Sofia Santos
Coordinator

Sofia Santos is an economist specializing in sustainable finance. Santos holds a PhD from Middlesex University on sustainable banking, a master’s degree in Economics from the University of London, and a degree in Economics from the Technical University of Lisbon. She has over 23 years professional experience in banking, companies, NGOs, and the public sector. She started her career in 1997 in the research department of the Merrill Lynch bank in London and returned to Portugal in 1999. Furthermore, she worked at Reuters, Bloomberg, INE and CELPA.

In 2004, she created the consulting firm Sustentare and worked with several companies on sustainability issues. In 2013, she founded Systemic Sphere Unipessoal, working in Angola, Cape Verde, and Portugal, in the areas of sustainable finance, sustainable energy, circular economy, green bonds, among others.

From 2016 to 2018, she was Secretary General of the Business Council for Sustainable Development, and, from 2018 to 2019, she was Technical Specialist and Consultant in sustainable finance and green economy at the Office of the Minister for the Environment and Energy Transition. There, she coordinated the “Group of Reflection for Sustainable Financing”, which led to 20 institutions signing the “Letter of Commitment for Sustainable Financing in Portugal”. She is also a member of the Investment Committee of the Portuguese Fund for Social Innovation.

She is the author of seven books, three of them dedicated to sustainable finance. Further, she teaches sustainability classes at IDEFE-ISEG and at NOVA SBE, being co-coordinator of the course for executives “Sustainable Finance: green and climate finance” at IDEFE-ISEG.