Investing in a Resilient Future by Syntax Data
Investing in a Resilient Future: Innovation, Data & Capital for Energy, Food, Water, and Climate Solutions
UN Climate Week 2025 | Midtown Loft, NYC
Main Event: 3:00–5:00 PM
Cocktail Hour, Hors D'oeuvres, & Networking to Follow
Join global leaders, innovators, and investors for an afternoon of insight and action during UN Climate Week 2025. This dynamic event will explore how data, AI, and emerging technologies can drive smarter capital allocation toward critical climate, food, water, and energy solutions. Through keynote remarks, a fireside chat, and expert-led panels, we’ll examine how to scale resilience through breakthrough innovation and data-driven finance.
Immediately following the program, connect with fellow attendees during a rooftop cocktail hour overlooking Midtown Manhattan.
Unable to join us in New York? You can still be part of the conversation and tune in to watch the livestream via our Linkedin page.
Agenda:
3:30pm - Opening Remarks led by Rory Riggs, Chariman of Syntax
3:35pm - Biotech Meet Bytes: Innovation and Policy Pathways for Resilient Futures
Resilience in food, water, and energy systems requires more than new tools, it demands a shared framework of cooperation, sustainable finance, and alignment with the SDGs. This session will situate innovation within that broader landscape, exploring how today’s policy and development choices can guide technology and capital to serve people and the planet. Panelists will then consider the role of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and biotechnology, which are reshaping responses to risk by enabling real-time insights for crisis management and driving more sustainable practices in agriculture and resource use. These tools hold enormous potential but also risks that must be managed responsibly, and the discussion will highlight practical applications and financing pathways that can help scale inclusive and resilient solutions.
Panelists:
Moderator: Omino Gardezi: Syntax
Peter Beetham: Co-Founder, President and Chief Operating Officer, Interim Chief Executive Officer, CIBUS
Laurel Patterson: Director Strategic Partnerships & Communications, UNDP
Ariana Legovini: Founding Director Development Impact, World Bank
4:00pm - Data-Driven Finance: How AI Guides Capital to Climate and Transition Solutions
Precise, auditable insights can deliver a powerful imperative to act and a road map for profitability to a private capital landscape often hesitant to support climate and development initiatives. This conversation will outline how AI-powered analytics platforms can use sophisticated risk analysis frameworks to recontextualize climate and development goals as opportunities. From how insights can highlight investment de-risking pathways to the long-term value of energy transition, water infrastructure, and resilient food systems, we’ll discuss the crucial role data and capital play in transforming the future.
Panelists:
Moderator: Jonathan Chandler: COO, Syntax
Arsalan Mahtafar: Head, JP Morgan Development Finance
Alex Gelber: Co-Founder and Co-CEO, FutureProof and UCSD
Mathew Lee: Vice President, Senior Energy Sector Researcher, MSCI
Ignacio Corlazzoli: Global Alliances Manager, Corporacion Andina de Fomento (CAF, Latin America Development Bank)
Cassady Walters: Vice President, Power, Rockefeller Foundation
4:30pm - Scaling Resilience: Investment for Resilience: Financing Food, Water, Energy and Climate Futures
Capital is an incontrovertible catalyst for change. Unlocking that potential, however, requires translating the imperative to deliver new solutions for energy, climate, food, and water challenges into demonstrable value for institutional investors. This panel will discuss how investors, development banks, and catalytic partners can collaborate to bring large-scale capital to where it is needed most – sustainable infrastructure and systems that impact human futures. The discussion will highlight the role of analysis and the “data-driven narrative of change” that provides an investment thesis for making the world a better place. From economic opportunity to facilitating climate resilience in newly industrialized nations, we’ll present a gameplan on how capital can manifest its best intentions as action.
Panelists:
Moderator: Patrick Shaddow: CEO, Syntax
Carol Geremia: President, MFS
Matias Bendersky: Manager Global Partnerships, IADB
Herve Dutail: Chief Sustainability Officer for the Americas, BNP Paribas
Durreen Shahnaz: Founder and CEO, IIX Global
Carmen Correa: CEO, Pro Mujer
5:00pm - Cocktail hour with Hors D'oeuvres & Networking
Speaker Bios:
Alexander Gelber is Co-Founder and Co-CEO of FutureProof, a venture backed startup whose mission is to offer breakthrough insurance products that facilitate physical and financial resilience to climate disasters. FutureProof's proprietary, AI-based technology prices features of structures missing from traditional property insurance pricing models.
