Oliver Withers

Oliver Withers is the biodiversity lead within the Sustainability Strategy, Advisory and Finance Group at Credit Suisse. In this London based role, he works with colleagues across the firm to integrate biodiversity considerations into the firm's business activities and decision-making with an ambition to play a proactive role in protecting precious biodiverse planetary resources and making the case for natural capital financing solutions.

Oliver was previously the head of conservation finance and enterprise at the Zoological Society of London, with ultimate responsibility for the successful resourcing and management of projects and programmes to deliver biodiversity impact across both the blue and green economies. This included leading the Rhino Impact Investment Project and the development of an outcomes-based financing mechanism to direct additional funds to priority rhino populations. He initiated the spin-out of the Net-Works™ programme into an independent social enterprise, Coast 4C, which facilitates the exchange of value (currently nylon-6 into the circular economy and sustainable seaweed) between coastal communities and global markets to accelerate conservation-linked sustainable development which reduces marine plastic, increases fish stocks and improves the lives of marginalised coastal communities through improved community-based resource management and the development of effectively managed integrated marine protected areas. At ZSL he also had oversight for the Sustainability Policy Transparency Toolkit (SPOTT), a platform supporting transparency and sustainability of commodity producers by assessing over 200 of the world’s largest producers/traders managing over 50 million ha land on disclosure of their policies, operations and commitments across 10 ESG categories and over 100 indicators in the palm oil, timber and rubber sectors. Oliver began his career in financial services, where he ultimately became the head of asset management for a pan-African investment bank before pursuing a career in sustainable and biodiversity finance. Oliver has extensive experience working and living in Africa and Asia. Oliver read economics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, which is where he was born.