, and the local coordinator of five European projects on Energy Efficiency investments (EeMAP, EeDaPP, EeMMIP, ENGAGE and DeliverEEM). Currently, she is responsible of the Sustainable Finance workpage of the Italian NextGenerationEU program GRINS (Growing Resilient INclusive and Sustainable) and coordinator of a DG Reform Technical Support Initiative (ESG Uptake – ESG risk management framework for the financial sector).
She is currently coordinator of the Master Degree Programme in Economics, Finance and Sustainability and member of the Academic Senate of Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. She is Fellow of the Institut Louis Bachelier (Paris) and Research Fellow of the Leibniz Institute SAFE (Frankfurt).
She has been a member of the BoD of Farbanca, Contarina and Banco delle Tre Venezie. She is currently member of the BoD of Banca Ifis S.p.A., Ifis NPL Investing, GRINS Foundation, Veneto Sviluppo S.p.A. and Finergis Confidi.

Sergio Delgado Cuello

European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority

Sergio Delgado Cuello joined the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) in January 2025 as an Expert in Sustainable Finance. At EIOPA, his work spans sustainability policy, sustainability data, and sustainability reporting, including contributions to the Regulatory Technical Standards on the management of sustainability risks, the dashboard on the insurance protection gap for natural catastrophes, and analyses of sustainability reporting frameworks such as the ESRS under the CSRD.
Prior to joining EIOPA, Sergio worked in the area of market operations at the European Central Bank, and in the financial services industry at Morningstar Sustainalytics as a Senior Analyst.

Leonardo Gambacorta

Bank for International Settlements

Leonardo Gambacorta is the Head of the Emerging Markets unit at the BIS. Prior to his current role, he served as Head of Innovation and Digital Economy (2019-2024), Research Adviser (2014-2018) and Head of Monetary Policy (2010-12) in the Monetary and Economic Department. Before joining the BIS, he was Head of the Money and Credit Unit (2007-2009) and Head of the Banking Sector Unit (2004-2006) in the Research Department of the Bank of Italy. He was a visiting scholar at the National Bureau of Economic Research (2002–03). Leonardo holds an MSc in Economics from the University of Warwick and a PhD in Economics from the University of Pavia. His primary research interests include monetary transmission mechanisms, the effectiveness of macroprudential policies in curbing systemic risk, and the effects of technological innovation on financial intermediation. He is a research fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research.

Aldo Romani

European Investment Bank

Head of Sustainable Finance, Finance Directorate
Member of the EU Platform on Sustainable Finance
Member of the Executive Committee of the Green Bond Principles

Aldo is a graduate cum laude in monetary and financial economics of Bocconi University, Milan. At the EIB, he has been Deputy Head of Funding, Euro, from 2001 to 2018 and Head of Sustainability Funding from 2018 to 2022, developing EIB’s funding instruments in Euro: “EARNs”, “EPOS” and “ECoops”. In 2007, he shaped and executed the transaction with which the EIB inaugurated the green bond market, subsequently promoting best practice in working groups of the Green Bond Principles (GBP), China and the EU. Within the framework of EIB’s Climate Bank Roadmap, he has driven the gradual alignment of the Bank’s Climate and Sustainability Awareness Bonds with evolving EU legislation on sustainable finance – in close cooperation with the Projects Directorate. This process has recently led to the issuance of EIB’s first Climate Awareness Bond aligned with the European Green Bond Standard, the first by a Supranational issuer and the largest so far in the market. After chairing the EuPSF’s working group on the gradual application of the Taxonomy to green bonds, Aldo has recently been tasked with the chair of a taskforce on “Official Standards and the Green Bond Principles” within the GBP.

Andreas Beyer

European Central Bank

Andreas Beyer is a senior team lead economist in the Financial Research Division and adviser in the Supervisory Strategy & Risk Division at the European Central Bank. Since 2022 he is Research Coordinator for ECB Banking Supervision. His extensive career at the ECB began in 2000, and he has since held various leadership roles, including:

– Senior Team Lead Economist in the Financial Research Division (2019-2022),
– Principal Economist (2009–2019) and Team Leader for Monetary Analysis (2009–2012).
– Principal Supervisor and Financial Stability Expert during the establishment of the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM).

He was a visiting professor and a Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute of Florence (1999-2000), and a research fellow at the Banco de España (1998-1999).
Andreas holds a Diplom Volkswirt from the Goethe University of Frankfurt and a PhD in Economics from the University of Southampton (UK). His fields of interests include Financial Economics, Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics, Mathematical and Quantitative Methods

Livia Pancotto

University of Strathclyde

Livia Pancotto is a Senior Lecturer in Banking in the Department of Accounting and Finance at the University of Strathclyde. Between September 2025 and March 2026, she was a Visiting Economist at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). She is also Deputy Director of the Responsible Business Institute (ReBI) and a Fellow at the Centre for Responsible Banking & Finance (CRBF) at the University of St Andrews. She holds an MSc and a PhD in Banking and Finance from Bangor University.

Her research focuses on empirical banking, financial intermediation, and financial stability, with a particular interest in how regulatory and policy changes affect bank behaviour and performance. She has published in leading international journals, contributes to policy work with institutions such as the BIS and the ECB, and serves as an Associate Editor of The European Journal of Finance.

Enrico Bernardini

Bank of Italy

Enrico Bernardini is Head of the Climate change and Sustainability Hub of Bank of Italy and Coordinator of the group of experts supporting a high-level Steering Committee on Climate and Sustainability of the Bank. At the Network for Greening the Financial System, he’s co-lead of the Sustainable and Responsible Investment group, within the workstream “Net Zero for Central Banks”. Enrico has 22-year experience in central bank investments and has contributed to design the ESG investment policy and disclose it into the Bank’s Responsible Investment Charter. Enrico also held temporary positions at the European Central Bank and at the De Nederlandsche Bank. He has co-authored articles on the carbon transition risk of utility stocks, machine learning for portfolio construction with ESG data, the quantitative assessment of environmental scores, analysis of banks’ climate commitments and lending, GenAI to fill banks’ carbon data gaps, and on central banking and sustainable finance. Enrico holds a PhD in Banking and Finance and a Msc in Asset Management.