Petra Hakamo appointed as Evli’s new Head of Sustainability

Petra Hakamo has strong experience in sustainability-related work - Petra has previously worked for Evli and SEB, and serves as Vice Chair of the Finnish Venture Capital Association's Sustainability Working Group. Petra joins from Evli Growth Partners, where she has previously worked as Investment Manager and Head of Sustainability. Hakamo is looking forward to her new role and responsibilities.

"I very much look forward to working on sustainability with the portfolio managers across all asset classes at Evli, and to further develop Evli's sustainability practices. To date Evli has systematically developed responsible investing as one of its strategic priorities, laying out a strong foundation for future work, " says Hakamo.  

As a first key area of development, the new Head of Sustainability will set concrete action steps to reach Evli's climate targets, in order to halve the carbon emissions of its investments by 2030 and make Evli fully carbon neutral for all its investments by 2050.  

"These are ambitious goals and now is the time to get down to work to achieve them. At Evli, we are working to ensure that our operations are in line with the 2015 Paris Agreement target to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. This is important to us, and we want to take our responsibility through concrete actions," says Hakamo. 

Long experience in sustainability

Hakamo has vast experience in identifying sustainability challenges and coming up with solutions.

"Sustainability has been a key focus area for me over the past 10 years, both professionally and academically. I did a Master’s Degree in Corporate Sustainability and trust that having experience in finance and investing is valuable in helping to better understand sustainability issues also from an investor's perspective," she adds.  

She also has a clear vision of which trends will dominate the field of sustainability in 2022. 

"Climate work is, of course, a key area driving both the corporate and investor community. The EU taxonomy and regulatory developments will be very much on the table, in setting both climate and other environmental targets. Finally Social responsibility is also an important topic to highlight, given the new ways of working and effects of Covid."

"Evli has been actively and systematically developing its responsible investment practices for years and has made sustainability one of its strategic priorities. Our sustainability work has also been rewarded on several occasions, the most recent example being the SFR Responsible Investment Award 2021 in recognition of the best responsible investment expertise in Finland. A big thank you goes to our former Head of Sustainability, Outi Helenius, who took on the chief role for responsible investment at Evli for the past five years. Now it is time to pass on the responsibility and I am very happy that we have found a new Head of Sustainability, Petra Hakamo, from within Evli. Petra has strong expertise in sustainability and a good understanding of the challenges that investors face in seeking returns responsibly," says Kim Pessala, Head of Institutional Wealth Management at Evli. 

Petra Hakamo 

• Previously worked as Head of Sustainability and Investment Manager at Evli Growth Partners.
• Vice Chair of the ESG Working Group of the Finnish Venture Capital Association and member of the European "ESG in VC" Working Group.
• Previously also worked in SEB's Large Corporates and Financial Institutions division, in credit analysis and business development functions in Helsinki and Stockholm.
• M.Sc. in Economics and Business Administration, London School of Economics & Aalto University. B.Sc. in Business Administration and Political Science, Stockholm University.

For more information: 

Petra Hakamo, Head of Sustainability, Evli Bank Plc, Tel: +358 40 552 5880, petra.hakamo@evli.com

Kim Pessala, Head of Institutional Wealth Management, Evli Bank Plc, Tel: +358 9 4766 9141, kim.pessala@evli.com