Philippa Martinelli
Head of Climate & Transition Finance
Philippa is a climate and financial services expert, focused on the capital structures and levers (policy, regulation, infrastructure, data, technology) which can accelerate the climate transition at scale. Philippa began her career with Merrill Lynch in Equities and Structured Finance in London and Hong Kong. Since then, it has included venture capital, entrepreneurship, international business development, policy, market development and corporate innovation. Philippa is the founder and CEO of Phronesis, a climate and fintech focused strategy & innovation advisory business, working with investors, businesses, governments and NGOs across 6 continents.
As an investor and board member, Philippa leverages specialisms in internationalisation, partnerships, sustainability, funding models and scaling. Her work has helped hundreds of companies to achieve their international goals. An independent advisor to the UK government, Philippa was a leading voice for the sector inside Whitehall and in international negotiations. There she designed, implemented and led programmes to scale-up capital flows and commercial outcomes, and accelerate climate solution adoption. Philippa’s work with the UNICEF Venture Fund has focused on equipping founders to maximise impact and profit whilst delivering sustainable climate, financial inclusion, health and education solutions in emerging economies.
Philippa is passionate about the opportunities created at the intersection of financial services, science, technology, policy & regulation, and the role of finance in addressing global climate and transition challenges. Working with the CCAF, she and her team are focused on identifying and implementing financial structures and nesting solutions which enable institutional investors and catalytic capital providers to deploy capital more effectively and scale-up transition solutions.
Philippa holds a Master’s in Physics (First Class Hons) from Imperial College London and conducted research in Biophysics and Medical Imaging at the EPFL in Switzerland.