Speaker details

Biography

Linda Kleftodimou Smith Head of ESG Compliance, Nuveen Linda is a dedicated ESG compliance resource to provide support to Nuveen’s Responsible Investing Team and other ESG-related functional teams such as legal, marketing and communications; RFPs; portfolio compliance and government relations. Prior to joining Nuveen, Linda was for over 5 years the CCO and Regulatory Counsel of the US division of a large Canadian money manager, an original signatory of the UNPRI and one of the first managers to enter the ESG movement in Canada. She was involved in all the firm’s ESG initiatives from the US perspective (monitoring ESG regulatory developments, review of marketing material, preparation of DDQs, RFPs and RFI’s, monitoring of portfolio compliance, proxy voting, engagement, and monitoring of reporting under different ESG frameworks). Before that, Linda worked in different law firms and regulatory and compliance firms, and also spent a significant amount of time working in Europe where her practice focused extensively on EU regulations, policy and institutions. In this capacity, she worked in Brussels, London and Luxembourg. She is the founder and co-chair of the ESG Committee of the New York State Bar Association, whose mission is to educate attorneys on ESG developments and promote collaboration to advance best practices. Linda holds a J.D. degree from Columbia Law School (Harlan Fiske Scholar) as well as masters-in law degrees from the University of Brussels (European Union Law) and London School of Economics (International Business Law). She also holds an undergraduate law degree from the Aristotelian University of Salonika, Greece.