Maria Sillanpaa
Founding Director Sustainability Advisory Group

Speaker Bio:

Maria Sillanpaa is one of a small number of people renowned internationally as a leading practitioner in the fields of corporate responsibility and sustainability management. Having worked exclusively in the field since its earliest days in roles at The Body Shop, KPMG and Accountability, she has worked on performance audits right through to creating new holistic corporate responsibility strategies. Maria spent six years managing the award winning Ethical Audit Team at The Body Shop International where she was responsible for the design and implementation of social auditing and for the publication of the company’s non-financial Values Reports. She made a significant international contribution to KPMG’s business strategy in this area, making them leading service providers in this field.

A selection of her clients includes AVIVA, BBC, BSkyB, The Co-operative Group, The Gap Inc, ING Bank, Nakheel, Nike, Novo Nordisk, Pfizer, Sainsbury’s, Shell, Siemens, Westfield, The Body Shop International.

Maria was a founding member of AccountAbility’s Executive Committee when it was established in 1995, and was instrumental in setting up the AA1000 Assurance and Stakeholder Engagement Standards. She currently sits on the Technical Advisory Committee of Global Reporting Initiative.

Maria’s publications include the seminal The Stakeholder Corporation– A Blueprint for Maximizing Stakeholder Value, endorsed by global leaders from prime ministers to Noble Laureates. She was recently recognised in CSR International’s inaugural CSR Leaders Poll. Her recent number three ranking in the CSR International’s global advisory leaders category reflects her profound and continuing impact in this field.