Mehrdad Nazari, CR, GRI, ESIA,Sustainable Finance Expert

Mehrdad (MBA, MSc, LEAD Fellow) is the Corporate Responsibility & ESIA Practice Leader and Director of Prizma with over 20 years of international experience. He contributes to and trouble shoots bankable environmental and social impact assessments (project examples: Armenia, Tibet and Venezuela). Mehrdad also provides advisory services and training focused on IFC Performance Standards, Equator Principles and the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). He currently serves as an expert witness on an  international arbitration case before the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in Washington DC, and has also advised IFC/MIGA’s Compliance Advisor Ombudsman office. Previously, Mehrdad served as a Principal Environmental Specialist at the European Bank (EBRD, London), supporting wholesale banking and sustainable finance projects by  conducting environmental and social appraisal and monitoring for an investment portfolio exceeding $2 billion (EBRD's portion, in extractives, infrastructure, intermediated financing); CSR Research Director at CoreRatings, London (formerly part of Fitch, divested to DNV), advising responsible investors/asset managers; and Project Manager with Dames & Moore (now URS), conducting compliance and M&A-oriented environmental, health & safety (EHS) audits and remedial investigation. Mehrdad studied geosciences and business administration in Germany, USA (Fulbright grantee) and the UK. He is also a Fellow of Rockefeller Foundation’s Leadership for Environment & Development program. Mehrdad is a German national and resides with his family in the US.

Bill's career spans over 30 years. He is currently an ESIA advisor to the Millennium Challenge Corp. Starting in 2010 Bill, together with a Moroccan consulting firm, developed a simplified checklist and procedure related to social and environmental impacts for use by 13 microfinance credit agencies in Morocco and is currently involved in a training program for over 1000 credit officers in the country on their use and application. He also developed an environmental/social impact assessment procedure and training for the staff of Shelter Afrique, an international housing finance institution in Nairobi, Kenya in 2009. Previously, he was the Executive Director of the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation (Montreal , Canada), assisting them in carrying out due diligence and public consultation on industrial and transport projects in Africa and Latin America (Nicaragua, Burkina Faso and Mali). Prior to that, Bill was the Head of the Environmental Policy and Strategy Unit of the European Bank (London, UK), spearheading the development of the Bank’s Environmental Policy and Strategy, appraising and monitoring of private and public sector operations, and secured new funding sources for the Bank’s environmental activities, including access to the funds of the Global Environment Facility (GEF). Bill is an Adjunct Professor, Political Science Department, Concordia University , Montreal. He also held other senior posts with the Dutch Ministries of Environment and Foreign Affairs, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).

Dr. Don Proebstel, Biodiversity & ESIA Expert

Don's career spans 20 years, including Senior Environmental and Social Analyst with the Overseas Private Investment Corp.(OPIC), market analyst with Pike Research, VP Environmental and Sustainability at a junior mining company, research in conservation biology, environmental consulting, and scientific advisor to NGOs, and academia. Don has a special interest in energy and resource conservation, biodiversity offsets and sustainability in the international development arena. Don is currently in the Office of Investment Policy at OPIC, is a scientific advisor to Hawaii based renewable energy think-tank - Natural Power Concepts, and recently served as Gold Reserve Inc.'s Vice President for Environment and Sustainability. He was previously a Senior Environmental and Biodiversity Consultant with AATA International. He was also the Director of the World Salmonid Research Institute, which includes some of the most distinguished scientists in this field, and worked closely with the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Moscow State University and the Wild Salmon Center.

Koichiro Ishimori, BA, MA, Evaluation & Development Expert

Koichiro's 10+ years of experience includes positions as Evaluation Officer at the Japan Bank for International Cooperation and Program Officer at the Foundation for Advanced Studies on Int. Development. His past clients/projects include the World Bank, UNFPA, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Japanese Government, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and JBIC. Koichiro’s experience includes Indonesia, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Tunisia, Morocco, USA and Switzerland. He studied economics, and technology/science and international public policy at Rikkyo University (Japan), University of Denver (USA), and the University of Sussex (UK). He is also a Fellow of Rockefeller Foundation’s Leadership for Environment and Development (LEAD), and speaks Japanese, English and French. Koichiro is the President of the Value Frontier, Co., Ltd, a consulting firm based in Tokyo specializing in consultations on international development projects and climate change.

