Mr. Goldsmith, a United Kingdom citizen, was appointed to the Inspection Panel on November 17, 2019. He assumed the Chairperson of the Inspection Panel on December 15, 2023. Mr. Goldsmith brings to the Panel more than 25 years of experience managing complex projects and teams across the financial services, development, strategy consulting and energy sectors. His leadership extends to both the public and private sectors where he has demonstrated the ability to manage multi-stakeholders, understand complex issues and lead the implementation of industry-wide and sector-leading solutions.
Through his work in both emerging and developed economies, Mr. Goldsmith has dealt with a wide portfolio of complex and sensitive matters, including environmental, social, sustainability, safety, risk management and governance issues – experience that provides great value to the Panel.
Before creating his own sustainability consultancy "FiveOak" in 2015, Mr. Goldsmith was Director, Responsible Investment for Actis for more than 10 years. During that time, he was a leader in environmental and social governance (ESG) thinking in the emerging markets. In this capacity he developed and promoted world class standards in business integrity, health and safety, social, environmental and climate change areas across all investment areas and companies and implemented robust corporate governance standards and transparent practices. From 2014 to 2019, Mr. Goldsmith was a non-executive director of ENEO, the power company of Cameroon, and chaired the board subcommittee on ESG for four of those years.
Mr. Goldsmith has led several assignments, including developing environmental and social training for CDC Group (the UK's developmental finance institute) on the International Finance Corporation's Performance Standards and providing ESG expert advice to an East Africa private equity fund and its portfolio companies.
He has a bachelor’s degree in manufacturing engineering from the University of Nottingham and a master's degree in environmental pollution control, with distinction, from the University of Leeds. His appointment on the Panel as Chairperson runs through November 16, 2024.