Birgit Vallmüür Keynote Speaker

  • Creator of a corporate legacy approach for sustainability leadership
  • Visionary who can enhance corporate and executive legacies
  • Certified management educator who has advised startups, multinationals, and governments globally

Birgit Vallmüür's Biography

Birgit Vallmüür is a fresh voice in sustainability with her unique perspectives. Birgit has a rare mix of experience combining various different roles, including advisor to multinational companies and governments, senior positions in diplomatic settings, and academic expertise in management science, government and environmental ethics.

This has allowed her to create multiple novel fields of her own. She offers unique perspectives in sustainability and ESG for both businesses and governments to tackle the most crucial challenges facing humanity today. She encourages audiences to question who should lead the sustainability transformation and whether the current perspectives in sustainability leadership are sufficient to move us toward avoiding catastrophic climate change and ecosystem collapse. And if not, how to change that in a practical way that is also feasible.

Her career started in management consulting at Big4, followed by teaching management for half a decade at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Back in 2011, she held a session on the values taught in business schools to faculties of eleven leading business schools in the world.

As a former senior civil servant, Dr. Vallmüür drafted a national foresight system for one of the most innovative and agile governments in the world – Estonia – and created a national base analysis for allocating €3.5 billion considering global future trends. She also developed and led the medium-term budget of that sovereign nation for close to half a decade.

Her following London-based work advising finance ministries globally from policy to transformation in another Big4 included working with the Finance Minister from Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

In parallel, she researched tackling environmental crimes and supporting environmental law enforcement. Dr. Vallmüür holds a PhD in Government and Politics, and created the theory of green police integrity to tackle environmental crimes. Her related works have been published by leading academic publishers – Springer and Emerald.

During her sabbatical, she travelled extensively, including looking for polar bears in the High Arctic and orangutans in the rainforests of Borneo, hiking barefoot in the Swiss mountains, staying in a water village in Brunei, and frequented invitation-only tech-conferences where she spoke about the gadgets of nature.

Birgit is the creator of the corporate legacy approach to corporate impact and executive legacy perspective of sustainability leadership, and she advocates for broadening the categories of diversity, equity, and inclusion – to include chronotypes.

Her work in ESG has spanned from advising a government on her own sustainability consulting firm TitanSwan, to being a Founder Adviser to a climate-space startup and being on the Expert Advisory Council of a novel ESG and AI startup, and speaking at conferences internationally.

Keynotes by Birgit bring a fresh and unparalleled perspective as she has created multiple fields of her own. Her views are thought provoking, at times contrarian, always inspirational, and consistently empower people to take action.

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Birgit Vallmüür's Speaking Topics

  • Beyond purpose – corporate legacy:

Corporate purpose has become a widely used term and it is often seen as synonymous to a responsible business. But is corporate purpose the concept that protects businesses against sustainability related reputation damage and litigation risk, or does it need to be supplemented by a complementary concept? Should businesses think about their legacy instead? There are various ways that many businesses have already operationalised thinking about their legacies. What are the benefits and consequences of that?

  • Executive legacy – individual impact and risk:

98% of CEOs feel it is their role to make their business more sustainable (according to Accenture). But what is their freedom to do so? What is the personal impact they have and when is it measured? Should we talk about executive and board member legacies once they leave their role or on an ongoing basis? Is executive legacy limited to the C-suite and formal roles? Does thinking about it on an ongoing basis reduce reputation and litigation risk?

  • Putting ‘leadership’ into ‘sustainability leadership’:

Sustainability leadership has become a term that many are using in sustainability and ESG conversations. Yet, very often it denotes subject matter topics, not leadership as such that is needed to set and pursue such goals. What will we discover when we look at the essence of leadership? How have boards been called out on for too little or too much sustainability leadership? What about in the C-suite? And throughout the ranks in businesses?

