About us
Our Vision
Our Vision is to catalyze and transform the climate finance ecosystem by empowering women and leveraging their power as collaborators and changemakers.
Our Mission is to “move the dial” in providing financial solutions to the climate crisis by creating a space for developing trusted relationships, knowledge sharing, transformative collaboration, personal development, learning and innovation for women in climate finance globally.
Our Strategy
Support
Develop a community of support and collaboration for existing and emerging climate finance leaders
Knowledge sharing and learning
Exchange on climate and global climate solutions, climate finance, finance, etc.
Cross-sector and cross-country collaboration
Liaise with female leaders within the climate broader ecosystem (leads in policy, NGOs and academia) as well as the broader corporate ecosystem.
Develop talent in climate finance
Form the next generation of female climate finance leaders through targeted, content-driven, practical workshops and development programs.
Thought leadership and policy action
Find a common voice and act as an accelerator of climate action in the financial community and beyond.
Action Aeas
Ecosystem Building
- Connect with women in the same field across Canada
- Connect and build relationships with women in climate from other sectors (policy, academia, corporate, etc.)
- Connect with entrepreneurs in the climate space
- Share the best climate and finance events to attend
Collaboration
- Share investment opportunities
- Find and implement practical solutions to common challenges
- Create and implement new collaborative solutions to address gaps in the funding chain
- Share job posting opportunities in climate investing
- Collaborate and exchange ideas on policy work and public consultations
Knowledge Sharing and Learning
- Deep dives on deals in specific technologies
- Speaker / media training
- Practical on-site sessions on emerging technologies
- Training on policy initiatives and regulatory trends
Thought leadership
- Build strong initiatives in different areas
- Give a voice to women
- Influence the education system to change behavior
- Share & use change management tactics that work
Founding team
Delia Cristea
Delia is Partner and General Counsel at Power Sustainable. She oversees the firm’s legal, compliance and culture functions. She is also responsible for deepening the firm’s community impact and ecosystem building activities in the sustainable finance space. Prior to Power Sustainable, Delia worked as counsel for Power Corporation of Canada, where she most recently served as Assistant General Counsel and Assistant Secretary. Prior to that, she was Associate at McCarthy Tétrault LLP in the Montreal and Toronto offices and served as in-house counsel with BCE Inc. Delia graduated with a gold medal from McGill Faculty of Law and holds a license in law and a Masters in European law from Sorbonne University in Paris. She also chairs the board and the governance committee of Lawyers without Borders Canada. She is passionate about supporting the growth of the sustainability ecosystem both in Canada and abroad. As such acts as board member or advisor to a number of organizations in this space, including Cycle Momentum, the McGill Sustainable Growth Initiative and the Green Finance Committee of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.
Natalie Deschamps
Natalie Deschamps is a Principal at Power Sustainable Decarbonization. She has 15 years of experience across private equity, consulting, and business development, with investment experience in control buyouts and growth equity. Prior to joining Power Sustainable Decarbonization, Natalie was a Principal in Private Equity at the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board where she most recently focused on growth-stage climate solutions. Natalie’s career includes experience in sustainable finance at CK Capital and management consulting at McKinsey. She holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, an Honours Bachelor of Business Administration from Ivey Business School, and a Bachelor of Arts from Western University.
Catherine Simard
Catherine Simard is Managing Director, Sustainable Investing at CDPQ. The Sustainable Investing group is responsible for defining and overseeing the organization’s sustainability orientations. In addition, she currently serves as President of the Institute of Corporate Director’s Quebec Chapter (ICD Quebec) and is a member of the Public Policy Committee of the Canadian Coalition for Good Governance. Prior to joining CDPQ, Catherine was advising public companies on corporate governance and securities law matters at Norton Rose Fulbright, an international law firm. She holds a law degree from McGill University and a master’s degree in international business law from the London School of Economics and Political Science, where she was awarded the Law Department Prize for best overall mark and the One Essex Court Prize for best performance in international business law.
Joanna Klimczak
Joanna is the Senior Director US & Canada at CREO, a global platform on a mission to invest $100 billion into the decarbonization transition by 2025. Headquartered in New York City, CREO partners with 200+ asset owners – CREO members – in 25+ countries to activate its mission, catalyzing billions of dollars of private capital investment annually into climate solutions and the transition in support of the Paris Agreement. Joanna built CREO’s work in Canada and now additionally co-oversees CREO’s development in the US. Prior to this, Joanna was a Management Consultant at BCG, where she advised Fortune 100 companies on delivering strategies to decarbonize. She also co-founded MyVision with the backing of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Muhammad Yunus. MyVision was an international accelerator for student entrepreneurs building companies that tackled the world’s biggest social & environmental challenges, which worked with over 10,000 young business leaders globally with Joanna as its Co-CEO. Joanna is a Rhodes Scholar, holding a Master’s Degree in Public Policy from the University of Oxford and a Bachelor’s Degree in Commerce from McGill, where she created the accredited academic programme titled Minor Concentration in Social Business & Enterprise.
Flavie Desgagné-Éthier
Flavie Desgagne is Climate Program Director at the Trottier Family Foundation. Passionate about climate finance, Flavie focuses on initiatives that are reshaping the logic of capital markets and strengthening the sustainable finance infrastructure in Canada. As part of her recent accomplishments, Flavie led the Great Canadian ESG Championships, an initiative that shed the light on gold-standard approaches to responsible investing, and a coalition of organizations supporting the ambitious Climate-Aligned Finance Act, introduced by Senator Rosa Galvez. Prior to joining the Foundation, Flavie managed the climate philanthropy program at CDPQ where she developed strategic partnerships with the Montreal City Net-Zero Roadmap coalition and the Climate Bonds Initiative among others. Flavie’s corporate social responsibility background also brought her to support Canadian flagship telecommunication, energy and transportation companies in their ESG journey. Flavie is a lecturer at University of Montreal and she holds a graduate certificate in environmental studies from the Université de Sherbrooke and a MSc in corporate social responsibility from UQAM.
Chapters
The WCF community is active in Montreal and Toronto, with more to come in Western Canada.