Mr. Carlo Cavedon was born in 1983 and is a graduate of Political Science, Law, and International Studies from the Università di Padova. With a passion for technology and knowledge sharing, he began his career in 2015 as a member of the Communications Team at Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center.

In 2019, Carlo transitioned to the Circular Economy unit, where he currently serves as a member of the Circular Economy Team. In his role, Carlo plays an integral part in supporting the transition to the new economic paradigm. He is responsible for evaluating investment projects and fostering networking relations with national and international stakeholders.

Mr. Christopher El Khoury is an industrial and green biotech graduate with a Master's degree in Circular Bioeconomy. Since 2018, he has been working in the circular economy Lab at the Innovation center of Intesa Sanpaolo Banking Group, where he plays a crucial role in accelerating the circular transition of businesses, companies, and institutions through circular advocacy, education, and open innovation. In this position, Christopher is responsible for keeping an eye on emerging regulatory, market, and tech trends, as well as continuously scouting for innovative startups to promote circular economy initiatives.

Prior to his current position, Christopher served as the Vice President of AEGEE, a European student association, where he founded several projects with a focus on social and environmental issues.

Mr. Yisong Guan is the Chief Representative of Beijing Office for the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. He has rich experience in providing consultation to governments and enterprises for green transition. In his over ten years career on climate change，he founded Easy Carbon, a consultancy firm, to support companies for achieving low carbon transition under Clean Development Mechanism of UNFCCC. The company helped its clients secured over 5 billion RMB carbon
emission reduction financing through carbon market with successfully registered 178 CDM projects in the UNFCCC, ranking No. 1 in China. He was the Chief Operation Officer of the United Nations Environment Programme – International Ecosystem Management Partnership (UNEP-IEMP), responsible for organization management and project execution to protect biodiversity with promoting international cooperation on ecosystem management. He is leading the China Programme of the Foundation to accelerate the circular economy transition of China through high level cooperation, industry transition dialogue and capacity buildings to unlock the country’s potentials and achieve the social and environmental benefits from the circular economy.

Ms. Veronique Lafon-Vinais is a seasoned financial market professional with over 20 years of banking and capital markets experience. She has worked in all the major financial markets and has extensive experience in all the major debt markets.
Veronique joined Credit Agricole in Paris in 1980 after graduating from HEC; she moved to First Chicago (now part of JP Morgan) in London in 1984 then to Chicago in 1990. In 1991 Veronique joined Union Investissements, the M&A and corporate finance subsidiary of Credit Agricole in Paris to work on various M&A and corporate finance advisory projects. Veronique moved to Hong Kong in 1994 joining First Chicago as Managing Director, Head of Financial Markets, Asia Pacific. She joined Standard Chartered Bank plc as Head of Treasury Origination in 2000 and retired from banking in 2001.

She is now dedicating herself full time to education and teaching as Associate Professor of Business Education, Department of Finance, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), where she teaches in the MBA/MSc programs as well as in the Undergraduate Programs, and professional training and consulting for the finance industry. She is the Executive Director, Career Development & Corporate Outreach for the School of Business and Management at HKUST, Associate Director for the UG programs,Co-Director of the BSc in Sustainable and Green Finance, Associate Director of the tri-degree World Bachelor in Business Program, and Project Director for the HKUST-NYU Stern MSc in Global Finance.
Veronique is married with two children. She is a French national and a Hong Kong Permanent Resident.