Global expertise, genuine impact

Principal - Dr Elizabeth Armstrong   

With more than 25 years delivering innovative, agile social impact in a range of challenging political, economic and transitional contexts, Dr Elizabeth Armstrong is a social impact and peacebuilding specialist working with companies and chambers of commerce globally to help them identify and deliver genuine, strategically relevant social purpose and impact, especially in developing or emerging markets. 

Elizabeth holds a PhD in the role of the private sector in contributing to social outcomes and peaceful communities from the University of St Andrews, and Masters degrees in Resource Economics and Peace and Conflict Studies.

Elizabeth has earned her reputation for turning concepts into on-the-ground impacts over a range of high-level positions in the private, for-purpose and public sectors, including:

• as a consultant, providing strategic advice to private and public sector clients in Australia, Europe, and contested contexts in Africa and the APAC region

• as a strategic advisor in the Australian foreign service and on international affairs for the Australian Prime Minister’s department in Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa

• establishing and leading the highly regarded multi-donor Peace Support Fund during the transitional and post-coup periods in Myanmar

• as the lead designer for multiple social impact strategies and programmes, including the Myanmar Women’s Voice and Leadership Programme for Global Affairs Canada.

She brings a dynamic understanding and tested experience helping businesses manage the increasing risks posed by environmental and social realities; shifting public and stakeholder expectations; and, emerging human rights standards and international best practice approaches in fragile or emerging environments. She is an expert advocate for how businesses can pragmatically and profitably contribute to achieving the SDGs, and a member of the UN Principles for Responsible Management Education's Working Group on Business for Peace and the ESCAP Sustainable Business Network’s Digital Economy Taskforce.

Manager, Corporate Sustainability & Impact Australia - Nina Hitchins

Nina Hitchins has spent the past 15 years guiding markets and businesses towards long term value creation. As an economist, she has shaped climate policy and energy regulation to facilitate a low carbon future. In the private sector, she navigates perceived tensions between profit, people and planet to develop strategies that promote all three. She applies an extensive economic and commercial toolkit to quantify financial and non-financial risks and returns.

Nina is an early and continuing student of the emerging sustainability accounting discipline. She monitors developments in third-party sustainability standards, frameworks, regulations and guidance, including the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) Standards and Task force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).

She is an FSA Credential Holder, demonstrating professional competence to apply the new IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Standards that link financially material sustainability information to a company’s enterprise value. She has an MBA in Clean Technology and Entrepreneurship from the University of Texas at Austin, as well as a Bachelor of Resource Economics (Hons) from the University of Sydney.

Lead, Conflict Sensitivity Fragile States - Baptiste Millet

Baptiste Millet has worked for over 15 years across human rights, social impact, peace and development in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. Within local and international organisations, for businesses, or as a donor, he supported the advancement of human rights and development, is a conflict sensitivity specialist, and has designed multi-year impact programs and partnerships to contribute to sustainable development efforts aligned with the Sustainable Development goals.

Baptiste has lived and worked in various countries in Asia and Africa including Myanmar, Thailand, Cameroon, Chad, Sudan, Liberia, CAR, and Libya. In Africa, he designed numerous national and regional initiatives targeting over 20 countries of the continent and served as an advisor on relations with the African Union and Regional Economics Communities. In these contexts, Baptiste supported local capacities in developing and implementing ambitious strategies to access health, education, and livelihood opportunities and to facilitate consultations and dialogues. In this role, Baptiste engaged with numerous stakeholders including local associations of farmers and breeders, retail and wholesale distributors, extractive industry companies, investors as well as national, traditional, and military authorities. This included country-wide consultation efforts on water and sanitation, economic recovery and value-chain assessments, consultations on land management, as well as emergency needs-assessments and response. Baptiste has also been supported the strategic development of civil society (from Madagascar, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea) as part of the USAID-funded “stopping as success” strategy transition.

Baptiste holds a Master Degree in International Law of Peace and Armed conflict from Ruhr-Bochum University in Germany, including a semester at the “Conflict, Disaster and Peace Building Studies” at Uppsala University. He also holds a Master Degree in Management and Development with a specialization on Africa from 3A School, Lyon, France. He is also an experienced trainer and facilitator. He initiated and chaired the Myanmar Intercommunal Harmony group from 2015 to 2019.