Alumni Discussion Club with Anete Pajuste: Climate Transition at a Crossroads — Risks and Opportunities for Firms

Across the Atlantic, approaches to the green transition are diverging. Europe is pursuing a regulated, bank-driven path — with taxonomies, disclosure rules, and transition planning embedded in policy. The United States is taking a more investor- and market-driven route, now complicated by a growing political backlash against ESG and shareholder activism.

Having spent the past four years living, working, and conducting research in the US, Professor Anete Pajuste will share firsthand observations of this transatlantic divide and its implications for corporate financing, investor expectations, and risk management. We will explore how narrative shocks — from fossil fuel divestment campaigns to anti-ESG legislation — can move markets, affect reputational risk, and alter the cost of capital for carbon-intensive firms and beyond. The conversation will focus on what these global shifts mean for boards and executives.

Anete Pajuste (Class of 1997) is a Professor of Finance at the Stockholm School of Economics (Riga). During the past four years she has been a Visiting Professor at Boston University Questrom School of Business (2023/2025) and a Visiting Senior Fellow at the Program on Corporate Governance of Harvard Law School (2021/2023). She is also a research member of the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) and a founder and board member of the Baltic Family Firm Institute (BFFI). Her recent work spans corporate governance, family business governance, and sustainable finance. She examines succession and control dynamics in family firms, the life-cycle of dual-class shares, and how divestment campaigns and investor ESG preferences influence firm valuation. Anete has published in the Journal of Corporate Finance, Review of Corporate Finance Studies, Journal of Banking and Finance, and Journal of Law and Economics, among others. Anete holds a PhD in Finance from the Stockholm School of Economics (Sweden).

Event for SSE Riga Alumni only, registration is required.