Roopal Kanabar, Climate Finance and NbS Adviser

In 2019 Roopal embarked on a journey to combine her knowledge of finance with her passion for bettering the environment and quality of life for all; this led to her founding Sustainabar. Prior to this, she held several senior finance roles within corporate credit risk, loan trading, corporate derivatives sales and structuring at Citibank (London and Sydney) spanning over a decade.

Her work aims to leverage the strong technical skill set built during her time in banking by taking on roles at organisations that positively contribute towards the Paris Agreement and UN Sustainable Development Goals – she predominantly focuses on bringing thought processes and instruments used in traditional institutional finance to the sustainable (environmental and social) investment space to enable capital to flow at scale. She has a portfolio of clients and carries out strategic advisory work for a number of organisations in various sectors, including but not limited to: UN agencies, not-for-profits, asset managers, start-ups, corporates, impact investors and impact measurement.

Roopal’s way of thinking, understanding of cultural sensitives and intrinsic desire to serve have been heavily influenced by her upbringing in Malawi, where over half the population lives in poverty and one-fifth in extreme poverty.

Roopal spends time between Blantyre (Malawi) and London (United Kingdom). She graduated from the University of Warwick with a First Class (Honours) Degree in Computer and Management Sciences.