Arianna Legovini is the Director of the Development Impact Evaluation (DIME) department at the World Bank. She created the DIME model to transform the way data and impact evaluation evidence is generated and channeled into policy action. Arianna has dedicated the last decade to develop a new institutional approach to closing the gap between operations and research to build knowledge on the mechanisms that explain policy success and to use experiments to improve the effectiveness of government policies.
Arsalan Mahtafar leads the JPM DFI in its mission to channel private capital towards investments with development impact. As a founding member of the JPM DFI, Arsalan worked with leading development banks to create the JPM DFI methodology, and frequently collaborates with global institutions to establish standards for impact measurement and management in capital markets.
Carmen Correa is the organization’s Chief Executive Officer. Carmen previously served as Vice President & Chief Operating Officer, supervising the implementation of Pro Mujer’s social impact programs, which include expanding financial inclusion, providing health and well-being services and offering skill-building opportunities to underserved women across Latin America. Correa has more than thirty years of experience in operational management, strategic planning and program execution focusing on sustainable development in Latin America.
Carol W. Geremia is president of MFS Investment Management® (MFS®) and co-head of Global Distribution. She leads the firm's worldwide client-facing teams as well as product and marketing strategy. As a member of the firm's Enterprise Leadership Team, she helps drive MFS' long-term corporate strategy.
Cassady Walters is the Vice President, Power at Rockefeller Foundation. She joined the Foundation in 2022. In this role, Cassady is responsible for strategy of key program initiatives, such as the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet and Mission 300.
Durreen Shahnaz, a global leader of social impact and impact investing, is the founder of Impact Investment Exchange (IIX) and IIX Foundation. Over the past three decades, her mission has been to build a more inclusive, sustainable world by transforming financial markets and bringing underserved women to the forefront of capital markets.
Hervé Duteil created the first position of Chief Sustainability Officer for BNP Paribas in 2014, in the Americas. In this role and as part of the CEO Office, he works with all relevant stakeholders in the definition and implementation of the Bank's regional ESG strategy. Hervé has spent most of his career with BNP Paribas in New York. He specialized in trading and managing derivatives market activities, spanning across commodity, currency, fixed income and electronic markets. More recently, he led BNP Paribas’ efforts to close its first two Social Impact Bonds.
Ignacio Corlazzoli has an important professional career at the IDB, where he has held different positions, such as representative in Colombia, representative in Europe and Israel, advisor to the Office of the Presidency; leading specialist of the Office of Strategic Alliances, advisor for Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia before the Executive Board, specialist in State Modernization Operations in Mexico, Central America, Panama, the Dominican Republic and Haiti, Country Coordinator for Belize and Haiti or Operations consultant.
Laurel Patterson is the Director of Strategic Partnerships & Communications in UNDP’s Crisis Bureau. Laurel was previously Senior Global Advisor for development policy in fragile and conflict affected settings. Prior to joining BPPS, Laurel was Deputy Director of the UN System Affairs Group leading on UN reform, and previously the Deputy Director of the Partnerships Group in UNDP’s Bureau for External Relations and Advocacy.
Mathew Lee develops climate- and energy-related research for MSCI Research with a focus on energy transition trends and how the effects of climate change can materially affect investment decisions. Previously, Mathew was an environmental consultant on corporate sustainability and energy policy and has worked on environmental issues at CDP, the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
Matias Bendersky, a citizen of Argentina, is the Manager of the Global Partnerships Office as of March 16, 2023. In his role, he is responsible for strengthening the Bank’s dialogue and alliances with other constituencies of the development community, including trust fund donors, co-financing counterparties, foundations, academia, and the private sector to collaborate in key initiatives for the economic, sustainable, and inclusive growth of the Latin American and the Caribbean region.
Peter Beetham is a key part of Cibus’ founding team. Peter took a lead role in developing the core technologies associated with the Rapid Trait Development System (RTDS®). He led the research and product development teams at Cibus before taking on the role of CEO in July 2014.