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Katy
Smith

Senior Vice President

Katy Smith is a Senior Vice President at Payden & Rygel. She is an ESG Strategist, responsible for advising institutional clients and consultants on ESG portfolio solutions across the firm’s strategies. Based in London, Katy manages the firm’s sustainability initiatives across jurisdictions. Prior to joining the ESG team, Katy was part of the business development team, focusing on consultant relationships in the UK and Europe.

Laura
Lake, CFA, CAIA

Managing Director

Laura Lake is a Managing Director at Payden & Rygel. She has more than two decades of investing experience and leads the firm’s global ESG initiatives.
Prior to joining Payden & Rygel, Laura was the Chief Investment Officer at Breckinridge Capital Advisors where she served on the executive committee, chaired the investment committee and was responsible for developing ESG integration in strategies across the firm. Prior to that, Laura was a Senior Portfolio Manager at Mellon (Standish) responsible for managing multi-sector portfolios for insurance companies. Before Standish, she managed portfolios for institutional clients at Wells Capital Management. She also worked for HSBC in London where she was responsible for external manager selection.
Laura holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation and is a member of the CFA Institute. She earned a BA in Economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, an MS in Finance from London Business School.

What to expect

The climate for ESG investing continues to shift amid rising regulatory pressure, political disagreement, persistent greenwashing concerns, and divergent global views on the role ESG should play in investment portfolios. Once propelled by worldwide momentum - from the Paris Agreement to the rise of net-zero finance alliances - the global landscape is now more complicated, given anti-ESG legislation in the US to Europe’s regulatory rollback. Join us as we unpack the current challenges and explore if there is a silver lining to this uncertainty. Whether you are trying to interpret changing regulations, tackle the lack of agreed ESG terminology, or understand varying climate data, we will examine tangible and transparent solutions available for investors to navigate the changing climate.

The Changing Climate of ESG Investing

Seezimmer 6

Donnerstag, 26.02.2026

from

12:30

until

13:10

English

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