About

Blair Palese is Founder of Climate Capital Forum, Director of Philanthropy at Ethinvest, Australia’s oldest impact investment advisor, and managing editor at Climate & Capital Media, focused on the trends and investment opportunities of the emerging climate economy. Blair was named as one of The Australian’s Top 100 Green Energy Players in late 2023. She has worked in the climate and environment space in Australia, the US and internationally for almost 40 years. In 2009, Blair founded 350.org Australia and was CEO for 10 years. She was Communications Director for Greenpeace International and head of PR for The Body Shop, both in the UK. Blair has been on a number of NGO boards and has consulted to Google X’s climate moon-shot team, C40 Cities for Climate Action, the Australian Museum’s Climate Solutions Centre, the Climate Group, Climate Institute, Green Building Council of Australia and a range of climate-related NGOs, businesses and government programs.

Tim has 30 years of financial market experience covering the Australian, Asian and global equity markets and is a highly influential energy finance commentator. He has written more than 100 reports on the global energy transition, and the roles of finance and policy in accelerating critical decarbonisation trends.

Tim was previously the Australasian Director of the global Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, 2013-2021. Prior to this, Tim was a top-rated equity research analyst, including Head of Equity Research in Singapore at Deutsche Bank, Managing Director, Head of Equity Research at Citigroup for 17 years, Head of Institutional Equities at Shaw & Partners and co-Managing Director of Arkx Investment Management P/L, a global listed clean energy investment start-up jointly owned with Westpac.

Tim started his career as a lecturer in Finance and Market Regulation at the University of Technology, Sydney before moving to Macquarie Group in 1988 to work in equity research. Tim has a Bachelor of Business majoring in Accounting and Finance from UTS (1985-87), the US SEC Series 7 (General Securities Representative Qualification Examination) and Series 24 (General Securities Principal Qualification Examination) qualifications.

When not studying energy markets, Tim enjoys bushwalking in Kurringgai national park in on the north shore of Sydney with friends, concurrently recharging, exercising and railing about our politicians.

Freddy is a leading innovator in the climate and sustainability sector. He has over 35 years of practical experience working on carbon policy and markets, and energy efficiency, as well as clean and conventional energy policy and production in Australia and internationally. Freddy led the Climate Friendly team as Chief Executive Officer for over ten years, driving and growing the business to meet its dual profit-for-purpose goals. Prior to Climate Friendly, Freddy was Chief Operating Officer of Australia’s largest residential energy efficiency business, which generated emission reductions of over 4 million tonnes in its first year of operations.

Wayne Smith is a political strategist who helps shape and develop the tactics for the Smart Energy Council.

A professional lobbyist and policy advisor, Wayne also plays a wider role in guiding the Smart Energy Council policy and presenting industry submissions.

As manager of Government Relations, Wayne Smith is responsible for policy, advocacy, strategy and campaigning across the organisation.

Wayne has held senior roles in the renewables industry for over a decade, working and consulting for some of Australia’s leading renewable energy companies and industry bodies.

Wayne has been a senior adviser for a number of Federal Shadow Ministers and has previously worked for the Federal and ACT Governments, as well as a number of peak non-government organisations.

Stephen is a climate funder, supporting advocacy and justice-based solutions to help accelerate the clean energy transition. He’s interested in ways to expand the 2% of all charitable giving that climate action and the environment currently receive in Australia. Stephen recently took on the role of manager of Groundswell Giving’s new Major Giving Circle, designed for those new to climate philanthropy.  He also co-authored a handbook for funding climate action with Groundswell in 2023 – ‘It’s Up To Us’. He is helping to establish an Australian iteration of US-based Resource Generation, which redresses traditional power imbalances in philanthropy to generate greater community-led impact. Stephen is an advisory member of Regen Labs and a board member of Solar Citizens.

Amanda Caldwell is the strategic lead of Climate Capital Forum working to achieve an appropriately ambitious Australian response to the US Inflation Reduction Act.

Amanda is a skilled and experienced communications professional whose career spans almost 40 years. She was Head of Communications for Australia’s Chief Scientist from 2019-2021 leading the team supporting the communications and outreach work of both immediate past Chief Scientist Dr Alan Finkel and the current incumbent, Dr Cathy Foley.

She has worked at the Office of the Official Secretary to the Governor-General on a program designed to improve diversity in the Australian honours system; and on the World Mining Congress and the Climate Action Network Australia’s flagship event, the Better Futures Forum, for a public relations company that specialises in strategic communications for Australia’s scientific and research community.

She completed a BA in Professional Writing at the University of Canberra in 1990. Since then she has worked in and around not-for-profits and advocacy organisations managing communications activities and engaging with government, including for the National Youth Science Forum, the CRC for Biomedical Imaging Development, and the Energy R&D Corporation.

Amanda has written a history of the environmental movement in the Canberra region for the Conservation Council of ACT, and a children’s book on the naming of Canberra.