Jan Ahrens

CEO

Jan, SparkChange’s Chief Executive Officer, is a seasoned climate markets professional with extensive experience in building and scaling climate change related, data driven products. He advises major corporates, trading houses and governments on global carbon markets.

Deborah Yang

Advisory Board

Deborah is a seasoned veteran of the financial services industry with 18 years working across 3 continents at MSCI. Most recently she has served as the Global Head of ESG Index, and is regarded as one of the industry’s leading experts in the world of sustainable investing. Deborah has a strong track record of success building some key growth franchises and has built substantial teams and businesses as the Head of Index for EMEA, and Head of Asia ex Japan, Client Coverage. Deborah is widely recognised for her leadership by the industry, and was named Financial News 100 Most Influential Women in European finance 6 consecutive years (2013-2018).

Joff Hamilton-Dick

CMO

Joff is CMO at SparkChange. He was previously the Chief Marketing Officer at Jampp, a leading technology platform within the programmatic advertising industry acquired by Affle (NSE: AFFLE), as well as Chief Revenue Officer at Appatyze, a Facebook advertising exchange, acquired by the owners of Playtech (LSE: PTEC.L) in 2012.

Joff holds a BSC in Mathematics from the University of Nottingham (1999).

Judith Schroeter

Head of Product

Judith is Head of Product at SparkChange. Previously, she was Director of Platform and User Experience at ICIS, a leading global research house for emissions trading analytics, part of RELX. She brings extensive knowledge of US, EU and Chinese carbon markets and is an expert in information architecture and interactive design.

Judith holds an MSc of Industrial Engineering from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.

Arlyn Argüello Gleason

UK Head of Compliance

Arlyn is the Head of Compliance and Control in our UK office. She previously worked as Head of Internal Control at OTCex, a leading brokerage firm, where she helped deliver efficiency on daily operations to a wide range of products whilst ensuring adherence to regulatory requirements. Her experience also includes strategic roles within Asset Management linked to Internal Control and Business Development.

She received a BSc from the Monterrey Institute of Higher Education (2007) and a MSc on European Political Economy from the London School of Economics (2011)

Arlyn maintains a Series 27 license and is a CAIA charterholder.

Bhavesh Patel

Full Stack Developer

Bhavesh is a Full Stack Engineer at SparkChange. He was previously a senior front-end consultant at Lloyds Banking Group, driving digital transformation into credit card sales journeys for MBNA, Halifax, Lloyds and Bank of Scotland. He is developing and solutioning responsive web applications with 12+ year experience and has expertise in ReactJS and JavaScript.

Bhavesh received Master in Electronics (Communication) from the University of Hertfordshire (2004).

Philipp Ruf

Head of Analytics

Philipp Ruf is Head of Analytics at SparkChange. He was previously the Director of Energy Analytics at ICIS, an analytics provider for global emissions and energy markets, where he led a 45-strong team of analysts. He is a well-regarded figurehead in the carbon markets, and regular speaker on stakeholder consultations, including with the European Parliament and European Commission.

Ross Tappin

Chief Technology Officer

Ross is CTO at SparkChange. He was previously a Lead Engineer at Lloyds Bank, most recently within their innovation and AI department. He was the founder of Swave, a FinTech savings product, and Xeinet, an InsureTech point of sales platform. He started his career as an Engineer at GLG Partners helping them to build out their first systematic trading systems.

Ross read Computer Science at Oxford Brooks University.

Sarah Pearson

Business Manager

Sarah is the Business Manager at SparkChange, running day to day operations, HR, and Finance functions. She is a former Executive Assistant to the CFO at Global Switch, Europe’s largest data centre operator, and Business Support Manager and Executive Assistant to the CEO at Midrive, a tech startup brand since acquired by The AA.

Sarah is a qualified Mental Health First Aider, trained bookkeeper, and Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt.

Ben Bowring

Data Scientist

Ben Bowring is a Data Scientist at SparkChange. He has previously worked at Bank of America in Equity Derivatives Research and at Deloitte as a Data & AI Solutions Consultant.

He has a Masters degree in Astrophysics and Financial Mathematics from Edinburgh University and the University of Aberdeen respectively.

Anthony Gordon

Head of Financial Products

Anthony is Head of Financial Products at SparkChange. He was previously the Delta-1 Head of Platform and Head of EMEA ETF Trading at Credit Suisse, and also ran the Delta-1 Index businesses at both Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank.

Anthony holds an M.Eng in Engineering, Economics & Management from the University of Oxford (1995).

