Martin Steindl

Martin Steindl is Managing Director of Valoris Stewardship Catalysts, a firm that helps investors and theirportfolio companies improve their corporate governance, investor stewardship and sustainability performance.

From 2012 to 2021, Martin held various positions at FMO, The Dutch Development Bank. While at FMO, he managed a team of 13 ESG specialists with the overall goal to redefine existing best practices to streamline ESG risk management processes for investments in financial institutions and private equity funds.

In addition, Martin devised ESG and green finance-related solutions, launched a climate governance program and advised on internal projects regarding EU taxonomy and integrated reporting. As part of FMO's climate governance program, Martin devised a three-pronged, trickle-down strategy to familiarize FMO’s FI clientele with climate risk issues in their respective portfolios. Its first and most crucial step was to raise awareness with the boards of FI clients, which involved a 2-hour workshop on climate risk and the board’s role in addressing those and other E&S related risks. Key outcomes of this awareness session were to find the right anchor for climate risk at board level and adequately adjust the board’s committee structure, as well as ensure for sufficient expertise at board level and additional training. The second step of the strategy was the development of a more detailed, one-day training for bank risk managers that covered key topical issues in line with the Sustainability and Climate Risk certificate of the Global Association of Risk Professionals. The final step was then to help FI clients in taking steps to analyze their portfolio, for which a consultant specialized on climate risk was subcontracted.  In addition to this program, Martin also supported an FI client in Africa on reporting pursuant to the TCFD framework and was involved with FMO’s effort to report on its own climate impact.