  • Accelerating sustainability innovation – impact reimagined:

Humans have exceeded six of the nine planetary boundaries and the global carbon budget is rapidly diminishing. Not only has accelerating sustainability innovation been never more critical, the importance of it is only increasing the closer to these boundaries we get. Does our current sustainability thinking allow for sufficient urgency? Could a simple shift in our perspective help us accelerate sustainability innovation and become transformative innovators in our industries? How do materiality and ESG fit into that picture?

  • Achieving biodiversity goals – tackling the challenge of environmental crimes:

COP15 meeting in Montreal adopted a comprehensive plan to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030. The impacts of it have rippled across the global business community as companies are taking action to protect biodiversity and the initiative continues to gain traction. At the same time, environmental crime generates around USD 110 to 281 billion in criminal gains each year and the annual growth rate of environmental crimes is significantly higher than the global GDP growth rate. What underlies that challenge? How does this impact responsible businesses? And how can we use innovation to tackle that?

  • Sustainability innovation in governments:

The vast majority (90% according to Accenture) of CEOs feel that lacking support from government is negatively impacting their ability to address today's interlinked global challenges. While the business community is calling for greater and more urgent leadership by governments, what is the state of play in governments? What are examples of challenges? Is climate change restructuring governments? How can governments leverage ESG trends to support the competitiveness of their businesses internationally? How should governments think about ESG? Can ESG be seen as a new tool of business diplomacy?

  • Quiet quitting and support hushing:

A new war for talent has emerged and is accelerating as talented staff review their situations, aspirations and options. Covid made people re-evaluate the way they want to live and the impact they want to have. Climate anxiety is on the rise. Many businesses balance on the edge of greenwashing. At the same time, cancel culture is a concern for many employees. Does this lead to a new phenomenon – support hushing? How can organizations foster trust, engagement, profitable sustainability improvements and protect their reputation?

  • Diversity expanded – sleep:

Diversity, equity, inclusion are prominent topics in the ESG agenda. At the same time, the topics have become somewhat divisive. Is there space to bring into the mix yet another category of diversity – that of sleep or chronotypes/circadian rhythms. What is the scientific evidence behind that? What would be the practical implications of it? Could it increase employee productivity and by how much? And would it simplify convincing employees to return to the office? How are you attracting top talent?

  • Learning from the gadgets of nature:

We are living during the years of revolutionising technological advancement on the verge of Artificial General Intelligence. And our production capability has reached unprecedented levels. But are our gadgets and innovations that unique and are these superior to these of the other species we share the planet with? Can entertaining these thoughts impact how we think about innovation, technology, circularity, sharing economy, and design for disassembly?

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Articles, Media & Podcasts

Comments & Testimonials

"This week I had an opportunity to spend two intense days of networking, lectures and workshops at the #ImpactDay conference in Tallinn. One of the key discussions that really made an impact on me was the idea expressed by Birgit Vallmüür, Ph.D. that instead of a forward-looking purpose businesses should rather look at their corporate legacy.”
Ieva Kustova, Sustainability Manager, Latvijas dzelzceļš
"Birgit was by far my favorite presenter on the Sustainability Unlocked platform. I spent 10 years in the nonprofit world before transitioning into the corporate sector. Since making the shift, I've been asking myself "why corporate" and Birgit gave me the words - and data! - to articulate it. Corporations can do more than some governments. We can move across borders and at a speed unparalleled to other sectors. Birgit helped me articulate our advantage and why corporate sustainability isn't a side project - it's a necessity.“
Erin Roesch, Sage Foundation Community Engagement Manager (ESG), Sage
"I got for myself an interesting approach that SDGs should be viewed through the perspective of executive legacy as the success largely depends on agility, cross-border approaches, and innovation. From the workshop I take with me the thought exercise how to integrate this into day-to-day business activities and to review the transition plan even better in a rapidly changing world. Thank you a lot!"
Kerli Paas, Sustainable Development Project Manager, Enterprise Estonia

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