Who We Are
A catalyst for sustainability careers – Darshini Waibel, CEO & Founder of Greenpertise
For more than 20 years, Darshini Waibel has been nurturing and building regulatory ecosystems at national, EU and international levels.
“I have worked in the public and private sectors and seen from both sides how regulatory systems are shaped. Getting it right is crucial, because these frameworks affect how we live, consume, travel and communicate. They shape our society today and in the future”, said Darshini.
Early in her career, Darshini worked on a global study of business regulations in the Private Sector Development Division of the World Bank. She then spent two and a half years at Ashurst as part of the London ETI, Finance, Litigation and Corporate teams. During her time with the firm, she undertook secondments to the Bank of New York Mellon, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs International, where she led the Company Secretarial function for its UK-regulated entities.
Later, as a Government Affairs Director at UBS AG, Darshini supported the CEO and Chairman's office with analysis of UK and EU financial and sustainability regulation. She went on to become a Senior Policy Advisor for the UK Government, where she led a transformative financial policy program on the expansion of the UK Dormant Assets Scheme. She led an industry secretariat, bridging dialogue between the public and private sectors and shaped a legislative change programme.
Today, Darshini is the CEO & founder of Greenpertise, a sustainability talent ecosystem that delivers experts on demand to organisations impacted by sustainability disclosure regulations.
An inspiring move to the world’s music capital
Becoming an entrepreneur wasn’t always part of Darshini’s career plan. However, in 2019, after her husband was appointed as a Professor of Public International Law at the University of Vienna, she moved to Austria’s capital with her young family. At the time, it wasn’t possible to do government policy work remotely, so Darshini resigned from her position with the UK Government and enrolled at the University of Vienna to improve her German.
A few months later, the pandemic hit and working from home quickly became the norm. Darshini decided to reinvent herself using her depth of regulatory knowledge and her background in law and economics. She founded Wiseblik and remotely plugged back into her UK network to help a new crop of climate and social tech starters navigate the complex regulatory frameworks in the UK and the EU, including the EU Green Deal developments. That work made her realise how vast and overwhelming the field of sustainability is. No expert can operate alone. There are so many independent experts hidden in different locations and disciplines and organisations. She thought: “Technology should give those independent experts, who are critical to the sustainability agenda, better visibility, value and access to projects.”
In July 2023, Darshini founded Greenpertise with the support of a grant from Austria Wirtschaftsservice Gesellschaft mbH. Greenpertise is a sustainability expert ecosystem, which helps accelerate the sustainability transition. Its HR tech solution matches organisations with top sustainability experts on demand.
“Greenpertise is enabling the future of work systems, which will need a seamless blend of full-time employees, AI and independent workers. Governments and companies can tap into a global talent cloud of pre-vetted sustainability specialists. In turn, those specialists are able to work in their areas of expertise with autonomy, flexibility and mobility. Collectively, Greenpertise specialists offer expertise across the ESG spectrum – from climate change, circular economy, and human rights to corporate governance and AI ethics”, said Darshini.
Darshini’s ambition is for Greenpertise to catalyse the careers of 10,000 sustainability professionals around the world in the coming five years.
“Everything I do starts with ‘why’. So why do organisations need help in designing and implementing sustainability strategies? Because there are many opportunities in the new markets created around the demand for sustainability, including clean energy, electric cars and circular economy products. They also need support because the wave of new regulations has left many organisations feeling overwhelmed. Without policy, legal and sustainability specialists, organisations also often face critical gaps in the skills they need”, explained Darshini. “I also wanted to find an answer to the ‘why isn’t there a better flexible way of working’ that allows more people to transition smoothly into and out of the workplace,” she added, inspired by her own non-linear international career path.
Darshini’s own ‘why’ combines her passion for sustainability and talent development. As Greenpertise’s founder, she’s loving nurturing and mobilising a digital community of experts and connecting with a wide range of specialists who are at different stages of their lives.
Looking back, Darshini credits her experiences at Ashurst as influencing her career trajectory. “I started working in the Energy, Transport and Infrastructure team and had the opportunity to work on large-scale projects and undertake several secondments to banks. I also wrote a prize-winning article on the Legal Regime for the Exploration of Oil and Gas in the Arctic Ocean while supporting the energy team back then,” Darshini said. “Ashurst was a space that nurtured my analytical and communication skills. Today, I use both to design Greenpertise and develop strategic client relationships”.
Living life in Vienna
Since moving to Austria, Darshini has transformed her own career – and the careers of countless others. While she’s had a fast-paced professional journey in Vienna, she enjoys the feeling of time standing still in other ways in her beautiful home town.
“I love enjoying the Vienna life with my family. We live close to the woods and I do some of my best creative thinking when I walk up and down the hill every day. I’ve also made many new friends by embracing classic pastimes, like ballroom dancing and learning to play the flute.”
Not surprisingly, given Darshini’s commitment to lifelong learning, both her dancing and her music lessons are taught in German. “I’m not very good, but I try hard. If it takes me 20 years to get better, well, that will be a good thing.”
If you would like to know more about the Greenpertise ecosystem, please visit https://www.greenpertise.com/ or simply get in touch with Darshini directly.
