Katherine Keddie: The solutions we need to save the planet from climate and biodiversity crises are here, but they won't make a difference unless they are adopted at scale. We are Matt Jaworski and Katherine Keddie, and we have focused our careers on ensuring that this happens in time. Back in 2021, we started Adopter, Europe's first marketing company working exclusively with scaling green innovation. Since then, we've supported organizations from pre-seed startups and Earthshot Prize finalists to international unicorns and global NGOs. We've worked with green technology solutions across fintech, construction, food systems, nature and finance, and more. We also mentor on some of the world's leading venture builders. We are on a mission to support 100 high-integrity green innovation solutions by the end of 2025. and 1000 by 2030. This podcast is the next step on that journey.
Welcome back to the Scaling Green Tech podcast. We are here today with our wonderful client and someone we've worked with for a long time, Joanna O'Malley, who is the Partnerships Manager at Nature Finance. Nature Finance is an organization which works across the world to make nature count in global finance. And I'm here with Joanna and then also my co-host, Matt.
Matt Jaworski: Hello, everyone. Hello, Joanna.
Joanna O'Malley: Hi there. Happy to be here.
Katherine Keddie: I mean, we'll hear all about it, but she started her kind of main core academic interest in nature with her undergraduate degree, which was in zoology, and then going on to do a master's in climate change policy. From that, she did some communications work, including a bunch of work explaining climate change to five-year-olds. So I'm excited for her answer to our common question about explaining things to a five-year-old. And then she went on to go into her work, which is focused on aligning nature and financial flows through partnerships work. And she is very experienced when it comes to events. So that is the main thing we'll be talking about today. So thank you so much for being here with us today, Joanna. Tell us, I mean, our first question is obviously explain to a five year old why getting involved with climate events is an important or exciting bit of work.
Explaining climate events to a non-specialist audience
Joanna O'Malley: So I suppose the way I like to describe it is if you compare events and events season. So, you know, every year there's like a super huge number of events going on throughout the year. All of them are like, we're going to fix the world. This is green. This is environmental. And, you know, we go to quite a lot. I think last year, speaking opportunities wise and everything, there was like 100 events that we touched on where we had someone going and speaking at something or attending a session. And it's kind of like awards season, you know, if everyone knows the Oscars, right? And before the Oscars, you have the Golden Globes and you go, well, they're still important, but the Oscars are the big thing. And before that, you have the Emmys and you kind of they're all super important, especially if you're trying to, you know, become the world's best director or the world's best actor. Or if you're really trying to push a film in terms of like, you know, it's not the Barbie mega success but if we win the Oscars maybe more people will come and see our work and fund more types of films like this. So, you know, there's so many different types of green tech even. If you have something you're trying to push, you're kind of going, oh, well, we want to win the best, you know, design award, which is like, let's say that's your issue. And you do the pre event events and you do the events and you're not going to change the whole system with one event. But, you know, maybe your agenda will get pushed forward a bit. And hopefully all of us working in the space, they're all positive agendas. So it's not a bad thing to have different goals and wants when you go to events.
Katherine Keddie: Yeah, and there's the politics around it, right? And the momentum building and the campaigning and the parties coming together. So, you know, I think that's a great example. And maybe tell us a little bit more, kind of introduce yourself to everyone, talk about, you know, your journey so far. I feel like you've had such an exciting, you know, whirlwind of a career today. And I would love to hear kind of a summary of that.
Career background and journey to NatureFinance
Joanna O'Malley: You know, when I was younger, I used to get so annoyed at people who answered the question like I'm about to answer it. So I apologize in advance. Essentially, as I was getting older, when I was a kid, I used to think I wanted to be a vet who worked at an NGO and also was a photographer. So that was like always the goal. And so, but I never really planned it. I just kind of said, oh, they're all things I kind of like. And then I got to an age where I was like, that's highly unrealistic. It's not going to happen for me. But I kept up the photography in university and, you know, I studied zoology. and I did debating, so the loudmouthness of what you need to work in an NGO to push an agenda. They were all kind of, all of those soft skills were constantly improving and all of the education was constantly going in that general direction. And I sort of, I thought when I finished my degree, I'm going to become a full-time photographer. I'm sick of being in a lab. And then I thought, oh, no, actually, I miss it. So I was doing volunteering for different NGOs. And after a while, they said, no, this is silly. You should apply for this internship. You should do this thing. So it was basically I ended up where I am now by being curious and a bit nosy and reaching out to people and going, what do you do? What's this? Can I help? What's happening here? I did an internship with the Irish Development Education Association working on global citizenship education, which is as complex and people have different opinions on it as they do on sort of nature and nature positive and what that actually means. And then I worked with a group called Proudly Made in Africa, which was great and showing, you know, the African market has so much to offer. Why aren't we paying them directly for what they do? And that brought me on to setting up my own side group called Preserve Ireland, where we did cleanups and brought people together in communities to kind of go, let's have a pint and talk about why biodiversity is important and how you can improve biodiversity in like a rented accommodation. And then from that Global Action Plan Ireland, I talked to them to go, what are you doing? How can I do that with my group? And after Covid, they rang me going, are you still doing that? Do you have any spare time? Do you want to apply for this job? So I did education officer with Global Action Plan Ireland. And from that, I did that alongside my masters in DCU on climate change, society, policy and media. And from that, I kind of said, I feel like I'm really inspiring these five-year-olds and I'm like helping them with their climate anxiety and I'm helping people in their day-to-day behavioral changes, which is amazing and needed. But for me, it's always like, where's the biggest impact for me personally? And I thought, you know, I can maybe do something else that will get straight to the root of the cause. And so finance is never somewhere I thought I'd end up, and yet I kind of said, you know, actually the five-year-old thing of where I work, the world is run by money. Money, you know, is destroying nature. The financial system's destroying nature, and yet it's dependent on nature. So we need to explain to people why you need to protect that. And we need to encourage them to do that and make that feel like an opportunity rather than something they don't want to do because it costs them money. So that's kind of it. Yeah, I fell into the job, basically. by taking a lot of steps and kind of the general directions I liked or was interested in.
