TOP 10 Most-Read Thought Leaders in Business Impact

Discover also our 2026 Rankings of the Most Read Thought Leaders in Carbon, Circularity, Climate Change, Energy, Energy Transition, Environmental Sustainability, ESG, Ethical Governance, Green Tech, Nature, Renewables, Social Responsibility, Sustainable AI, Sustainable Business, Sustainable Finance, and Sustainable Lifestyle. Explore how this year's leaders compare to the most influential voices of last year!

illuminem is proud to present the most-read Thought Leaders in Business Impact globally, as recognised by illuminem's ever growing community of 700,000+ readers.

The business impact conversation in 2025 turned decisively toward nature (see our nature ranking here). After years in which carbon dominated corporate sustainability, the year saw biodiversity, ecosystems, and natural capital move from the margins to the balance sheet. We wrote extensively on the topic in our Nature 100, the world's first ranking of the Top 100 companies by proprietary nature impact metrics, and in our detailed coverage of the Villars Summit, outlining the most important nature conversation of the year.

In the broader industry, the shift was equally visible. The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) was adopted by more than 600 organisations and struck an agreement with global accounting standard-setters to bring nature into mainstream financial reporting, a sign that nature disclosure was following the same path carbon reporting had travelled a decade earlier. With more than half of global GDP moderately or highly dependent on nature, the question was no longer whether business affected ecosystems, but how to measure and manage that dependency.

Yet this shift unfolded against a backdrop of political noise and retreat. As ESG faced backlash and companies weighed whether to dial back commitments, the voices on this list made the case that nature risk does not pause for the news cycle, and that the businesses treating it as material would be the ones left standing.

What distinguished Georg Kell in that conversation was the long view he brought to the table. As founding Executive Director of the UN Global Compact and now Chairman of Arabesque, he has watched corporate sustainability evolve from voluntary gesture to strategic necessity over three decades. His most-read piece confronted the crisis in corporate sustainability head-on, asking what companies should actually do now that the political winds had shifted.

Joining him on the list, Chief Executive Officer of the Chartered Insurance Institute Matthew Hill reframes the insurance sector's role in the climate transition, Deputy Head of Sustainable Research at Robeco Michal Kulak argues that nature has no pause button and that boards must act despite the noise, and Founder and CEO of global sustainability consulting practice Enzo Advisors Nidhi Chadda quantifies the $44 trillion risk facing the 95% of companies without a biodiversity strategy.

Drawn from over 2,500 thought leaders publishing on illuminem Voices, the ranking below reflects the voices that shaped how the business impact conversation evolved in 2025. Please join us in congratulating the Thought Leaders of the Year in Business Impact, and every voice contributing to this vital global debate on illuminem.

1️⃣ Georg Kell - Founding Executive Director of the UN Global Compact
Country: Germany 🇩🇪
Most-Read Thought Piece: Corporate sustainability is in crisis – what should companies do now?
Profile: Georg Kell is a prominent figure in the field of sustainable business and corporate social responsibility. He is the former Executive Director of United Nations Global Compact, the world's largest corporate sustainability initiative. He currently serves as Chairman of Arabesque, a technology company that uses AI and big data to assess sustainability performance.

2️⃣ Matthew Hill - Chief Executive Officer of the Chartered Insurance Institute
Country: United Kingdom 🇬🇧
Most-Read Thought Piece: Rethinking risk: the insurance sector's role in the climate transition
Profile: Matthew Hill is the Chief Executive Officer of the Chartered Insurance Institute. He brings over two decades of leadership experience across the UK's public and regulatory sectors, including roles at the Legal Services Board, General Dental Council, and Gambling Commission. A graduate in Biochemistry from Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, he has led strategic reforms in regulatory governance, communications, and risk analysis.

3️⃣ Michal Kulak - Deputy Head of Sustainable Research at Robeco
Country: Switzerland 🇨🇭
Most-Read Thought Piece: Nature doesn't have a pause button: why boards must act now despite the noise
Profile: Michal Kulak is the Deputy Head of Sustainable Research at Robeco, a global asset management firm, where he leads research on the integration of ESG factors into financial analysis. He also serves as a Coordinating Lead Author for the IPBES Business and Biodiversity Assessment, focusing on measurement approaches for business impacts on biodiversity. Michal has a PhD from ETH Zurich and brings a strong background in sustainability, having previously worked as a sustainability scientist at Unilever and a research scientist at Agroscope.

