Former World Bank Vice President Jingdong Hua appointed as ISSB Vice-Chair, completing the ISSB membership

The IFRS Foundation Trustees have completed the recruitment of members to the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) with the appointment of Jingdong Hua as a second Vice-Chair, effective October 2022.

Mr Hua joins the ISSB leadership team which also includes Vice-Chair Sue Lloyd and Chair Emmanuel Faber. The ISSB’s 14 members are drawn from a variety of professional backgrounds and countries to provide the balance of expertise required to develop a truly global baseline of sustainability disclosures for the capital markets. Mr Hua’s base will be the IFRS Foundation’s ISSB office in Montreal.

Mr Hua brings a wealth of international finance and development expertise to the ISSB. He is the former Vice President and Treasurer of the World Bank, where his responsibilities included green bond initiatives and sustainable finance capacity-building programmes. He also served as the Administrator of the World Bank Group Pension Fund.

Before joining the World Bank, he served as Vice President and Treasurer of the International Finance Corporation, where he led innovative bond issuances in several emerging markets. He has also previously served as Deputy Treasurer of the Asian Development Bank and has held positions at the United Nations Development Programme and the African Development Bank.

International collaboration in the ISSB’s development of IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards is essential in creating a system that can be implemented globally, resulting in a consistent approach across markets. As its work develops, the ISSB will pay special attention to the needs of stakeholders in emerging and developing economies, as well as to smaller and medium-sized companies, including within global supply chains. The ISSB recognises that such stakeholders face challenges in applying sustainability disclosure requirements.

The ISSB will tailor its requirements so they are proportionate and can be phased in to ensure global inclusion. To further support these stakeholders, the ISSB will also design a comprehensive strategy for capacity building in the use of its Standards.

Mr Hua will oversee the development and implementation of the ISSB’s strategies to support and include stakeholders in emerging and developing economies as well as small and medium-sized companies. His role will complement the continued leadership role of the ISSB’s other Vice-Chair Ms Lloyd, who oversees the overall organisation of the ISSB’s work and its technical staff as well as the connection between the ISSB and the International Accounting Standards Board to ensure the two boards’ requirements are complementary.

Erkki Liikanen, Chair of the IFRS Foundation Trustees, said:

We have created a highly qualified standard-setting board with a terrific blend of professional expertise and a strong leadership team in Emmanuel, Sue and Jingdong. On behalf of the Trustees, I wish the entire ISSB the best of luck with its important work to deliver sustainability disclosure standards for the 21^st century.

Emmanuel Faber, Chair of the ISSB, said:

I’m delighted to have a complete team of ISSB members in place and look forward to working with this diverse and talented group of people. Our dual Vice-Chair model will enable us to equally focus and deliver on our two priorities: developing our Standards with a high sense of momentum through quality processes, and truly embedding global inclusiveness and adoption considerations in our work from inception.

Jingdong Hua said:

Sustainability is a defining issue for our generation. I am thrilled to join the ISSB and look forward to working with partner organisations and institutions to deliver capacity-building initiatives on sustainability disclosures both internationally and with particular focus on emerging and developing economies.

The composition requirements for the ISSB are set out in the IFRS Foundation’s Constitution.

The ISSB’s next meeting takes place in Frankfurt on the week commencing 19 September 2022. The meeting can be observed live online from the meeting page.

Visit the ISSB group page for more information on individual members. The full complement of the ISSB is as follows:

• Chair: Emmanuel Faber
• Vice-Chairs: Jingdong Hua, Sue Lloyd
• Members: Richard Barker, Jenny Bofinger-Schuster, Verity Chegar, Jeffrey Hales, Michael Jantzi, Hiroshi Komori, Bing Leng, Ndidi Nnoli-Edozien, Tae-Young Paik, Veronika Pountcheva, Elizabeth Seeger