Full Name
Ms Ashleigh Owens
Job Title
Financial Institutions Lead
Company
Shift Project Ltd. (Shift)
Speaker Bio
Ashleigh is Financial Institutions Lead at Shift, the leading center for expertise on the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. She is responsible for Shift’s work with financial institutions, which includes our
- Financial Institutions Practitioners Circle, a space for leading practitioners in the financial sector to discuss human rights challenges and opportunities to further embed respect for rights into their institutions,
- Investor Exchange, an informal gathering of institutional investors to discuss challenges and emerging best practices around addressing human rights impacts associated with portfolio investments, and
- various bilaterial work and clinics with banks, asset owners and managers, export credit agencies and bilateral and multilateral development finance institutions.
Ashleigh has formally led various collaborations between Shift and other institutions in our space, such as with UNEP-FI and the Principles for Responsible Investment, as well the CAO of the IFC.
Ashleigh also works with Shift’s real economy company partners and industry associations. She has led research examining the risks to human rights that are inherent in companies’ business models, culminating in the publication of a set of Business Model Red Flags.
She has a breadth of experience approaching the Guiding Principles from business, legal and academic perspectives and brings a holistic view to Guiding Principles implementation. Ashleigh was previously Executive Director at Ernst & Young’s Climate Change and Sustainability Services. At EY Japan, she led a team of consultants supporting policy-making, educational program and governance design, stakeholder dialogue and due diligence strategies for multinational and domestic companies across a variety of industries. In her role she was a frequent speaker and moderator of dialogues at multi-stakeholder fora and functioned as a connector between civil society, government and corporate actors with a common goal of empowering business to respect rights.
From 2012 to 2014 she conducted research at the United Nations University in the field of Sustainability Science, specializing in business and human rights. Ashleigh prepared research for the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights and spent time at the UN Global Compact New York and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Ashleigh later sat on the UN Global Compact’s Human Rights and Labour Working Group and drafted the Global Compact’s 2015 Guide on How to Develop a Human Rights Policy.
Ashleigh is a lawyer qualified in Australia and England & Wales and specialized in intellectual property law, labor law and public international law. She has advised governments and companies on state human rights obligations, companies on the nexus between bilateral investment treaties and human rights and fellow lawyers on integrating the Guiding Principles into legal advice. In 2007 she won the Intellectual Property Society of Australia & NZ prize.
Ashleigh has lectured in Economic Cost Benefit Analysis at Columbia University and sits on an advisory board to UNITAR, the UN’s training arm. An Australian national, she speaks English and Japanese and lives with her family in Connecticut, USA.
- Financial Institutions Practitioners Circle, a space for leading practitioners in the financial sector to discuss human rights challenges and opportunities to further embed respect for rights into their institutions,
- Investor Exchange, an informal gathering of institutional investors to discuss challenges and emerging best practices around addressing human rights impacts associated with portfolio investments, and
- various bilaterial work and clinics with banks, asset owners and managers, export credit agencies and bilateral and multilateral development finance institutions.
Ashleigh has formally led various collaborations between Shift and other institutions in our space, such as with UNEP-FI and the Principles for Responsible Investment, as well the CAO of the IFC.
Ashleigh also works with Shift’s real economy company partners and industry associations. She has led research examining the risks to human rights that are inherent in companies’ business models, culminating in the publication of a set of Business Model Red Flags.
She has a breadth of experience approaching the Guiding Principles from business, legal and academic perspectives and brings a holistic view to Guiding Principles implementation. Ashleigh was previously Executive Director at Ernst & Young’s Climate Change and Sustainability Services. At EY Japan, she led a team of consultants supporting policy-making, educational program and governance design, stakeholder dialogue and due diligence strategies for multinational and domestic companies across a variety of industries. In her role she was a frequent speaker and moderator of dialogues at multi-stakeholder fora and functioned as a connector between civil society, government and corporate actors with a common goal of empowering business to respect rights.
From 2012 to 2014 she conducted research at the United Nations University in the field of Sustainability Science, specializing in business and human rights. Ashleigh prepared research for the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights and spent time at the UN Global Compact New York and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Ashleigh later sat on the UN Global Compact’s Human Rights and Labour Working Group and drafted the Global Compact’s 2015 Guide on How to Develop a Human Rights Policy.
Ashleigh is a lawyer qualified in Australia and England & Wales and specialized in intellectual property law, labor law and public international law. She has advised governments and companies on state human rights obligations, companies on the nexus between bilateral investment treaties and human rights and fellow lawyers on integrating the Guiding Principles into legal advice. In 2007 she won the Intellectual Property Society of Australia & NZ prize.
Ashleigh has lectured in Economic Cost Benefit Analysis at Columbia University and sits on an advisory board to UNITAR, the UN’s training arm. An Australian national, she speaks English and Japanese and lives with her family in Connecticut, USA.
Speaking At