Katherine Keddie: Yeah. And I think obviously we've worked together for a long time and it's really nice to work with you because you are so proactive and energetic and I can see throughout your kind of career and your trajectory that really kind of coming across. So, um, although it seems like you're doing loads and loads of different things and I don't know when you sleep, but those are different things. The work of, um, the climate change education, your academic background, And then the communication side, which went from, you know, social media stuff and some are kind of communicating with adults all the way to communicating with five-year-olds who are famously a very tough audience, into now what you're doing, which is talking about kind of the core issues of your organization and what they highlight and what they focus on in their vision for the future with all of these really exciting partnerships. And then also, you know, developing events, particularly in the last year, you know, running loads of really exciting events. all over the world, did you say a hundred plus events?
Joanna O'Malley: So, you know, like a CBD COP 16, we hosted about 18 sessions, but then we had people speaking at other sessions with partners, kind of as we're going to talk about later. And altogether it was about 38 sessions that we were at. So that adds to the 100, like that's included in the 100 number. So every session I count is like a, that's a tick.
Katherine Keddie: Yeah, but a session for you means, you know, an hour to two hours event, right, at kind of an important event, like a climate cop, for example, the biodiversity cop, and you're bringing together different stakeholders, partners of your organization, etc. So it's not, you know, a small undertaking, it's something that involves a lot of curation, partnership work, coordination, great relationships, and then also being able to really understand the value of the subject that's being discussed and put it across in a way that's exciting and makes people want to get involved, and then hopefully shift the wider agenda of the event that's going on around you.
Joanna O'Malley: Yeah, and I think, you know, one of the, there was a couple of reasons I actually ended up in events and partnerships in general. The Preserve Ireland, which was just this small little group, I just saw the power in when you bring people together and make them see, you know, it's okay to ask questions. It's okay to be curious. It's okay to not feel like you're the expert on something, but there's a welcome space for you. But then also like bringing the kids together, and they were a tough audience. Every time they'd be like, miss, are you married? And I was like, I'm in my 20s, please. But also, you know, I figured out how to explain biodiversity to kids by saying there's two sweet shops. There's one with just chocolate and there's one with chocolate and candy floss and crisps and ice cream and jellies. And they all go, I go, which one do you prefer? And they go, the second one. And you go, yeah, Exactly, and that's biodiversity. There's just pigeons in a forest and then the other one there's squirrels and pigeons and frogs and horses, not horses, reindeer, deer and all of these things. And they go, oh, okay. The thing that clicked for me is when the adults in my life didn't actually know what biodiversity was. And when I said, do you guys know what biodiversity means? They're like, yeah, I think so. And then I went, so what does it mean? And then, you know when you think you're supposed to know the answer, so you say yes without actually thinking, do I know what that is? And so events are places where you can bring people together and kind of go, we're not going to give anyone a pop quiz. But just in case, here's what we're talking about, here's why it's important, here's what we think is vital to discuss on the issue. So that felt very important to me. But yeah, it takes a lot of curation. When you do so many events, you know, there's always capacity issues. There's always like different things at play that I'm sure we'll get into, but you try your best to make it as big a value add, not just for yourself as the organization, but for the people attending or the people going back and reviewing it online afterwards to make sure they come away with something new, like a nugget of information, if that's the only thing they come away with. going, I never want to go to an event that person's speaking at again, that's still something they've learned. As long as they're coming away with some new piece of knowledge, I kind of am happy.
What events actually involve - scale, geography, preparation
Matt Jaworski: So in that spirit, right, we're talking about diversity, we're talking about nature finance in different terms that people might not and think that they understand what they mean, but maybe miss something or not have a full understanding. So for our audience to make sure that we are all able to equally enjoy this conversation. Would you like to add a bit of flavor, make it a bit more tangible? What do you mean when you talk about events? How big they are? Who's attending them? Where are they hosted? How long does it take to prepare?
Joanna O'Malley: Absolutely. So events, it's a funny one because I would compare your job as organizing an event in this space to being the conductor of an orchestra or a composer. You're not the person actually playing or like creating the content, but you're the one who makes sure it all kind of strings together. So the process of an event is you have your content teams working on various different topics. they hear through their grapevine or the partners they're working with on their papers that they're doing or the topics they're working on. They go, oh, are you going to this event? We're all going to be there. Not like all the cool kids are going to be there, but like we think there's important stuff that's being discussed that's relevant to this topic. Are you going? So I'll have a call with our team and someone goes, oh, I think I'm going to be going to this conference. And instantly in my head, I go, OK, that triggers something and you have to get into action straight away. And you go, do you have any information on that? Do you have any more? And some events, you know every year they're going to happen. So you have your New York Climate Weeks, you have your COPS, which stands for Conference of the Parties, which is actually just a big UN gathering. So anytime you hear COP, just think UN gathering with lots of people, meeting. And so if you know those things are happening, you start preparing for them. But let's say This is an event we haven't heard of before. So this year, the International Finance for Development Conference is taking place, and I haven't worked on it before. So I go, oh, there's a couple of you who've mentioned that your partners have talked about this. Instantly, I think that's going to be a bit of a bigger event. we're going to need to look at and see, you know, what kind of engagement do they want to do there? Maybe they're just attending to meet with partners and to meet with policy people, finance people, or maybe they want to do a side event. And that side event might be public. And we might want people to go into the room and listen to what they have to say. There may be a paper that's getting launched. I don't don't hold me to that for this event. I just mean hypothetically and. you kind of instantly do a itinerary list in your head of what you are going to need and what is going to be requested. So for this one, you go, OK, there's multiple people in our content teams and different content teams thinking about going. Okay we gotta let the admin teams know, okay they wanna do events, what do they wanna talk about, what's really important to us as an organisation, why are they going? Because if they're going just to meet with people you kind of go, do you really need to do an event or do you just wanna do meetings? They go, yes, there's a topic that is really important to this audience. They don't really know about it. We need to get that topic discussed further. So then you go, okay, let's do that climate event, or it's an angle no one's ever considered before, or it's a partnership we've never worked with before and they want to do an event with us at this specific event. So yeah. It really depends on what the event is. For the regular climate weeks, we always see which of our partners are going to be there. Do we want to organize our own thing or speak at things or just meet with people? It really depends on what work we're doing at that moment in time and how it can benefit the organization best, essentially.
