IFRS Foundation Trustees appoint four further members to the International Sustainability Standards Board

The IFRS Foundation Trustees today announced the appointment of Richard Barker, Verity Chegar, Bing Leng and Ndidi Nnoli-Edozien as inaugural members of the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB).

Richard Barker is currently deputy dean and professor of accounting at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, UK. In this capacity, he leads Oxford Saïd’s sustainable business initiatives. He has published a wide range of academic research papers on accounting and sustainability disclosures. He chairs the expert panel of Accounting for Sustainability (A4S) and has previously served as a member of several committees and bodies focused on corporate reporting in the UK and Europe, including the UK Corporate Reporting Council, the Financial Reporting Advisory Board and the European Accounting Association’s Accounting Standards Committee. Professor Barker has also served as a research fellow at the International Accounting Standards Board.

Verity Chegar brings a wealth of investment and standard-setting expertise to the ISSB. She has 20 years of experience in sustainable investment and stewardship, portfolio management and investment research with both asset owner and asset manager perspectives. She joins from the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS), where she leads the pension fund’s policy engagement on sustainable investment and stewardship issues and manages the fund’s work to reach its net zero ambition. Ms Chegar was previously with BlackRock, where she integrated sustainability considerations into the investment process, portfolio company engagement and proxy voting. She is also currently serving as Co-Vice Chair of the SASB Standards Board, where she has been overseeing the development and maintenance of SASB’s industry-based standards since 2017.

Bing Leng is currently a Director in the Accounting Regulatory Department of the Chinese Ministry of Finance, where he oversees sustainability reporting initiatives. He initiated and led the implementation of several reporting-related programmes, including the development of digital taxonomies to enable electronic reporting and plans focused on digitising the accounting profession. Mr Leng serves as a member of the International Accounting Standards Board’s IFRS Taxonomy Consultative Group and has also served as a member of the board of directors of XBRL International. He is a Doctor of Management and has a Master of Accounting from Tianjin University of Finance and Economics.

Ndidi Nnoli-Edozien's career has been focused on building connections between business and sustainable development, working across multinational and indigenous companies, public institutions and civil society organisations, in Africa and Europe, to initiate sustainable development initiatives. In her last role, she served as the inaugural Group Chief Sustainability and Governance Officer of Dangote Industries Limited—one of Africa’s largest manufacturing businesses. In this role, she was responsible for the developing the company’s sustainability culture, strategy and reporting across 14 countries. Dr Nnoli-Edozien has founded and served on several boards, committees and initiatives focused on corporate culture, impact investing, sustainability reporting and governance.

All appointees will start their roles as full-time ISSB members in July 2022.

The Trustees are committed to ensuring the ISSB has appropriate diversity and are at advanced stages of recruiting further board members. Appointments to bring the ISSB to quorum (eight members) will be announced shortly, with the aim of completing the inaugural appointments to the Board during the third quarter of 2022.

The ISSB’s first public board meeting will be held at the ISSB’s offices in Frankfurt the week commencing 18 July. Information about how to observe the meeting online will become available in the IFRS Foundation’s meeting calendar.

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

I am pleased that our first round of ISSB appointments to work with Chair Emmanuel Faber and Vice-Chair Sue Lloyd bring a mix of complementary experiences and skillsets to the ISSB. We will continue focusing on creating a diverse ISSB as we add further members to the board.

Emmanuel Faber, Chair of the ISSB, said:

I am delighted to welcome Richard, Verity, Bing and Ndidi to the ISSB. They all have a passion for sustainability and reporting and will help get the ISSB off to a great start as we prepare to discuss the feedback received to our current consultation.

Richard Barker said:

As a long-standing proponent of the creation of an international standard-setter for sustainability disclosures, I am truly excited to join the ISSB.

Verity Chegar said:

Investors need comparable, consistent and reliable sustainability data to inform their investment and stewardship decisions across global portfolios and asset classes. I’m delighted that the ISSB has committed to building on the industry-based SASB Standards and look forward to helping deliver a global baseline of decision-useful information to investors.

Bing Leng said:

I am honoured to join the ISSB as one of the inaugural members and look forward to working with colleagues and stakeholders to deliver a set of high-quality IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards as a comprehensive global baseline.​

Ndidi Nnoli-Edozien said:

I am honoured by the opportunity to join the ISSB and am committed to bringing to the Board my experience from many years of connecting businesses and sustainable development across Africa and Europe.