SMFG is delighted to announce that Ms Robin Sandenburgh was appointed to SMFG’s board of directors in July 2021. Ms Sandenburgh is an Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) Sustainability Executive with over 40 years of diverse experience primarily in ESG policies, regulations, and performance of private sector enterprises, with significant experience in emerging markets and across a diverse range of industrial sectors. She has extensive expertise in environmental management and monitoring, pollution mitigation, stakeholder engagement, community compensation and resettlement, assessment of climate impacts, and ESG training and development.

Ms Sandenburgh’s career included 25 years with the ESG Department of IFC, the World Bank Group’s private sector investment arm, most recently as a Senior Manager for Latin America/Caribbean and Sub-Saharan Africa. While at IFC she led regional teams of environmental and social professionals based in Harare, Zimbabwe, New Delhi, India, Cairo, Egypt, and Istanbul, Turkey, responsible for ESG due diligence and monitoring of IFC’s regional investment portfolio. She was part of the core team that developed IFC’s 2012 Environmental and Social Performance Standards, widely considered the global benchmark for private investment in emerging markets.

Ms Sandenburgh bolsters the technical capacity of SMFG’s board of directors in the area of ESG, and testifies to the extraordinary importance accorded to environmental and social issues in the Nimba Iron Ore Project.