Matt Jaworski: Yeah, this was great. So in terms of the size of the events, how big audiences are you thinking about? And we're looking at events happening across the globe, not just in the UK, not just in Europe, right?
Joanna O'Malley: Yes, absolutely. As I said kind of towards the beginning, I think it really, really helps to be a nosy person in events. I'm not saying like Snoopy, I'm not saying sneaky, I mean nosy and curious, like the positive aspects of that where you're kind of going, what are you up to? What's happening here? Because we really try not to be global north centric when we do events and yes, traditionally they have tended to happen historically in the Global North, but you know, Africa Climate Week, we were involved with back in 2023. It didn't happen in 2024, but we'll go back in when it happens next. We've done quite a lot of engagement in Brazil. Yes, of course, COP30 is going to be happening there, but we've done other events there in the past. So for us as an organization, you know, not every event we've gone to may be like the one on the big list, but we have thought, okay, who are we trying to talk to with this paper? Where is that best discussed? So And it can take a little bit more effort to kind of take a step back and not just try to do the big hit list of the main events that you're supposed to do a drive by on and kind of go, actually, so London Climate Action Week, we're going to be there. We're going to engage with the events. And we kind of thought, well, that actually comes very close to other events. And so we'll be there, we'll be on the ground, we'll meet with people. If we can get a speaker in a session, that's amazing. But we don't need to do a big show and tell there because it's, there's a big audience there, but what kind of audience is it? Whereas maybe it's more important for us to, you know, we went to the financing and common summit in Cape Town back in February. wasn't the biggest event going on on the calendar, but we knew the people in the room were high quality and who we wanted to talk to. So in terms of size, it really depends, again, what you're trying to do. Are you trying to make as many people know about you as quickly as possible, or are you kind of doing targeted events and comms? And I'm not saying the first option is bad, but we work in a very technical space, that if I had a room of like 3,000 people listening to me, I don't know, even if I was the best public speaker in the world, if they would care at the end of it. Or maybe they would care, but what would they be able to actually do themselves after that event? And unless I have a call to action that I can give them or something that they can engage with me after on, it's not worth having that many people in the room. It's worth having the right people in the room, I would say.
Katherine Keddie: I think what you're saying is that a big part of the event is not just going, okay, we know that COP 30, for example, this year is a big deal. So we're just going to kind of run blindly towards that, throw lots of budget and time at it. Um, it's about thinking, I guess, more, more specifically, what am I trying to achieve as an organization and how does this event fit specifically within those goals?
Setting event goals based on organisational stage
Joanna O'Malley: Yeah, exactly. And I think to people who are just starting out, that can change, right? So we as an organization, we work in the finance space. So our job is to try and convince people that having a rainforest that's alive and standing should and is worth more economically to one that's cut down for furniture and space is cleared for agriculture, right? And we do that through the plumbing of finance. So bonds and KPIs or key performance indicators And a lot of people are tuning out the second I say KPI, right? But to some people, their eyes light up and they go, interesting, tell me more. So for us, we need to be careful about who we're talking to because we don't want to make people bored and we want people to care and we want people to take action. But let's say you're a green tech company and you are very, very new and what's your goal for the year? It's to be known, right? So in that, and if you go, we have this amount of budget for events, you need to think, right, where am I going to meet the people I want to be meeting or where would my clients be going? And maybe that is cop, but like that, if you're audiences, governments, NGOs, policy people, financial institutions, or maybe it's like going to those tech shows in London and America and it's not actually going to the big ones yet until you've built up that kind of audience initially. You know, when I started at Nature Finance, at COP26, we maybe had three people there And it was just kind of our more senior folks who already had a name for themselves that they had developed in other places first. And then, you know, COP27, we had six people go and we had, we spoke at maybe four or five events. COP27, you know, like COP28, we had an insane amount of events. It was, it was great, but like tiring. And We built it up slowly or not slowly, like it grew exponentially, but like we didn't go in first time around thinking we're going to do all of these amazing things and be able to get into all of these rooms. It was about kind of knowing, OK, this is our goal for this year. Be seen. This is our goal for this year. Be like speak somewhere. This is our goal for this year. Can we host our own event with someone else? You know, it kind of changed. You shift the mark as you continue to grow. And I think we actually last year struggled with the fact that we'd grown to a size now where people do know us. And they are asking us to speak. And we had come from a place where we were desperate to get in the room. And now we're turning around and going, OK, do we need to be in that room? Is that an important room for us at this point in time to be in? And that's not saying the event isn't amazing. And that's not saying what people are doing isn't amazing. But it's like, can we add value here to ourselves and to the event overall? And we need to now learn to kind of go to take that step back and have a think. So it's it's interesting to see how it's changed over the years. So, yeah, it it really depends. And again, I know it's not a fun answer for people to hear that.
