Meet Lisa Murphy, Head of Europe Climate Risk, Paris

I’m here at the start of something very special.

As Head of Climate Risk Testing for Barclays Europe, Lisa has taken the lead in what is an exciting and rapidly developing area for the bank. This newly created role is critical to the role we play in a world where the climate is on everyone’s agenda.

Lisa had been playing a prominent role in Finance at Barclays in London until, three years ago, she decided she wanted to live in Paris. She was also looking for a new role that would excite her, and match her character and aspirations. Barclays Europe, she knew, was expanding and therefore was “a place where I could grow.

Lisa joined Barclays Europe and, after initially spending two years in a financial control role, was presented with an incredible opportunity: to become the first Head of Climate Risk Stress Testing for Barclays in Europe. In this increasingly important role, she assesses the financial impact of climate-related events on the bank in a variety of ways:

We might be gauging the potential impact of climate on the bank’s operations. Or looking at how climate changes could affect our customers’ ability to repay loans or mortgages. We need to understand a wide range of risks and our ability to manage them, and I’m leading the cultural change that will embed climate risk into all of our processes.

For Lisa, this is a hugely relevant, very exciting agenda to be involved with. Particularly, she explains, because it links into the Barclays Group climate strategy, as we aim to reduce our climate impact in line with the EU’s ambition to achieve a net carbon zero economy by 2050.

Despite having no previous experience, Lisa has not been intimidated by the size and significance of her role; as she points out, “this is a new area for everyone.” The learning curve for Lisa, and indeed the whole bank, has been very steep and rapid, and she’s enthusiastic about using her experience to help us make a difference to the world. “My career to date has been very numbers-based and this role incorporates a social and environmental agenda, which is very attractive to me. Stress Testing our resilience to climate change events and EU climate policy helps manage future financial risks.” The importance of this role, and its visibility across the whole of Barclays, means Lisa has a great deal of support from – and exposure to – senior leaders in the business. There’s very much an open door policy with leaders, she says, and she’s presented to the Barclays Europe ExCo on several occasions.

I’ve been seen, and I’ve been heard. The leaders appreciate that my role involves working not only with Barclays Europe, but also with the Group, and I need to leverage colleagues and management alike to achieve these big scale changes.