Webinar: 2024 Carbon Market Deep Dive and Future Trends

Karolien is South Pole's Global Senior Director for Article 6. As such, she defines and oversees the company strategy for international compliance carbon markets governed under the UN Paris Agreement for the world's largest carbon asset manager. She has 18 years of experience in climate finance, development finance and carbon markets. Before joining South Pole, she worked with the Belgian Foreign Ministry, the United Nations and the Global Green Growth Institute. She lived and worked across Africa and Asia advising developing country governments on aid finance and green investment opportunities, managing programmes on clean energy, waste, transport, sustainable supply chains, NDCs and more. She graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of Leuven with a Masters in Philosophy and holds a Masters in International Relations from Sciences Po Paris. Karolien speaks English, French, Dutch and German.

With his deep understanding of South Pole’s extensive portfolio of projects and credit issuance, Ricky supports APAC clients with structuring a high quality portfolio offer of credits to meet their requirements and preferences. Ricky brings a wealth of expertise in the industry with prior roles as a Senior Analyst at FGE specialising in Gas/LNG & Carbon-Neutral LNG and as Manager of Risk and Compliance at Dow Jones, Ricky possesses a comprehensive understanding of the field.

Danielle leads the climate projects team to deliver and expand on emission reduction initiatives within Australia. With her deep expertise in voluntary carbon markets, climate finance, and sustainability, Danielle has played a pivotal role in serving our clients in the region. Her academic background includes a Master's degree in Sustainable Development from the University of London, UK.

Lauren has over a decade of experience in the voluntary carbon market. She started her career working in carbon project development, long-term monitoring and management for a portfolio of projects spanning the globe including technologies such as renewable energy, clean water filtration, and methane digesters. Upon joining South Pole in 2021 she took on managing procurement and trading activities for the Americas region before becoming the regional lead for the carbon portfolio team.

Judit is a Senior Managing Consultant with extensive expertise in mobilising finance for climate project development within the Voluntary Carbon Market (VCM). She is also experienced in compliance carbon markets, assessing and tracking demand for ITMOs across different countries and sectors, understanding how regulations influence their demand, particularly those relating to Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, monitoring buyers that are actively seeking ITMOs, and tracking price and volume expectations.

Her work also involves managing and overseeing every aspect of compliance, strategy, and execution related to the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) include ensuring that clients meet the mandatory reporting and offsetting requirements under CORSIA, advising on strategy, engaging with airlines, regulatory bodies, and other stakeholders to navigate the scheme, tracking updates and developments and assessing demand and supply for CORSIA Phase I and Phase II.

Alexei is a Senior Carbon Portfolio Offering Specialist at South Pole. In his role, Alexei supports South Pole’s global client base with bespoke portfolios of carbon credits, matching client ambitions and criteria with the best projects the market and South Pole has to offer. In addition to curating credit portfolios, Alexei monitors the market, international initiatives, regulatory developments, and more, ensuring that clients are well-informed and equipped to engage in the Voluntary Carbon Market. Alexei also specializes in the commercialization of early-stage and scale-up project opportunities for Nature-based Solutions and other project types. Bridging existing financing gaps to enable climate action on the ground while providing investors and corporates with unique impact opportunities. Prior to his work at South Pole, Alexei spent four years working with impact-oriented startups across a variety of industries from fintech and sustainable textiles to clean energy. He holds a BA in Business Economics and Entrepreneurship from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Ritika is a Principal Consultant specializing in Article 6 at South Pole, where she provides technical guidance and advisory to both in-house teams and clients, helping them translate evolving regulatory frameworks under Article 6 into actionable climate solutions. Ritika provides expert oversight on Article 6.2 and 6.4 regulatory developments, closely monitoring UNFCCC processes and global climate policy developments to ensure South Pole remains at the forefront of impactful project development. Ritika represents South Pole in networks such as IETA and the Project Developer Forum, strengthening the company’s position within the global Article 6 community. Ritika has a global role, in which she manages the development of Article 6 projects in the company with all major Article 6 buyers. Additionally, Ritika advises external clients from the public and private sector on the design and integration of Article 6 and other carbon pricing instruments in national strategies. She further leads creation of proprietary tools for the company to identify optimal geographies and technologies for compliance carbon projects, positioning South Pole to strategically navigate emerging carbon markets.