Katherine Keddie: No, and I think also the stage that you're at now, the goal behind nature finance is to make nature count in global finance. And you have specific areas that you work in and experts from all over the world that focus on these specific areas and develop resources and create impact and change. A good question for you is also, are we the most impactful people to be in this room, in this context, you know? So it's like, you obviously have a specific vision of what you want to achieve at an event and your goal is to make that happen. A question you can ask yourselves are, are we able to really contribute and move that agenda forward in this context? Or is it better to have maybe another partner come in and take that opportunity because they are the right people to be able to move it forward in the best and most effective way?
Joanna O'Malley: Yeah, and you know what, that often comes back and you'll get the rewards from that long term by kind of, you know the way they say with salesmen, right, the best salesman is someone who doesn't lie and actually will tell someone when the product isn't for them. You know, I think the best way you can add to an event, like, if we're honest about it, events are also promotional, self-promotional, and I'm, I think anyone who pretends like they're all just to change the world would be lying to themselves. And sometimes, like early on in the process, we wanted people to know us, to hear about us. So that way, when we did publish pieces of work or we did do convenings, we were taken more seriously. So we had legitimacy. So that was self-promotional. And it wasn't necessarily that we had the most important topic to discuss. We had value-add. We had expert speakers. We had people who could provide value. But it wasn't necessarily that we had this new report that people simply had to listen to and had to take on board. It was to get ourselves seen. But that being said, when you say, actually, I don't need to attend this because I don't think I'll be a speaker value add, but I'll suggest these speakers that you could reach out to who would be really great. That event organizer remembers that you're not just trying to grab every opportunity to pitch your own stuff, your own work. As an events person, I'm always going to try and find where my team will best fit and go, oh, I have a speaker here who could speak to this topic that you've got listed in your agenda and here's where they could add value. I'm of course asking for something, but I'm not going to recommend the wrong speaker because if they then say yes and the speaker is not good and not relevant, they're never going to come back to me again. So it's creating those long-term relationships because events happen every year and it's usually the same people involved every year. And people respect, okay, you don't need to come in and go, I just want people to buy my product. I'm going to sell lots of things. You don't need to be overly honest. But you can be honest and go, look, we have this new product we're trying to, you know, circulate and get people to know a little bit more about. People go, yeah, I respect that. That's fine. Everyone has something they're looking to share or promote. As long as also, yeah, so we might talk about that, but you can also talk about your product that you'd like to promote and we can show how they, you know, work in tandem or, But we might talk about that, but I can also add all this value to the topic you're looking to learn more about. So it needs to benefit both parties.
Matt Jaworski: And it typically goes hand in hand, right? Especially in this space, people who have a great product, be it a green tech solution or knowledge product like papers and reports like those published by Nature Finance. they typically have the expertise that was required to create those products. So we're able to talk not just about what they want to share with the world, but also about all this research, expertise and different attempts that led to it.
Joanna O'Malley: Yeah, exactly. I mean, we had an event back at Building Bridges 2023 on alignment tools. And we at Nature Finance have Nature Align app, which helps financial actors to align their financial flows with nature positive outcomes given nature related risks. So we were discussing that, but we had like five or six people on the stage who also had tools that also were doing a similar type of task. And each person said, here's what R1 does. And none of us were competing with each other to go, that's why theirs is silly and ours is the best one. You know, all of the tools had merit, but maybe you as a banker are looking for a specific set of criteria that you'd like to measure your assets against. And so you go, oh, that one sounds like, but like, it's one, it's kind of like an insurance comparison provider, you know, or a, you know, a mortgage broker for you and says, this is your best deal. This is the one you use for you. It's accepting that, There are a lot of people trying to solve issues or, you know, solve for challenges in the world. And I mean that as like a tech product as well. You don't just develop a tech product because you're like, this is neat. You're trying to solve for a problem. And so there are a lot of people out there doing that. And rather than us all competing with each other, it's probably best to show Oh, there is a lot of stuff going on and maybe we should be working together more because there is some overlap here, or here's why they're all different and unique and can all benefit companies in different ways.
Matt Jaworski: Absolutely. And it's spotting that there is opportunity in collaboration, right? An event that includes several companies or organizations creating such tools can be much more impactful than those companies speaking separately on different events where their voices get lost. With this, I think there is an idiom, right? That a rising tide rises all ships.
Joanna O'Malley: Absolutely. I think I'm super aware how dependent we as Nature Finance are on our network and our partners. I think it's so valuable. We're a group of 40 people. We're not the banks with thousands and thousands of employees, but when you come together with other groups or when a bank says, we really think what you're doing is interesting. You know, let's work on this issue together. That gives you just more weight. Or, you know, when you do a paper with an academic institution and they say, we don't have the funding to do this, but we have people looking into this topic and we go, OK, well, why don't we do it together and see if we can get the funding together? And just like. it amplifies a voice because if you have a high level university who's on your paper and no one's heard of you as Nature Finance, suddenly people go, oh, OK, I'll take a look at that. But it's still it's still adding. It's still like a valuable ad. It's not us going, let's just put this label on our paper because it looks good. It's like they're also working on the paper and working with us. So, yeah, I think collaboration is everything. That's probably why I moved into the partnerships role, to be honest.
Katherine Keddie: OK, so it sounds like a key part of your work with events to date has been built around your partnerships. And like you say, you're a small organisation with a huge, ambitious reach and a very broad focus of your work. So partnerships is really kind of key to your strategy. both from the event side and then also for yourself in terms of the impacts that you make. Do you want to maybe give us a little sense of how do you approach these partnerships? What are some of the lessons that you've learned along the way when it comes to building partnerships that really last the test of time and help with the goals that you have around events as well?
