IFR ESG Roundtable 2025 Participants
Stella Matakidou
Deputy head of borrowing and lending, European Commission
Stella Matakidou is deputy head of the borrowing and lending operations team in the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Budget, which includes the issuance of NextGenerationEU green bonds.
She has held positions in the Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs on issues related to international financial institutions, economist and policy positions in the UK government, including the UK export credit agency, the UK department for energy, and at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
Doris Kramer
Head of investor relations and sustainability, KfW
Doris Kramer has longstanding expertise in sustainability and green bond topics. She was active in the development of the concept of “Green Bonds – made by KfW” and is responsible for allocation and impact reporting.
Kramer also established a dedicated green bond portfolio between 2014 and 2023 with €2.5bn target volume, mandated by the German ministry of environment.
As member of the executive committee of the Green Bond Principles from 2015 until 2023 she took an active role in the qualitative development of the green bond market and participated in the technical expert group, advising the EU Commission on development of the EU Green Bond Standard.
Christian Hardt
Head of investor relations, ESG and credit research, NRW.BANK
Christian Hardt is the first point of contact at NRW.BANK for capital market-related topics on sustainable finance and investor relations. He is responsible for the bank’s capital markets ESG-related investment and funding strategy as well as its ESG ratings and publications. Before re-joining NRW.BANK in 2020 he was head of client success – Germanic markets at ISS ESG, where he consulted institutional investors on ESG strategies and data incorporation. Prior to that, he was part of the investor relations team at NRW.BANK and its ESG specialist.
Ralf Berninger
Head of investor relations and sustainability, SFIL
Ralf Berninger started his career as a fixed-income syndicate manager at WestLB and held positions as senior debt capital market originator at DZ BANK, Calyon (now Credit Agricole CIB), and as head of origination at Dexia Group before joining SFIL in 2013.
He was elected to the ICMA Green and Social Bond Principles Advisory Council in 2020 and in 2024.
Aldo Romani
Head of sustainable finance, finance directorate, EIB
Aldo Romani shaped the transaction in 2007 with which the EIB inaugurated the green bond market, subsequently promoting best practice in working groups of the Green Bond Principles, China and the EU.
Within the framework of EIB’s climate bank roadmap, he has driven the gradual alignment of the bank’s climate and sustainability awareness bonds with evolving EU legislation on sustainable finance in close cooperation with the projects directorate. This process has recently led to the issuance of EIB’s first climate awareness bond aligned with the EU Green Bond Standard.
Julian Lewis (moderator)
Associate editor, green/ESG finance, IFR
Julian Lewis has covered capital markets and banking for more than 35 years, previously as IFR’s bond editor and senior editor. He has also worked in investment banking research in the UK and Scandinavia.