Denes is a Chemical Engineer with a career spanning over 30 years. Previously, Denes was a Senior Environmental Advisor at the EBRD, focused on industrial energy efficiency projects, metallurgical & chemical industries, and vehicle manufacturing. While at the EBRD, his main responsibility included management of environmental and social due diligence on investment projects, including environmental and social audits, impact assessments, development of corrective action plans and monitoring their implementation. He also managed industrial energy efficiency projects, energy audits, technical assistant projects and training programs for junior bankers and financial intermediary partners and their consultants.  Prior to joining the EBRD, Denes worked in industrial research centers, government agencies, international consultancy and at UNIDO. In addition to his training as a Chemical Engineer (MSc, PhD), Denes also holds postgraduate degrees in Economics and History. 

Martin has 23 years of experience in Health Impact Assessment globally. His previous appointments include Senior Health Adviser on HIA at Shell and Senior Lecturer at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. Martin has advised development banks, development agencies, governments and multinationals companies. He also authored many books, papers, reports and guidelines, co-founded the health section of International Association on Impact Assessment (IAIA) and the International HIA Consortium. Martin is the Founding Director of Birley HIA.

Carolina Benavides, Pro-Poor, PPI, NGO & GRI Expert

Ms. Benavides is a Peruvian-based psychologist. Her international experience includes improving poverty conditions in regions affected by violence, applying the Progress Out of Poverty Index (PPI), and sustainability reporting. Ms. Benavides is currently executive director of NeVo Consultores -sister company of the NGO Nexos Voluntarios- which conducts a wide variety of projects related to managing and measuring social, environmental and economic impact, with organizations such as the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), FMO, Technoserve, JP Morgan, United Nations Population Fund, Mibanco, and the Peru Opportunity Fund. Ms. Benavides has also worked with the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma providing technical assistance for the implementation of mental health services in Peru. Ms. Benavides' training includes the Global Reporting Initiative sustainability reporting guidelines, and the IFC Performance Standards and Equator Principles.

Steve Schmida, International Development, PPP, USAID, GDA

Steve has over 15 years of experience in international development and CSR, and is Director at SSG Advisors. Steve managed and implemented community engagement, CSR and related capacity building programs for a variety of international companies in the extractive sector in emerging markets, including Russia, Mexico and Pakistan. He co-designed USAID’s new Alliance Assessment Framework, the principal tool the agency uses to identify partnership opportunities with the private sector. He has also delivered training and technical assistance on the GDA business model to USAID missions in Afghanistan, India, Cyprus, Armenia, Macedonia, Indonesia, Vietnam, South Africa, Bosnia and Kosovo. Working with QUALCOMM, Microsoft, USAID and Dialog Telekom, Steve contributed to launching an award-winning new wireless broadband service in 55 rural communities in Sri Lanka to connect tens of thousands of villagers to the Internet for the first time.  He also served as Senior Consultant for Partnerships for the USAID/Vietnam LMI 2.0, and has been involved in numerous assessments and evaluations for clients in Afghanistan, Hungary, Central Asia Republics, Azerbaijan, Ghana, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Russia, India, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Mexico, Kosovo, Uganda, Bangladesh, Vietnam and elsewhere. Prior to SSG Advisors, he served as Regional Director for the Eurasia Foundation in Russia and in Central Asia, managing a 12 million dollar (annual budget) small grants and technical assistance program and developing partnerships and providing CSR training to SUAL, YUKOS,  Aeroflot, Gazprom, RusAl, Vympelcom, SeverStal, TNK-BP, Alfa Bank, Norilsk Nickel. Fluent in Russian and English, Mr. Schmida holds an MA from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

• Terms
• Contact us