Partnership rules - honesty, capacity, and long-term relationships
Joanna O'Malley: Sure, so I might focus this answer, it's varied, but I might focus this answer more on events because I have recently made the transition to partnerships. And the reason I did that was because I saw the value of events, not just in the event itself, but That collaboration it built, that partnership it built, and what I always felt, you know, could be improved upon is what happens after the event. You know, how are we taking that conversation forward? That call to action at the end, not just from people in the room listening to us, but ourselves as the organizers of that event. And so that's kind of what really drew me to the partnerships role in the first place. And, you know, some of the my favorite people to work with are the people I worked with at during events. So there are some groups that, you know, we just We all get in a room before the event and we go, this is a little bit stressful. It's a bit busy at the moment. You know, we're really honest with each other. We're honest about what we can bring to the event, how we can help, what we can do, what we can't do. And that, I think, is like my number one rule for partnerships. Again, you don't have to be like overly honest and go, really, I'm only working with you guys because of this. Like, I don't mean honesty like that. I mean, honesty in terms of We're all benefiting from this. How do we make sure that no one is getting an unfair deal? How do we make sure everyone gets their fair share of the prize and the value add? And how do we make this valuable for other people? And so I've had conversations sometimes with partners where they're like, we really want to promote this piece of work we're doing. And I go, OK. Sure, let's see how we can weave that in in a way that makes sense. You know, is there something we also want to share about? Is there, you know, something that's involved in the piece of work you've done that we can talk to that's relevant to one of our pieces of work, even if we don't have a paper? And so, I mean, one amazing group that we work with is ANCA or the Africa Natural Capitals Coalition. And it's that we've done quite a bit of work with them. They're amazing. You know, we've done reports with them. They're incredibly, you know, knowledgeable and able and just proactive in the space. I think anyone who's come across ANCA at an event just goes, whoa, that's they are a powerhouse. But they're also great behind the scenes in the lead up to events, in the lead up to working together. You know, we had regular check-ins with them. We, you know, let's say there was an event, right? And we had calls with each other regularly going, do you know what's going on for this event? Do you know what you're going to be doing? And, you know, we information shared because sometimes to get involved in events, you just, as I said, again, you need to be nosy and go, What do you know that's happening? Are you doing any events that we should be at? Tell us what you know. And you share information and you come in with good intentions and that was amazing right from the start with Anka because we all just wanted the same outcome, the same solution. So we just wanted to help each other get in the rooms. Also, it really helps when you have an amazing speaker like Dorothy, who's also an amazing moderator. So you never feel bad going, you should ask Dorothy to speak at something because she'll always be amazing. But I worked with Biggie behind the scenes, who's quite involved in a lot of different stuff in ANCA. And it was just a joy to work with them. because everyone knew we were all time stretched, but everyone gave what they could and no one lied about capacity levels. And that's always like an amazing partnership. It's not asking people to do everything and be perfect. It's just saying, let us know what we need to do, what you need to do. And everyone kind of does that. So I think in terms of what I would suggest to people when getting into partnerships for events specifically, Everyone's very busy. If you want to work with a partner purely because of their name or their big comms group or you think they're going to do all of the work, probably not going to be a goer. It's probably not going to end well for either party. If you agree to do it purely because on face value it looks good, but you've not actually interacted with the team that much and you don't know how it's going to go and there's no clear concrete parameters of like, these are my tasks, these are your tasks. And then it's an email like the week before going, who said that they were taking care of the social media cards? You know, you don't want to project manage an event. You want to know that there's a couple of people who are thinking about it. It's like a group project, right? You know, the feelings you get out of a group project, if you feel like you've done all of the work, yeah, you're not going to be happy and you're not going to want to work with those people again. If you've done none of the work, OK, you've got an easy grade, but they're never going to want to work with you again. So it's whereas if someone comes in and says, like, I can only do this thing, but I'll do it really well. You go, OK, they never lied to us. That's fine. They provided that thing. Like if you're in a group project and someone says, I'll buy all the meals, you know, I will buy all the meals for the study sessions. At least they're honest about it and you get a good meal out of it so you're a little bit less angry at the end. So yeah, it's knowing your own contributions, what you bring and what you can offer.
Green flags and red flags in event partnerships
Katherine Keddie: I would love to know, so say I am a events coordinator or maybe a comms person that is in a small non-profit or kind of a scaling company that say there's like 20 people in your organisation and you're coming to London Climate Action Week, for example, and you have some potential partners that you may want to approach. Maybe can you give us some green and red flags that you would be looking for in building those partnerships for a successful action week and event?
