Inside the World's Biggest Investor - Ep138: Carine Smith Ihenacho

Cleaning Up: Leadership in an Age of Climate Change

This week, Michael’s guest is Carine Smith Ihenacho, Chief Governance and Compliance Officer at Norges Bank Investment Group. NBIM operate the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, created to ensure responsible and long-term management of revenue from Norway’s vast oil and gas resources. The fund is the largest single owner in the world’s stock markets, and since her appointment in 2020, Carine has been outspoken in calling for robust emissions targets and climate risk reporting among its portfolio companies.

Links and Related Episodes

Read Michael's write-up of the episode, arguing NBIM's investment strategy locks the world into its current climate trajectory: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/mliebreich_climate-climatechange-netzero-activity-7111416212349227008-BDrC?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

Read NBIM’s 2025 Climate Action Plan: 2025 Climate action plan | Norges Bank Investment Management (nbim.no)

Explore NBIM's Annual Report 2022: https://www.nbim.no/en/publications/reports/2022/annual-report-2022/

You can read NBIM's investment mandate for the Government Pension Fund Global here: https://www.regjeringen.no/contentassets/9d68c55c272c41e99f0bf45d24397d8c/2023.02.27_gfpg_management_mandate.pdf

Read the statement made by NBIM's CEO Nicolai Tangen at the hearing of the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs of the Storting (Norwegian parliament) in April 2023: https://www.norges-bank.no/en/news-events/news-publications/Speeches/2023/2023-04-18-tangen/

The Guardian: World’s biggest investment fund warns directors to tackle climate crisis or face sack: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/feb/03/worlds-biggest-investment-fund-warns-directors-to-tackle-climate-crisis-or-face-sack

FT: Norway’s $1.4tn oil fund to step up ESG proposals to US companies: https://www.ft.com/content/62e3c629-44cf-43f7-9682-a056f9b5c634

Watch Former Norwegian PM Jens Stoltenberg on “Avoiding the Oil Curse”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f6geiVdwpk

Guest Bio

Carine was appointed Chief Governance and Compliance Officer at Norges Bank Investment Management in 2020. She joined the company in August 2017 as Global Head of Ownership Strategies and was promoted to Chief Corporate Governance Officer in January 2018. Carine is responsible for ownership and responsible investment activities, control and operational risk, compliance and legal services.

Prior to joining Norges Bank Investment Management, Carine was Vice President Legal and Chief Compliance Officer in Statoil ASA. She has more than 20 years’ experience as a lawyer, working in both financials and the oil and gas industry, as well as in law firms. She also has extensive board experience.

Carine holds a law degree from the University of Oslo, a Master of Law from Harvard Law School and a Master of Economics from the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH).