Key Takeaways – Female Trailblazers Leading the Charge at Women in Climate event

By Clare Ruel, Content Executive, Lysander PR

Swiss Re and Fathom hosted a Women in Climate – Building Influence event in London last week, spotlighting a trio of female industry trailblazers in the climate change arena to celebrate the influence of women. 

Each speaker told their personal story of why the fight against climate change was so meaningful to them and where the passion derived from, while highlighting the urgent need to convene women across the sector in these conversations. 

Here’s a glimpse at our key takeaways: 

Turning Fear into Fearlessness 

Natalia Dorfman, CEO and Co-founder of Kita told the story of how she hated public speaking, but had since found a personal power in speaking up. 

Recently her very shy nine-year-old daughter played the role of Nanna the dog, who is the nursemaid of the children, in the story of Peter Pan, for her school play and it reminded Natalia of a younger version of herself, when she was just 14-years-old. Natalia remembered when she was asked to present her favourite song and explain why the lyrics were like poetry in front of her class at school. 

After deliberately losing the cassette tape in a bid to get out of doing the presentation, she was then mortified when she was asked by the teacher to “sing the song” instead. This, for her was a tipping point as Natalia made a conscious decision never to feel disempowered like that again. 

Over time and with practice, Natalia became more confident at public speaking, even leading to people complimenting her. 

This was the catalyst that led to Natalia’s first career pivot. After her father sadly passed away just two weeks before her sister’s wedding, Natalia drew on her public speaking experience to give the speech as Maid of Honour during that very sad time. This subsequently led to one of the wedding guests offering her a job position at a law firm. 

Likewise, being put in a position where she learned to lead teams and meetings as well as speak up in an environment where many were male, older, more experienced with many of her ideas being shot down, her confidence further developed.

Natalia launched Kita when she was 37, and her children were three and five. 

She said: “Kita was different – it wasn’t a feeling of ‘I don’t want to feel like this anymore, it was a feeling of ‘I think I can do more. I want to make an impact on climate change and I want to feel like I have the power to change [things] and have an impact that is wider than myself.’ But to do this, I had to overcome my fear of failure. Honestly it was the best decision I have ever made.

“What I have learned is that the power of our minds is in being able to make decisions that expand the horizon of how we are capable of acting. Women are told all the time, ‘we can't, we shouldn't’ and in climate change, all of us in climate are almost exclusively told ‘we can't, we shouldn't’. My hope, for all of you focused on climate, is that you go out of here and you go and you do.”

Relishing risks and optimising opportunities

Having first trained as an economist, then working at two different banks - the Bank of England and the Reserve Bank of Australia, and ending up at the Financial Services Authority, Jo Paisley, who is now President at the Global Association of Risk Professionals (GARP), found that she was surprisingly good in a crisis. 

Jo said: “I don’t know why but when everyone starts losing their heads, I seem to go into some sort of zen mode. I realised also that I love learning and that has probably been the guiding principle for my whole career. If I am learning, interested and fascinated in it, I am going to do a lot better.”

She didn’t become interested in risk until much later in her career, however, when she had to run a risk specialist division, despite not having direct experience in risk, Jo thrived in a crisis and enjoyed creating some order in a mess. 

Jo said: “I realised I loved risk. It’s a bit like economics, it’s thinking about what could go hideously wrong rather than what’s going to happen.”

Jo later became the Global Head of Stress Testing at HSBC, before joining GARP. She later turned her focus to climate change at GARP and has continued to go forth with this. 

“Once you know how awful it’s going to be if we don’t do something, you can’t put that genie back in the bottle. I have gone through that cycle of grief and anger, now I am like ‘let’s get on with this’. Let’s do as much as we can to educate people and motivate them to do stuff because honestly it’s all to play for. I firmly believe that when people understand it, they will want to take action,” Jo added. 

She urged attendees to first understand what it is that they are good at or like doing, think about the skills needed to improve, but also what you want or need in your career will change over time. Lastly she added the importance of taking risks and seizing opportunities. 

Follow your passion 

For Lisa Eichler, Executive Director, Head of Physical Risk and Nature Solutions at financial services firm, MSCI, working in the climate change sector has always been her passion. 

Lisa said: “Climate is my career and passion, that combination has been the driving force of my career choices. We work for many years and if you can follow your passion, you can do anything and you know you are dedicated to it.”

This passion for the sector stemmed from a pivotal childhood experience when she became conscious of where the food she ate came from, subsequently becoming a vegetarian and asking her parents to follow suit.

In 2017, Lisa got the opportunity to build the ESG and climate team at a financial firm. 

Lisa added: “Since then, I have been learning the field. I also love learning and think you should never stop learning new things and challenging yourself.”

Now at MSCI, in a similar role focusing on ESG and climate change, Lisa stressed how important it was for her to be in a leadership role as well as trusting your intuition.

Lisa concluded: “As women we sometimes have the feeling combined with what makes logical sense. Quite frankly I have felt like I have been the odd one out, thinking differently for my entire life, starting with my six-year-old vegetarian self. It’s scary to think differently or be different, but it also gave me an edge, bringing in a different perspective.”

We would like to extend our gratitude to the organisers of Women in Climate 2025 for putting together such a thought provoking event. You opened up the floor to such a transparent trio of female speakers who created a safe space for attendees to continue the conversation and take further action in their own climate journeys.