Joanna O'Malley: Yeah, so there's a couple of things I'd recommend if you're looking to find partners. So let's say you're at the stage where you don't really know people in the space. London Climate Action Week is a good example, actually, because they did a few pre-London Climate Action Week Zoom sessions where they were saying, here's what's going on. Here's our themes. Here's what we're working on. Here are the partners involved. And everyone in the chat was so eager to connect and partner that everyone left in their email details or left their LinkedIn to be like, I work in this organization, really happy to talk to people about partnerships. And I did it kind of going, I don't know what we're doing yet, but I'll just leave my details. I had five people reach out to me on LinkedIn going, would be really interested to know what you're doing at London Climate Action Week. Would love to have a call. If you're working in events or a comms person, you always take the time for those calls, even if they lead nowhere, just to kind of learn what's going on. Maybe they've heard of a side event happening that you've not heard of and it's relevant to you. Maybe they don't know anything and you go, oh, okay, so no one knows anything, so I don't feel like I'm completely out of the loop. So that's the initial thing I would say, look into, spend that time doing that. Looking for green flags and red flags. So if someone says we have this really great event opportunity for you and it would only cost this amount of money, if you are a new startup and you haven't really decided how much of your events budget is on what, We very, very rarely, as a not-for-profit who are trying to be sustainable with events and make sure it's a value add, we very rarely pay to play in the event space. If we feel like it's a huge contribution to the overall collaboration of a bunch of groups, we might consider it, but it is very rare. And I would recommend to young startups that don't put the cart before the horse. Make sure that you have something to say and usually you'll know you have something to say if someone's asking you to speak. Or if you like, if you go, oh, I don't know people, I'm not senior enough. OK, show up to the events and don't be a speaker. You don't have to be a speaker to show up and go up to the speakers afterwards or the event organizers and go, that's so amazing. I came to this event because we're actually working on something that's really relevant to this topic. It would be so great to have a call with you, you know, once the event is over. And then you spend that year actually reaching out to these organizations who you know are working in the same space, let them know about what you're doing and go, you know, if you want to do an event together, if there's an event that's coming up, we'd be happy to like work on something with you. And you're, you're kind of offering there, maybe you will help do the concept note, you'll help do the social media. You're offering what you can offer, knowing you're a small organization who can't just throw money at your problems, or maybe you can, but maybe you shouldn't because you know, it's not going to be as high quality because no one's going to, you're not going to leave a lasting impact if you just pay a company to give you a room and a space. You are going to leave a lasting impact if you take that year going, here's why what we're doing is relevant to what you want to talk about. And here's all the interesting things we have to add to the conversation. people will remember that and will be more inclined to go, oh, they spoke about that in a really good way. They pitched it, their events team or their comms team pitched that. You know, the fact that they, I've seen their own CEO speak at these other things, or maybe they did, you did a video as a events or comms person. If you're really trying to get someone in the room who's never been in the room, maybe that's doing a video just to prove that your CEO knows how to do public speaking. Maybe your CEO is a white man. And you're really trying to get someone in the room. Maybe you make sure that there's someone a little bit more diverse who's also amazing at speaking and knows their stuff. And you go, OK, we're not going to push the CEO straight away. We might push one of the other amazing people in our organization who can speak to what we're doing. And they are going to be more likely to get in the room. cynical as that may be, but like what's the problem with having another amazing female speaker or a person of a diverse background in the room to push your agenda? I don't think that's a problem and it gives them an opportunity.
Katherine Keddie: Yeah, I mean, I guess a way that you can also talk about that is thinking about what kind of speaker the organization or the event actually needs. So if you have, you know, a speaker that specializes in one particular area, and it's super relevant to the specific area, and there's someone who, you know, should be getting airtime because they're great. And it's not necessarily the right moment for a CEO who's going to speak generally about a bunch of subjects, but actually to have the, that person going forward is great. And also, um, with the organization, if there's a, if there's one that is specifically focused on maybe, um, building equity into nature markets, for example, as an area that you work on, having people that, you know, are able to speak to that subject personally, I also think is really valuable.
Joanna O'Malley: Completely. And I mean, I think, I think the thing as well is I think in tech companies, and this could be my interpretation of it, that's not correct, but a lot of the time it really seems very founder led or CEO led rather than this product is just amazing. Like it's just very good. And I do get that. And I get why, you know, if you have someone who's bright and smart and able and you push them forward as the face of the company. that people will go, oh, that's a scrappy person who knows what they're doing. But also if the product stands up on its own, and you've brought in these amazing people who maybe have different voices and different perspectives, like saying as a small comps human events team going, what are our assets here? We have this leader. This is a completely imaginary company. You go, let's say this leader is a very well-educated white person from the global north, man. Let's say it's a man, right? But they have a product that's so good and they are so like able to see the bigger picture that they've brought in an amazing team to work on the project, right? Instead of going, well, they're always founder led. We really need to show this person as being the most scrappy person. Instead, why don't we show them as being like this amazing team and where you have not just one person who can hold the whole business up, but multiple people who can speak to multiple topics. And so there's that, it's making sure that you can have those people in the room if they are there and using what assets you have. But if you do only have that one scrappy guy, if they're clever enough, if they have enough value add to say, you can still get them in the room. Because, you know, people at the end of the day still want their value add. So it's not to say if the only person in your organization who can speak is the white man, you're not going to stand a chance. It's to say, if you have other people who can speak, look to them. If you're starting to try get in the room, that will be a benefit. And it's not a bad thing. But let's say your organization is yourself. the comms person and the CEO, and you go, we got to get him in the room. Just make sure he's got something valuable to say, something valuable to add, and that you're having those conversations not two weeks before the event. You're building up the relationship throughout the year. Because if someone came up to me two weeks before an event going, why don't we partner on this? It would be so great if we could speak at that. I'd be like, OK, and what's in that for me? Why would I consider that when I have all these partners that I've been working with throughout the whole year who've shown me time and time again that they can contribute, they can value add? It would feel like someone was trying to, you know, it was a transactional thing for them and take something rather than we should collaborate and really work together on something. Yeah, it feels a bit more icky when people come up out of nowhere. I think that's the only way I can describe it. And it's a red flag. Back to your question.
Katherine Keddie: Yeah, no, I think that's also a case of common sense. Like if you ask someone two weeks before a huge announcement or a huge event, can I just get in on that last minute? Like that's not going to land well. So I think, you know, that's also a case of building relationships in a genuinely human way and thinking about people's time and how you can support them rather than approaching it as what can I extract from this situation and what can I take for myself?
