Executive Committee
Dr Ese Owie
Chief Executive Officer
An International Trade Lawyer, Ese is an energy transition and climate change expert specialising in environment, energy, trade policy, and sustainability. He works at the intersection between finance, public policy, and academe, having held senior roles in each domain. Over the course of a sterling multi-jurisdictional career spanning over two decades, he has garnered extensive experience advising National Governments, Multilateral Agencies, Firms, and Third Sector Organisations on trade, energy, and sustainable finance issues. Ese currently serves as a Senior Advisor and President at the Cavendish Institute, leading the client-facing trade, sustainability, and climate change advisory team.
Gautaam Borah
Director: Global Networks
Gautaam is an innovative leader and published author with a proven track record in customer service, digital transformation, and business excellence. He is an expert in managing multi-geography operations and leading diverse, multicultural teams. Currently, he is leading a women-centric eCommerce start-up, connecting underprivileged artisans to a global market. He is former VP and Head of Regional Customer Service Operations and Deployment Lead - Business Transformations at Vodafone India, driving customer experience strategies and digital transformations. Gautaam is a published author with Bloomsbury and board member in CX Network. He is committed to empowering businesses and individuals, leveraging expertise to fuel growth, profitability, and lasting impact.
Melinda Miklos
Director: Finance Working Group
Melinda is an ESG expert with 14 years working with C-suite leaders of multinationals, startups, and SMEs. She has built a proprietary model, turning ESG into a business model driver across geographies. She engaged 1,134 firms to take ESG actions and built a service portfolio to support them. She utilises sustainability in brand and growth strategies and relationship management. The business and social impact Melinda delivered won her a scholarship to Oxford, where she built an ESG value creation framework for private equity. After ten years of experience working with regional C-suite leaders of global financial services and investment firms, Melinda focuses on ESG in private markets. She is also a mentor to startups and entrepreneurs, and an angel investor.
Dr Andrew Lee
Director: Communications
Andrew has been a geographer and geography educator in prep schools for more than 25 years. He has built and delivered teacher training for the Royal Geographical Society, edited an Atlas for the Philip's Atlas Company, toured through Asia for Apple training teachers how to use iPads in geographical education, and given lectures on teaching pupils how to think in the humanities. He has published scores of articles in the geographical press and produced a large amount of teaching material. He has been on the Senior Management staff of St Paul's School in London, and worked in other capacities at Westminster School and the Dragon School in Oxford. Andrew holds a doctorate in Geography from the University of Oxford, having worked with Professor David Harvey. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a Chartered Geographer. He is an associate fellow of the Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Education at University College London.
Jianbo (James) Wang
Director: Knowledge-Sharing & Events
As a Singaporean Lead Teacher of Mathematics at United World College, Jianbo is passionate about delivering high-quality teaching to students from diverse backgrounds and cultures. He has over ten years of experience in teaching AP and IB DP Higher-level and Standard Level Mathematics, as well as supervising robotics competitions and projects, winning competition prizes in international contests. Jianbo leads IB workshops for experienced teachers, coordinators, and pedagogical leaders on Academic Integrity, Assessment for Learning, and Mathematics: Applications and Interpretation, Approaches to Learning and Teaching in the Diploma Programme. In addition, he is currently an IB examiner for Paper 2 and the application and interpretation of the Mathematics Internal Assessment. Jianbo worked as an engineer in the UK and Germany before deciding to pursue a career in education.
Barbara Izilein
Director: Africa
Barbara is an experienced infrastructure investment professional and fund/portfolio manager with extensive experience working on PPP Projects (from inception to financial close), direct investment deals, private equity deals, and setting up and managing sector focused funds in different sectors (privately owned funds and funds partially owned by the government). This experience cuts across various sectors including agriculture, healthcare, renewables (hydropower, solar, biogas, etc.), water (irrigation, water supply, aquaculture, etc.), power (IPPs), transport, road, and railways.
Joy O'Neill
Director: Food & Farming Working Group
Joy is an experienced leader, advisor, and consultant with a history of working in education, local authorities, and charities in the UK and internationally. She is skilled in Green Care and Care Farming, Leadership and Research, Inclusion and Wellbeing, Change Management, Project Management, Safeguarding, and Governance. Joy is trained in early years childhood development, teaching, and special educational needs. In 2018, she developed an interest in green care and care farming after placing a young person, at risk of exclusion from school, on a care farm. Shortly after, she began researching green care and care farming, became a director of a local care farm, and started as a volunteer for the Farming Community Network.
Tobias Huzarski
Director: Membership
Tobias is an impact investment professional with deal execution, fund structuring, and strategy development expertise. He is driven by passion for renewable energy and green deal infrastructure. He led the launch of one of Europe’s leading climate impact funds focused on renewable energy with €1.3 billion equity raised to date. Tobias has hands-on real asset investment experience, including renewables and real estate at leading investment firms, with a sourcing, structuring, and execution track record.
Allan Marega
Director: Transport Working Group
Allan is an airline professional for over two decades and an entrepreneur currently working in the industrial renewable fuel production space. A leader with a passion for business in new areas of science, finance, and aviation, he has had the fortune of pursuing his interests in various fields, including as an airline pilot. Allan founded Global Supply Solutions Limited, a company with an industrial plant he built, to produce and supply to industries a patented type of sustainable Biomass Briquette at industrial scale. Allan is a multi-skilled, multi-lingual professional who has worked and lived in Kenya, UK, USA, France, Germany, and the UAE.
Anupama Panikar
Treasurer
Anupama is a management consultant focused on designing and implementing internal controls over the end-to-end sustainability/ESG reporting process. She has experience in identification, assessment, and management of risk, internal controls, and internal audit across global and local entities. She is also experienced in management of cross-functional teams and senior stakeholders to deliver large- and small-scale engagements, focusing on opportunities arising from the changing risk landscape in the UK and abroad. Anupama completed the MBA at Said Business School, University of Oxford, with a focus on strategy. She is a qualified Chartered Global Management Accountant under the aegis of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountancy.
Any of the Executive Committee would be pleased to hear from you directly, or if in doubt about who to speak to, email info@oxfordclimatealumni.com.
The team is growing, so please check out the opportunities on the Join the Team page.