desiree fixler

• ESG Exposed: Cutting Through the Greenwashing
  Fixler draws on her own DWS whistleblowing experience to show how misleading ESG scores and glossy reports can conceal risk and mislead investors — and how leaders can tell genuine value creation from reputational and regulatory exposure.
• The Courage to Speak Up Inside Powerful Institutions
  Speaking out nearly cost Fixler everything. She breaks down the real risks whistleblowers face and what it takes to build a culture where uncomfortable truths can survive — and drive meaningful change rather than being silenced.
• Navigating a Fractured ESG Regulatory Landscape
  With conflicting standards emerging across the US, EU, and UK, Fixler maps the gaps, contradictions, and political agendas — helping organizations reduce risk and make defensible decisions in an era of regulatory fragmentation.
• Building ESG Integrity That Survives Scrutiny
  Fixler helps leaders move ESG from a marketing "sideshow" to something embedded in the business — sober disclosure, real data, and upskilled boards — so that sustainability claims hold up under regulatory and investor pressure.

speaker Bio: 

Desiree Fixler is one of the most influential and candid voices in sustainable finance — a former ESG champion from within the industry who became one of its most rigorous critics. As Group Sustainability Officer at Deutsche Bank's asset manager DWS, she exposed what she regarded as material greenwashing: significant gaps between the firm's public ESG claims and its internal reality. When her concerns and her role were dismissed, she went public — and the resulting investigations by US and German authorities triggered a dramatic chain of events, including a police raid, the removal of top executives, and landmark greenwashing penalties. Her action sent shockwaves through the finance industry and helped catalyze global efforts to tackle greenwashing.

With more than 25 years in sustainable finance and investment banking, Fixler held senior roles at JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank, and Zais Group, and helped develop market-transforming products including the iTraxx and CDX indices. A graduate of the London School of Economics, she now advises financial institutions and regulators — including the UK's Financial Conduct Authority and the Monetary Authority of Singapore — sits on the CFA's ESG Technical Committee and the WEF's Global Future Council on Responsible Investing, and guest lectures at Cambridge. She brings rare insider authority to the question that now defines sustainable finance: how to separate genuine impact from expensive theater.

Summary (Core Conviction):

Fixler's value as a speaker is that she has stood on both sides of the ESG divide — she built sustainable-investing businesses, then became the whistleblower who exposed one of the industry's defining greenwashing scandals, at enormous personal cost. That arc gives her a perspective almost no one else on the circuit can offer: not a true believer and not a cynic, but a "first principles" realist who insists that sustainability claims must be evidence-based and survive scrutiny, or they are worse than useless. Her message goes in two directions at once — a hard-edged warning about the financial and reputational risk of greenwashing, and an inspirational case for the courage it takes to speak up inside a powerful institution. For boards and investors navigating a politically charged, fragmenting regulatory landscape, she offers clarity grounded in the rare experience of having lived the consequences.

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