Leadership development for bank climate intrapreneurs

Context

Climate change is undoubtedly one of the greatest challenges of our time, and while all of society has a role to play in mitigating and responding to it, banks play a particularly important one:

Financing by banks can determine which activities take place and which don’t. Currently banks continue to finance new fossil fuel extraction while climate resilience initiatives struggle to access funding. If we are to limit rising temperatures and build resilience to the inevitable effects of climate change, we need banks to make significant strategic, technical, and – most importantly – cultural changes.

Throughout banks, committed professionals are seeking to drive these changes, often finding themselves isolated and lacking support and resources. The Climate Safe Lending Fellowship seeks to equip these ‘bank climate intrapreneurs’ with the skills, tools and networks to drive systems change.

The Fellowship

The Climate Safe Lending Fellowship brings together diverse cohorts of banking professionals to participate in a leadership development journey that focuses on building the core competencies needed to catalyse systems change. It comprises:

  • Core workshops that introduce concepts and practical tools for Fellows to apply to a ‘critical shift’ they are working towards in order to make a breakthrough in their bank’s climate impact.
  • Peer learning, through which Fellows develop and practice coaching skills and learn from the collective wisdom of their cohort.
  • Individualised support from coaches and mentors aimed at adressing their unique challenges.

Over three cohorts of the Fellowship my role has included co-designing and facilitating  the above activities, leading a talented team, building a culture of continual learning and improvement, and cultivating a supportive community among Fellows.

Read more about the culture of learning among the team and cohort of the inaugural Fellowship, in this blog post.

Outcomes

58 Climate Safe Lending Fellows to-date form an impressive network of determined bank climate intrapreneurs. They tell us that the Fellowship has helped them to:

  • Advocate for senior leadership to adopt bolder strategies for their banks to address climate change.
  • Transform how they work with stakeholders to implement new policies and processes that drive more concrete action towards achieving climate targets.
  • Feel less alone and more confident in their work, with a trusted network of peers they can turn to for practical and emotional support.
  • Improve their wellbeing and resilience as change-makers working in challenging environments.

“The Fellowship is a transformative journey enabling you to inspire, lead and embed climate positive actions into your organisation. The facilitators, tutors and contributors were exceptional. Their ability to bring a sense of calm and wellbeing created an inclusive learning experience and an excellent learning environment.” 2024 Fellow

Alongside the Fellowship’s core goal of supporting Fellows, we share learnings from the programme via publications, webinars and talks, to help inform (and amplify the impact of) others’ work towards financing a more climate just economy or developing systems-change leadership.

You can find out more about the lessons learnt from the previous two cohorts of the Fellowship in this article Nurturing intrapreneurs to drive systems change, and this in-depth report, Catalysing bank climate action: Lessons from the inside, which explores the need for deep cultural change alongside technical changes.

What the client says

“Over our time working together, Natalie showed herself to be one of those “unicorn” consultants who have outstanding skills in big picture strategy, managing the detail of implementation, leading project teams and collaborative ways of working.

Natalie was instrumental in the success of the pilot programme. She is strategic, impact-focused, reliable, collaborative and a joy to work with. Natalie deployed her skills in a context that was new to her; she picked up the contextual knowledge quickly and created processes for subject matter experts to fill in the gaps.

I cannot recommend Natalie highly enough for work that involves project and team management, developing impact strategies through experimentation, impact measurement and evaluation, programme facilitation, leadership coaching and documenting strategic learning.”
Lydia Hascott, former Head of Intrapreneurship, Finance Innovation Lab

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