Sara M. Alvarado
Sara M. Alvarado
Executive Director, Institute for Sustainable Finance
Sara joined the Institute for Sustainable Finance (ISF) as Executive Director in April 2021 and is & Co-Chair, World Economic Forum’s Infrastructure 4.0 Initiative
The ISF, hosted by the Smith School of Business at Queen’s University, brings together academia, the private sector and government to shape Canada’s innovations in sustainable finance. She is former Head of Risk & CAMLO at the Canada Infrastructure Bank in Toronto, where she built the inaugural enterprise risk management function.
Prior to joining the CIB, she worked as Senior Officer, Infrastructure New Products & Special Transactions at the European Investment Bank (EIB) based in Luxembourg, with a focus on catalysing private sector investments into green infrastructure in policy priority sectors with support from the EU.
Before moving to the EU, Sara spent 25 years in the investment industry in Canada, including combined 15 years in Private Placements and Infrastructure as Managing Director at Manulife Financial and Director at Sun Life, plus 10 years at Scotia Capital in Equity Research and Finance Regulatory Reporting.
Sara is current Co-Chair at the World Economic Forum’s Infrastructure 4.0 Initiative. She is current Board Member at the Cambridge Memorial Hospital, where she is Chair, Health Information Systems new committee and sits also at the Resources Committee.
She is past Board Member at CFA Society Toronto where she was Chair of the Fixed-Income and Programming Committees. She is past Board Member and Treasurer at the Cambridge Symphony Orchestra and past volunteer at the Red Cross Refugee Meal Program in Luxembourg.
She is a CFA charter holder, has an MBA from the Edinburgh Business School at Heriot-Watt University, and has attended executive programmes at Harvard Business School in Boston. She is fluent in English and Spanish and conversational in French.
