Leadership Working Groups

Building leadership capability for system-wide change

Leadership and capability on sustainability are key themes in ASFI’s Sustainable Finance Action Plan, and critical enablers for the transformation to a more sustainable, resilient and inclusive financial system.

Leadership itself is also undergoing a transformation as the challenges facing leaders become increasingly complex, require the involvement of many more stakeholders, involve the integration of incomplete or large volumes of information and rely on cross functional collaboration and innovative approaches to manage.

The sustainability challenges facing the finance sector exemplify these new, complex challenges that require distributed and adaptive leadership to manage and solve.

Action at multiple levels is required to build the momentum and ongoing action required for system-wide change. This approach to leadership is reflected in our values, strategy and way that we work with others, and is integral to how we develop and implement our Leadership and Capability work.

ASFI has hosted successful Leadership Working Group programs in 2023, 2024 and 2025, offering ASFI members the opportunity to share lessons and approaches to common challenges and opportunities that financial institutions face when driving sustainability work and outcomes.

The programs adopted a facilitated peer-learning approach, bringing perspectives from organisations across the financial system, while also allowing for deep dives on particular sustainability topics of interest to the group.

Focus topics included:

• Change management

• Internal and external capability building

• Stakeholder influence

• Developing businesses cases for sustainability

• Systems thinking.

If you are interested in learning more about ASFI’s Leadership Working Groups, please contact us.