SmartResilience Strengthens Leadership With Appointment of ESG Veteran Joanna Gluzman-Laukkanen

As climate resilience becomes an increasingly important boardroom priority, businesses are looking beyond compliance and towards leadership capable of translating environmental risk into commercial strategy. Against that backdrop, climate risk software company SmartResilience has appointed one of Britain's most experienced ESG executives, Joanna Gluzman-Laukkanen, as its new Strategic ESG Advisor, strengthening its leadership as organisations face growing pressure to understand the financial consequences of climate change.

The appointment brings more than two decades of experience at the highest levels of corporate sustainability. Throughout her career, Gluzman-Laukkanen has held senior ESG and responsible business positions across some of the UK's best-known companies, including BT Group, Avon Worldwide, PZ Cussons and, most recently, B&Q, where she led the retailer's responsible business strategy as Director of Responsible Business.

Her arrival represents another significant step in SmartResilience's growth as businesses increasingly seek practical tools to quantify and manage physical climate risk. Rather than focusing solely on emissions reporting or sustainability disclosures, the company has built its platform around helping organisations understand how extreme weather, flooding, heat stress and wider climate disruption could affect individual sites, operations and long-term financial performance.

Gluzman-Laukkanen's experience extends well beyond sustainability strategy. During her time at BT Group she worked closely with institutional investors and the wider financial community, helping shape ESG thinking at a time when responsible investment was becoming a defining feature of global capital markets. That background gives her a distinctive perspective on how climate resilience can be communicated not only to operational teams but also to boards, shareholders and investors increasingly focused on long-term business resilience.

For Harish Pesala, Founder and Chief Executive of SmartResilience, the appointment reflects the company's ambition to connect scientific climate modelling with commercial decision making.

"Joanna has spent more than two decades at the intersection of sustainability and business performance inside some of the world's best-known companies," he said. "Her ability to connect rigorous ESG thinking with commercial outcomes, and to communicate that to boards and investors, makes her an exceptional addition to the SmartResilience advisory team."

Gluzman-Laukkanen believes businesses are only beginning to understand the strategic importance of climate resilience.

"Climate resilience is one of the most underappreciated drivers of long-term business value," she said. "Most organisations are only just beginning to understand what it means for their operations, their supply chains and their balance sheets. SmartResilience is tackling that challenge head on, with science-backed projections that allow businesses to plan for resilience across short, medium and long timescales."

Her appointment comes as regulatory expectations continue to evolve, with frameworks such as TCFD, CSRD and the UK's emerging sustainability reporting standards placing greater emphasis on understanding and disclosing climate-related risks. For many organisations, attention is shifting from simply reporting environmental performance towards demonstrating how climate risks are being managed in practice.

SmartResilience's platform is designed to support that transition, enabling businesses to assess financial exposure across individual sites, evaluate adaptation measures and receive location-specific weather intelligence before severe events reach their assets. The company is already trusted by major organisations including Sainsbury's, which uses the platform across more than 1,000 locations.

As climate resilience becomes an increasingly important measure of long-term corporate performance, the appointment of Joanna Gluzman-Laukkanen signals SmartResilience's intention to play a leading role in helping businesses move from understanding climate risk to acting upon it. In today's business environment, resilience is no longer simply an environmental consideration. It is becoming a defining element of commercial strategy.