4️⃣ Marisa Drew - Chief Sustainability Officer at Standard Chartered Bank
Country: United States 🇺🇸
Most-Read Thought Piece: Scaling investment for Africa's sustainable blue economy
Profile: Marisa Drew is the Chief Sustainability Officer at Standard Chartered Bank, where she leads the bank's sustainability strategy across both internal operations and client-facing activities. Prior to this, she served as CSO and CEO of the Impact Advisory and Finance Group at Credit Suisse, which she founded in 2017. With over three decades of experience in investment banking, Marisa brings deep capital markets expertise to advancing the global sustainability transition.

5️⃣ Lee Howell - Founding Executive Director of the Villars Institute
Country: Switzerland 🇨🇭
Most-Read Thought Piece: Exclusive: How the Villars Summit became the world's most relevant nature happening
Profile: Lee Howell is the founding Executive Director of the Villars Institute, a Swiss nonprofit foundation dedicated to accelerating the transition to a net zero and nature-positive economy by promoting systems leadership and intergenerational collaboration. He is also a Titular Professor at the University of Geneva's School of Economics and Management (GSEM).

6️⃣ Giovanna Melandri - Fmr. Minister of Culture of Italy
Country: Italy 🇮🇹
Most-Read Thought Piece: Environment, the masks fall: the alliance of the willing and companies offer hope
Profile: Giovanna Melandri is an Independent Director at Kering, where she chairs the Sustainability Committee. She was formerly the Minister of Culture of Italy. She is also the President of Human Foundation, a think tank focused on social innovation and impact investing, and the Chairwoman of the Social Impact Agenda for Italy. Additionally, Giovanna serves as a Global Ambassador for GSG Impact. Giovanna holds a degree in Political Economics from La Sapienza University in Rome. She is a member of the illuminem Leaders Cohort.

7️⃣ Mahima Sukhdev - Chief Growth Officer at GIST Impact
Country: India 🇮🇳
Most-Read Thought Piece: Nature100: the first-ever study on the best companies in nature
Profile: Mahima Sukhdev is the Chief Growth Officer at GIST Impact, leading commercial strategy, partnerships, and ecosystem engagement. She studied Political Science with a concentration in Environmental Law & Policy at Yale University. Mahima serves on the Global Advisory Board of BirdLife International and has been recognized for advancing ESG and sustainability solutions.

8️⃣ Jennifer Owens - Sustainability and ESG Marketing Executive
Country: United States 🇺🇸
Most-Read Thought Piece: Climate strategy has a procurement problem, a gender one too
Profile: Jennifer Owens is a sustainability and ESG marketing executive at Tracera, Ceezer, and Flowcarbon, where she has built marketing functions for climate tech companies. She also led global content for Meta's sustainability team. Jennifer co-hosts the Engaging ESG podcast and produced the Policy for the Planet podcast for the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

9️⃣ Nidhi Chadda - Founder and CEO of Enzo Advisors
Country: United States 🇺🇸
Most-Read Thought Piece: Only 5% of companies have a biodiversity strategy: the rest face a $44 trillion risk
Profile: Nidhi Chadda is the Founder and CEO of Enzo Advisors, a global sustainability consulting practice at the nexus of finance, strategy and technology. She is also the Chief Impact Officer for Richmond Global Sciences (RGS), where she focuses on developing and executing business strategies aligned with market and customer insights. Prior to launching Enzo Advisors, Nidhi was a portfolio manager at RBC Global Asset Management, where she spearheaded ESG integration for her team. She is also a member of the Forbes Finance Council.

🔟 Cara Williams - Senior Partner and Global ESG and Sustainability Leader at Mercer
Country: United States 🇺🇸
Most-Read Thought Piece: The blue economy: an emerging investment frontier hiding beneath the surface
Profile: Cara Williams is a Senior Partner and Global ESG and Sustainability Leader at Mercer, where she leads the firm's global sustainability positioning and ESG strategy for multinational and wealth management clients. She previously served as Global COO within Mercer's investment consulting business and began her finance career at Merrill Lynch. Cara holds a BA from the University of Michigan and an MBA in Finance from the University of Hartford, and serves on the Board of The German School of London. She is a member of the illuminem Leaders Cohort.

Congratulations to our most-read thought leaders of the last year. In a time when the sustainability conversation was pulled in every direction at once, the voices on this list helped move it forward with clarity and intellect. We are proud to amplify their voices, and look forward to what comes next.

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