Joanna O'Malley: Yeah and I mean I think to some like Nature Finance started as very much we were founder driven, you know Simon Sadek who's amazing and he's an amazing speaker and he actually falls into that category that I was saying before where Unfortunately a white male who's a little bit older but he's an amazing speaker and he could always explain very technical topics in a very concise and approachable way. So he was always asked to speak at things because he could always bring in that value add into the room. But also, he was self-aware enough to kind of go, okay, we have amazing women in the space, in our organization as well. Our now CEO, Julie, also is an amazing speaker. Let's get her to speak at something. We have Monique, who works as our Africa lead. who's a young South African woman. And some of the events she spoke at, maybe Simon was asked to speak at first and he said, no, Monique can do that. And he knew she could do it and it would be a value add. So it's not me saying, It has to be one way or the other. It's just saying there's such value in you as an events person or a comms person looking at who are your assets, what are your assets, and what does your value add? Because then even if you're totally selfish about what you want, at least you know what you're offering in return. So I think it's good to be honest with yourself, if no one else.
Speaker selection and founder-led dependency
Matt Jaworski: So what you talked about is very interesting and it ties in nicely to a challenge that companies often face in one way or the other, right? If they focus very much on the personal, let's call it right, personal brand or presence at events and social media of a founder or of the CEO. or any other prominent team member, there is a risk that the company becomes very associated with this person rather than other brilliant experts they might have on the team. And then if that person for whatever reason has to leave the company, there will be a gap in terms of both visibility and partnerships and those relationships. What's your experience and perspective on ways that the company can retain those relationships as it scales so that it's not entirely reliant on keeping a few senior key members of the staff for its entire network?
Making ideas bigger than people - NatureFinance's leadership transition
Joanna O'Malley: Sure, so how do you make the ideas bigger than the people? Okay, I think I learned this lesson in university. I ran a bunch of societies or I worked on the committee of a bunch of societies and I saw societies that were huge and big and how one person could tank a society and how one person could come in and be the total hero and run everything, the money, the committee, like the comms, the social media, be the head. And it was amazing and super impressive and they looked great, but after they left after the year, society completely fell apart, right? And so to me, I always thought running a society in university, it's successful if you leave it better than when you found it. And in our case in nature finance, I think we're very lucky because this was a very much a planned transition. So there was no kind of bad blood. It was very much Simon is self-aware and he said, I'll come in. I'll leave after a few years. Julie was. you know, around for a couple of years transitioning in. She's also amazing. So there was, we handled that in a way that made sure that people knew this is not a secret. It's not some big problem. So there's that. And also Simon is very, like, graciously helping us still and as a senior advisor and still very much inputting because he believes in the work, which is working in the green nature climate space is kind of helpful in that way. But that being said, you know, I think it is very much a risk when you are a network driven organization or a partnerships or collaboration that you need to know who you're talking to, why we're talking to them. You know, because if someone then does leave, as you say, if you want to pick up that conversation, Let's say some imaginary person leaves and then I come up to them and go, it'd be great to partner. And they're like, well, we were talking to your colleague for six months and then nothing happened. You know, that makes us look bad. I'm not saying that's happened, but that is a risk if you don't like make sure that that information is democratized. That's not saying, you know, if someone's worked really hard in their career to build up all of these relationships, I don't think you as an organization should go in and say, we own these now, but you should be able to kind of say, we need to make sure that they know that there's a separate relationship with the organization compared to with the person and you need to make the person understand we're not trying to take this relationship away from you. We're trying to say that Nature Finance stands up via its own ideas and that there's enough people around who can uphold those ideas and create new ideas that it's not dependent on one person because what we're trying to do is make nature count in finance, right? And that idea should be bigger than one person, because if it was just one person who believed in that, then we'd be in trouble. And one of the great things about having an amazing founder who people follow because they just know what they're talking about is that it attracts brilliant people. So I've been around nature finance for a really long time. and I've seen what initial great ideas can attract and it attracts other brilliant people who are fun and wonderful and weird and they all have their own ideas. So we got to the point at Nature Finance where I was looking around and I said, oh wow, we've got some really heavy hitters here who have great ideas, who have got stuff to share. And that's why you give them the floor. It's not a tokenistic thing. It's to make sure that people go, yes, our CEO is super important. They can talk to all of our topics and they're amazing speaker. But like this person in our team is specifically working on this product. That's amazing. You know, we have our Aaron Kuhlenkamp, who's the head of the Innovative Finance Lab at Nature Finance. And before that, he was the director of the Sustainable Sovereign Debt Hub. And He's just one of the most clever people I know, knows more about bonds and KPIs as I mentioned earlier than almost anyone I know. And there's very few people who could talk to the topics he can talk to at such detail and like with such knowledge. And so it's great to give him the floor and let him do his thing. And it's great to give, you know, our head of nature, Sarah Krish, the floor. It's going back to that thing is as an events person, I'm suddenly given so many more assets to go. Who can be a value add here? And I have so many more people to offer them, so many more perspectives, so many more takes. But it's making sure that you plan for that rather than saying the same person speaks over and over again or the same person is on the call with the partners. You go, actually, you know, our CEO maybe doesn't need to be on this call. Maybe the person who's specifically working on this topic is on this call. So they know like, oh, they're well capable without the head person in the room to hold their own, speak to their own topic, work on their own work. And Simon and Julie very much so. She's very much about saying, you know, there's autonomy within the work streams. They know what they're doing. Let them have the conversations. She's very busy. Simon was very busy. It's not a bad thing to share the load and share the partnerships. For me as a partnerships manager, I kind of have to stay a bit nosy and a bit curious and make sure that I know, okay, we're talking with this group on this topic, but also this topic is of interest to them and that our other work stream may be talking to them as well. And, you know, making sure that everybody knows because you can have a problem. where actually Dorothy is a great example, where she's such an amazing speaker. She's like, there are so many synergies with so many different aspects of our work that I think we accidentally, but it's not a problem, accidentally asked her to speak at like five events at the Nature Cup, CBD Cup 16. And I don't think the team realized that they had all asked her. Not a bad problem to have because we know Anka really well. Like I said, it's a strong partnership and we can kind of laugh at it and go, you know, what do you want to do? But like that is something we want to make sure if we're going to do it, let's all at least be aware in the future. So it's not like a big issue, but it's something to be aware of. And as we grow bigger and bigger, having someone to kind of keep tabs on that, I think is going to be important, especially as so many brilliant people come in. They're all going to bring their own connections or create their own connections. So. It was difficult when we had one person with so many great connections. It was difficult when we had Julie come in and had so many great connections and so many great topics she wanted to work on. As it's grown, it's only going to get bigger. So we need to have systems in place and tracking in place to just keep an eye on it.
