Lea Zeemans
Stakeholder & Issue Manager, Sustainable Banking, ABN AMRO Bank NV

Representing UNEP FI member: ABN AMRO BANK N.V. (Netherlands)

Connect with Lea Zeemans on LinkedIn

MOTIVATION STATEMENT

I decided to apply for a position in the GSC, because I believe in partnership programmes such as UNEP FI. In order to work towards a better world, multi-stakeholder cooperation is of vital importance and I want to contribute to this as much as I can. Besides, I want improve the image of the financial sector. I believe UNEP FI is one of the drivers to regain the trust of our stakeholders – by showing instead of telling.

But why vote for me?

In the GSC I want to focus my efforts on creating more value for a broader range of stakeholders. I feel it is important for UNEP FI to be connected not only to the sustainability teams within member FIs, but also client-facing employees, non-member FIs, clients, civil society and society as a whole.

In my view, UNEP FI can create more impact, in example through initiatives such as national and local multi stakeholder round tables. This will potentially broaden the movement of UNEP FI. Stakeholders can provide their input on UNEP FIs practices, our understanding of societal needs increases and the visibility of UNEP FI will increase as well, just to name a few benefits.

I am looking forward to contribute to reaching this and all other long term goals of UNEP FI by taking up a seat in the GSC.

BACKGROUND

I am sustainability professional with over 10 years of experience in banking. After completing my finance traineeship, I moved to an analyst position in Funds Transfer Pricing (FTP). In this position I gained profound knowledge of the variety of lending and saving products banks offer and the characteristics of these products, including loans for sustainable financing projects and sustainable saving products. As an FTP-specialist it is required to have a thorough understanding of the broader Asset & Liability Management-related picture, including interest rate risk, capital- and liquidity management. I believe this knowledge is still very useful, with the increasing focus on positive impact finance. In 2013, I started as a branch manager within Retail & Preferred Banking. In this position, I was responsible for the day-to-day management of several local bank branches, that offer a wide array of products (mortgages, insurances, investment products and services, wealth structuring, etc). My responsibilities varied from leading sales teams to developing a local market position strategy. Since 2015, I‘ve been working as a Stakeholder & Issue Manager in ABN AMRO’s Sustainable Banking team. In this role I’ve organised stakeholder dialogues, including a materiality analysis (on a wide array of topics varying from responsible taxation, to ESG-criteria, to customer satisfaction levels). Furthermore, on behalf of ABN AMRO I engage with corporate clients and civil society on a regular basis. I translate our stakeholder’s voices into input for our ESG-risk policies and I use these to indicate trends. I am active in several multi-stakeholder platforms, such as the Dutch Banking Sector Agreement and the Dutch confederation of Industry and Employers.

I hold a Master’s degree in International Business Administration, Finance & Investments.