- Programme studied: Global Master's in Management
- Year of Graduation: 2014
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Lubomila Jordanova, a 2014 Global Master’s in Management alumni, Obama Leader Europe, and MIT under 35 innovator 2022, is driving the corporate decarbonisation and ESG improvement journey using technology and science.
How did your time at LSE prepare you for professional life, and to make an impact on the world?
My time at LSE has been fundamental to my career. Not only because of the wide network I developed, but because of the high standard I and my colleagues were held to while doing the course. This set the scene for my career in investment banking, venture capital, and fintech and allowed me later to confidently dedicate my professional time to ESG and sustainability.
What inspired your career move from investment banking and venture capital to focus on climate change and environmental and social responsibility?
My wish to learn more about climate change was influenced by a surfing trip to Morocco where already on the first day I was exposed to beaches covered in plastic and other waste. The whole trip opened my eyes to the disregard people had for their own ecosystem. Once I came back to London, I felt the urge to learn about the science behind climate change and human impact on our planet, a hobby that turned into a yearlong investigation, during which I built a data model and interviewed over 300 people about their opinions on climate change. After all the facts and evidence were gathered, I didn’t feel comfortable to be working on anything else but enabling corporates to address climate change. Which is how Plan A was born.
You are the Co-Founder and CEO of Plan A, empowering businesses to become more sustainable. Tell us more about this and the impact it is having.
Plan A is a leading software provider automating corporate carbon accounting, decarbonisation, and ESG reporting. We help thousands of businesses around the world assess their environmental, social, and governance performance, and automatically offer them an action plan, which is based on their worst-performing indicators. As there is a lot of legislation, especially in the UK and the EU, we also offer automation of the reporting based on frameworks like TCFD, NFRD, CSRD, SASB, and many more.
The impact we deliver for businesses is threefold. Firstly, we streamline the tracking of emissions and ESG metrics which saves time, costs, and secures verified output, which usually is a manual process that requires a lot of internal expertise on the topic. Secondly, we enable data-, science- and tech-driven decarbonisation and ESG improvement management, where companies can get practical recommendations on how they can improve, as well as how much time and money it would cost them. Finally, we automate reporting, which with all the new legislation could cost a lot for businesses to track and respond to.
As a leader in the ESG and Green Tech space, what are your goals for the future?
From a Plan A perspective, we aim to reduce 10 percent of the emissions of our clients a year within the coming two years. From a personal perspective, I hope to see the Greentech space become 50 percent of the total tech funding. Ambitious but necessary if we want to see change at scale.
You are an advocate for mentoring aspiring leaders. Why is this important to you, and what advice would you give to students and recent alumni looking to follow in your footsteps?
I spent as much of my free time as possible helping other Greentech founders, especially women. Throughout my journey, I have been blessed with mentors, who in their busy schedules would find time to guide me in challenging and unfamiliar moments. Today I can offer my knowledge, network, and learnings to others.
My advice for students and recent alumni would be to test themselves in different environments – corporate, start-up, NGO, or foundation. Any of these offers invaluable lessons about the way our economy works and prepares them to navigate stakeholder management and ultimately pick what is most exciting for them.
What is your fondest memory whilst you were studying with us?
It wouldn’t be fair to the two years of learning, excitement, friendship, and intensity to pick one single memory.
If you would like to be our Alum of the Month or if you would like to nominate a Department of Management alumni, please email dom.alumni@lse.ac.uk.