CNBC is now accepting nominations for the 2026 Changemakers list. Learn more and submit a nomination by Nov 21.
When Marisa Drew, chief sustainability officer of Standard Chartered, first decided to leave a successful investment banking career to focus on sustainability, her friends and colleagues were skeptical.
“There were all the little cynical quips,” Drew told CNBC’s Julia Boorstin in the latest episode of the “CNBC Changemakers and Power Players” podcast. “But what was interesting about it was most people, since they had seen me go through the very traditional side of the business and they knew who I was as a person and how I was driven to try to really deliver value for the organization, even if they were cynical, they were curious.”
Attracted by the opportunity to disrupt existing industries and move banks into the future, Drew dove into the chief sustainability officer role, first at Credit Suisse and then moving to Standard Chartered in mid-2022. The timing has been good, she says, with a younger generation of clients looking for new ways to invest.
“It was captivating all sorts of stakeholders,” Drew said. “You had the next generation in our wealth business that were saying, and they were very emotional about it, ‘When I receive the family wealth, I want to invest it for positive outcomes.’”