Mili Fomicov

Advisory Board

Mili is a researcher at the Centre for Climate Finance and Investment, Imperial College London. Previously, she was a Director and Portfolio Manager in the Multi-Asset Strategies team at BlackRock, a Portfolio Manager on J.P. Morgan’s CIO team, and managed US and Japan equity funds at Barclays. With her broad experience across climate finance and portfolio management, Mili will play a key role in helping Spark Change achieve its mission: to innovate carbon products and data & analytics tools that improve financial returns and environmental impact.

Mats Andersson

Advisory Board

Mats Andersson is a pioneer in climate-smart investments in international capital markets. As the former CEO of AP4 (2006-2016) he began investing in low carbon dioxide strategies in stock markets in 2012, with his first investments in green bonds the following year. In 2016 he was awarded Chief Investment Officer’s Lifetime Award for his leadership at AP4 and his contribution to international initiatives on sustainable investment strategies on how to mitigate climate change risks as a long-term investor. Before AP4, Mats held management positions at SG Warburgs, and Deutsche Bank. He serves as vice chairman of Global Challenges Foundation, non-executive member of the board of Carneo Asset managers, LMK Industri and Nyfosa.. in 2017 Mats chaired a Swedish government inquiry on “how to promote the green bond market.”. He also acts as an advisor to KenFo (the German nuclear decommissioning fund) and is a member of the evaluation committee of the the French OAT.

Elliot Waxman

Advisory Board

Elliot is a FinTech entrepreneur and he founder of a capital markets fintech providing pre- and post-trade data and analytics to financial institutions, that was subsequently acquired by TP ICAP. He has 20+ years’ experience in creating innovative multi-asset investment products, having led teams at Deutsche Bank, Bank of America and Credit Suisse, and has served as strategic advisor at several financial technology companies.

He studied English Law and French Law at the University of Manchester (1994), and completed the Legal Practice Course at the College of Law in London (1995).

Phil Beattie

Head of Strategic Partnerships

Phil is Head of Strategic Partnerships at SparkChange. He was previously Head of ETF and Indexed Fund Business, EMEA at MSCI, with a particular focus on growth strategies including ESG. Prior to that he spent 15 years at JP Morgan, latterly as their Head of UK Business Management devising their UK strategy and management communications. He is an expert in ESG Investing, with deep experience of how to integrate ESG factors into the investment process of both active and indexed solutions.

Phil is a CFA Charterholder, and received his BA in History from the University of Birmingham (1996).

Hussain Hassani

Software Engineer in Test

Hussain is a Software Engineer in Test at SparkChange. He was previously a Quality Assurance Engineer at technology start-ups Flipper and Yieldify where he established the testing departments and implemented QA processes to standardise, test and deploy software solutions. He is an expert in developing automation testing frameworks.

Hussain received a first class degree in Computer Science from Coventry University (2008).

Billal Ismail

Head of Sales

Billal is Head of Sales at SparkChange. He was previously Head of Specialist Equity Sales at HSBC, where he was responsible for delivering investment recommendations to a diverse range of the world’s largest institutional investors, and led the distribution of a number of successful IPOs across the industrials and renewables sectors. He also led the expansion of HSBC’s Alpha Capture product globally, in particular to Asia, to meet investor demand for differentiated electronic trade idea signals covering emerging markets.

Billal is a CFA Charterholder, and received his BA in Economics from Durham University (2009).

Marc Murphy

Junior Full Stack Developer

Marc is a Junior Full Stack Engineer at SparkChange. Previously, he was a front-end engineer at Publicis Sapient, a consulting firm where he developed retail onboarding journeys and commercial banking applications for Lloyds Bank. He worked with ReactJS and is a certified Google Associate Cloud Engineer.

Marc graduated from King’s College London with a first-class degree in Computer Science and speaks fluent Spanish, Catalan, and English.

Oscar Dealtry

Product Manager

Oscar is a Product Manager at SparkChange. Previously, he was a Product Owner at sustainable investing platform Wombat Invest.

Oscar received a first-class honours degree in Modern Languages from UCL, where he was included on the Dean's list. He speaks English, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese.

Gareth Juul

Advisory Board

Gareth is an experienced funds and asset management lawyer, astute manager and mentor, with over 17 years’ experience partnering with investment management businesses. Gareth brings a wealth of experience, most notably from his 15 years at BlackRock where he was Managing Director in Legal & Compliance, including acting as head counsel in EMEA for iShares and BlackRock’s Retail business, as well as leading the broader EMEA Funds Legal team. Gareth has considerable experience in advising businesses and their boards on strategic projects (including as a board director of BlackRock’s Irish management company) and advising on investment products structuring.

Arthur Chattey

Sales Manager

Arthur is a Sales Manager at SparkChange. Previously, he was a Senior Sales Associate at Northern Trust providing asset servicing, investment, fiduciary and advisory solutions to family offices.

Arthur graduated from Newcastle University with a BA Honours in Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies.