Sharon E. Smith
Head of Learning & Knowledge (Climate & Sustainability)
Sharon advises on sustainability frameworks, disclosures, and reporting, compliance with sustainability regulations, and legal and greenwashing risk management, and helps organisations build capacity to integrate sustainability and ESG considerations into business practice areas and operations.
Sharon provides sustainability knowledge support to the firm and clients, developing and managing knowledge resources, training programmes, and horizon watching to build capacity and enable compliance.
Sharon has extensive experience as a sustainability, finance, and debt capital markets lawyer and consultant, having worked in international law firms Weil Gotshal & Manges, Allen & Overy, and DLA Piper, where Sharon was a partner, before joining Pinsent Masons in 2014.
Sharon has advised financial institutions, corporates, governmental authorities, and not-for-profit entities across a broad range of finance transactions, including sustainable finance, debt capital markets, structured finance, project finance, corporate finance, bank lending, and debt restructuring, as well as on corporate governance, disclosure and reporting requirements, and financial regulatory matters.
Sharon is often consulted on climate and sustainability policies and regulations, including as to disclosures and reporting, due diligence, and greenwashing, and on sustainable finance regulations, transactions, products, and market principles.
Sharon's experience
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Advised our client, a private equity firm with ten portfolio companies in the scope of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Director (CSRD) wanted to get them ready for CSRD compliance but didn’t have the requisite expertise and looked for external support that promoted training and building capacity in-house.
- United Kingdom
- Financial Services
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Collaborated with JAM to deliver four functional sustainability sessions over three months. Following the delivery of an “ESG Foundational Training” seminar to the firm in late 2023, Jupiter Asset Management requested Pinsent Masons deliver more in-depth functional training for their investment management team, client-facing team, and risk & compliance team.
- Cross-border
- Financial Services
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