Matt Jaworski: To keep an eye on it and share this information internally and be able to know who is having conversations with whom.
Joanna O'Malley: Yeah, it's great to know internally because The thing is, it's not saying, oh, you can't work with them because I'm working with them. It's about saying. It's even realizing the synergies within our own work streams. You know, it's kind of going, oh, did you know that we're also working on this thing with them? And when you're in the conversation, in a room with them having a conversation, you can weave that in. So we're all aligned, you know, because our work streams are so busy working on the various topics. We all get along great, we all catch up, but sometimes when you're very focused on your own topic, it's hard to take a step back and go, how is it all connected? And so, you know, sometimes the thing that makes sure that we're connected are those partners, because they see the connections before we do sometimes. So it's, yeah, it's a funny one.
Events to watch in 2025/6
Katherine Keddie: My quick fire question to finish us off is, which events do you think are really exciting and you are interested in for 2025? Sure.
Joanna O'Malley: So we have the IMF and World Bank Springs meetings coming up. So International Monetary Fund. Our innovative finance and our debt team will be there, obviously. makes sense and we're excited to see how that goes. Although knowing the geopolitical context, we'll see. It's usually a very interesting time, so we're excited for that. The International Finance for Development Conference, the fourth one, in Seville. I think a lot of people were saying that, you know, that should be a really interesting conference. And there's a lot of people who we work with in the space who are planning on attending that. So I'll be really interested to see what conversations come out of the conference. I think, you know, after that, before actually that, we have London Climate Action Week. I think what's really interesting about that is because of the situation in America at the moment where there's a changing political context, A lot less people are looking towards New York Climate Week because they don't know what the kind of climate, if you will, will be for New York Climate Week. And so they're all looking to London Climate Action Week instead because they go, OK, well, they're similar enough I guess where you have two global north big city hubs. So that will be an interesting one to watch to see kind of is it a much bigger thing now because of the, it could be an opportunity for London actually really. Africa Climate Week is going to be back so that would be nice to see. We also have of course COP30 which is the big one. So COP30 is in November and It's 15 years on, obviously, since the Paris Climate Agreement, where we all said, let's limit this damage as much as we can to warming well below 1.5 degrees. We're 15 years on. It was 15 years into the process of us all getting together to talk about climate. So it's a really big kind of landmark as to where do we stand. It's interesting as well, because they've gone out of their way to make sure that it's kind of, it feels very real. So the events taking place in the Amazon rainforest in Belem, What's interesting about that is because the infrastructure there is not as capable as hosting it in a major city. So we're seeing that now that the climate week aspect of it is being taken out and maybe done the week before in Rio. We're seeing that the world leaders are meeting separately to make sure that there's space and accommodation for everyone. So it's going to be a cop. That's a big landmark flagship event, but also it's going to happen in a way that it's not happened before, where it's spread across a few different cities. So that will be interesting to see. Does it become more siloed as a discussion because of that? Do more people engage with it or less people engage with it? So that will be one I'll be watching, will definitely be engaged in. But like. how we're engaging with it, you know, will change because of those factors. So we're keeping an eye on that. So they're some of the big ones. There's definitely other ones, but they're the ones in my head as the ones to watch.
Katherine Keddie: Perfect. Amazing. I think that's a great summary and will include kind of a list of those events that you just mentioned and then any others that we have found from our work and from our other clients that is really exciting and maybe ones to watch for 2025 in the description of the podcast. So my final question for you is, do you have any asks for our audience, for our ecosystem or anyone else who's listening?
Joanna O'Malley: Yeah, so knowing that not everybody listening is in the nature space necessarily, I think It's, I would ask people to ask the stupid questions. You know, like I said at the beginning of this podcast, where I say, do you know what biodiversity is? And people go, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then they don't. You know, if you're like, why does nature matter? Why is it different to climate? Why do we need a separate conversation in order to bring them together? Just ask that question. But also, you know, as a tech As a tech company, if you're working in the green space, what does green mean? Have you considered nature? Have you thought about it? And I'm always open to answering dumb questions. It's literally my job if you think that there's a synergy or a place we can work together. I'm on LinkedIn, feel free to reach out. But yeah, I think just keep asking those questions and don't assume that you're the only person who doesn't know them. The biggest lesson I've learnt is, I used to go, I don't want to ask that question because I'll feel stupid and I'll be called out as being the least intelligent person in the room. Um, and then I just said, you know what, I'm going to ask it. I have a master's. If I don't know, how is my friend who doesn't work in the space going to understand this? How is like the politician going to understand this if they've, I've been working in this space for years and I don't know. So I think it's okay to ask questions if you're a green tech company and you don't understand. That's a problem. So please ask the questions and keep talking and think about nature if you can.
Katherine Keddie: Thank you so much. I think this has been such a useful episode to walk through the basics of what it means to have an event, partnerships. I think there was loads of really like practical insights in there, which is really helpful. If you want to have a chat with Joanna, we'll have her LinkedIn link in the description. And then please join us for future episodes around scaling green technology.
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