Senior Manager Sustainable Finance, WWF South Africa

Wendy Engel is the Senior Manager Sustainable Finance at WWF South Africa, with more than a decade of experience addressing ESG challenges and developing green financial solutions. The sustainable finance team works on research and green financial solutions, represented on the Steering Committee of the Development Bank of Southern Africa Climate Finance Facility, the Sanlam Living Planet Fund Investment Committee, agriculture expert on the French Development Bank’s Transforming Climate System credit line to commercial banks, and the Green Outcomes Fund Advisory Committee. Wendy has authored a number of publications including on investing in biodiversity in Southern Africa, investing in soil in South Africa, and climate change investment and finance opportunities in South African agriculture, food loss and waste in South Africa (co-author), and climate-related disclosure factsheets for South African JSE listed companies.

Wendy has more than 15 years’ experience working as an Agriculture Economist at Absa Agribusiness due diligence on commercial and small scale agriculture, an Economist at Cape Town University’s Energy Research Centre, and Project Manager at Sustainable Energy Africa. She started her career in the non- profit sector and academia designing a Sustainable Agriculture Master’s programme at Sustainability Institute. She holds a Pretoria University Masters (Distinction) in Agriculture Economics specialising in Environmental Economics and is registered for PhD at Stellenbosch University’s Business School.