Shameela Soobramoney

Shameela Soobramoney

Chief Executive Officer - National Business Initiative

Shameela Soobramoney is a corporate strategy and sustainability expert with extensive experience in the financial services sector. She re-joined the board of WWF South Africa in 2021 and sits on the Board’s Finance Committee and Investment Sub-Committee. Soobramoney is the Chief Executive Officer of the National Business Institute. Previously she was the JSE’s Chief Sustainability Officer, and the winner of the Institute of Risk Management of South Africa’s Sustainability Professional of the Year award for 2020. She is the immediate past chair of the World Federation of Exchange’s Sustainability Working Group and member of the Strategy Group of the Global Investors for Sustainable Development Alliance. As a sustainability specialist she has been a key contributor to the JSE’s research into climate change, the potential for a local market to trade in carbon credits and environment-related products, and the development of the sustainability segment of the JSE and the Green Bonds framework, among many other initiatives and innovations.

She previously served on the WWF South Africa board until 2016, is a non-executive director of the Green Building Council of South Africa and is the board chairperson of the Ubuntu Wilderness Trust. She is also a member of the Institute of Directors of Southern Africa, the Integrated Reporting Committee of SA Working Group, the Code for Responsible Investing in SA committee, Sustainable Stock Exchanges Initiative member group, and the African Securities Exchanges Association sustainability group, among others. Soobramoney holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of Pretoria, Gordon Institute of Business Science and a Master’s in Sustainability Leadership from the University of Cambridge. She is a recipient of the Chevening and Mansion House scholarships.