Corporate Social Responsibility and sustainability have become increasingly important considerations for financial institutions in recent years. CSR refers to a company's commitment to operating ethically, responsibly, and contributing positively to society and the environment. Sustainability, on the other hand, involves ensuring that the institution's operations are environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable in the long term. In a recent interview, Mallika Mathur Lheritier, Group Chief Transformation & Sustainability Officer at Mobilize Financial Services, offered an illuminating glimpse into their effective organizational approach for managing sustainability and ESG concerns. This dialogue provided valuable perspectives on the successful incorporation of sustainability into the fundamental strategies of financial institutions.
How would you best describe your institution’s organizational structure for addressing Sustainability & ESG & Climate related matters? How many people are dedicated to Sustainability matters in your organization?
At Mobilize Financial Services, we have adopted a “high alignment, high autonomy” approach to address sustainability and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) matters. This approach emphasizes strong alignment on our ambition and targets, while providing the flexibility to move swiftly in driving innovation, execution, and cultural change.
Our organizational structure consists of two complementary and parallel components.
The first component follows a traditional pyramidal-style hierarchy, starting from the Board and Executive Committee, and cascading down throughout the organization. This structure ensures clear accountability and effective governance.
The second component is a voluntary, cross-functional, global Spotify-style agile Sustainability Tribe & Squad. This structure enables us to scale rapidly, maintain end-to-end governance, foster sustainability maturity, enhance our employees’ expertise in ESG topics, facilitate the exchange of best practices, and mobilize a diverse group of change agents.
At our headquarters, we have a core team of 6 individuals dedicated to driving sustainability initiatives. The team has a variety of skills from research, data, project management, sales & marketing, investor relations, and communications. This is to create the necessary multi-disciplinary skillset required by Sustainability teams nowadays. Additionally, we are supported by sustainability officers located in various countries. This distributed network allows us to effectively address local sustainability challenges while aligning with our global objectives.
By leveraging this dual organizational structure and combining high alignment with high autonomy, we aim integrate ESG considerations into our operations and foster positive change within our organization.
