Belinda works on mitigating systemic risk through the finance sector as Co-Director of Finance for Systemic Change, a research centre at the University of Cambridge. Much of her work focuses specifically on stopping the financing of fossil fuel expansion. To that end she leads a project to build a corporate bond index and another to identify and create cash deposit and money market fund products that exclude fossil fuel expansionists and their supply chains (utility companies, banks, insurers). The work of the Centre is very much applied research, making real-world interventions to drive urgent real economy change, including through changing the investment practices of the University itself.
Previously, Belinda has over 20 years leadership experience in establishing and growing innovative, impactful organisations. She founded Foundation East, a Community Development Finance Institution, in 2003 that provided SME and micro-enterprise lending, alongside a small amount of personal lending. This registered Society raised significant capital from community shares. She went on to found a series of other social enterprises before setting up Cambridge Social Ventures, the programmes at the University of Cambridge that teach social entrepreneurship.
Wholly committed to non-extractive legal structures and particularly interested in governance, Belinda has many years’ experience as a NED and trustee. Most recently she was Chair of the Charity Mermaids, which supports transgender children and their families. At Cambridge, Belinda is a Visiting Fellow at the Judge Business School and a Senior Research Associate at Jesus College Intellectual Forum.
