OxIgnite Ep6: Gabriel Levie, Wequity
Discover Wequity's AI-driven solutions for ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) compliance and sustainability reporting.
Welcome to the OxIgnite Podcast hosted by Yusuf Raza and Michael Hutson - two entrepreneurial MBA students at the University of Oxford. Together, we navigate the dynamic journeys of Oxford-linked founders, venture capitalists, and trailblazing innovators. Our mission? To fuel the fire in Oxford's next generation of boundary-pushing change-makers.
🎙️ Are you curious about the future of sustainable business practices and the role of AI in driving positive impact?
Our sixth OxIgnite episode features Gabriel Levie, the co-founder of Wequity – a groundbreaking company offering AI-driven solutions for ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) compliance. 🌿
Discover how Wequity is transforming the rapidly evolving ESG reporting space, helping companies navigate complex regulatory requirements worldwide.
From carbon emissions to labor conditions, explore the intricacies of sustainability reporting and how Wequity's innovative platform streamlines data collection, empowering organizations to make informed decisions.
Dive into the challenges faced by investors and companies in analyzing ESG data, and learn about Wequity's vision for the future – integrating AI to automate workflows and offer valuable insights for more effective actions. 🚀
Join us as we uncover the motivations behind Wequity's inception and their mission to contribute to a more sustainable future.
Don't miss this insightful discussion with an inspiring entrepreneur and the driving force behind Wequity's mission.
Get ready, get set, get OxIgnited!
List of Topics Covered
ESG Reporting: The interview extensively covers ESG reporting, emphasizing its importance and the growing regulatory requirements for companies to disclose their impact and activities related to sustainability.
Wequity’s AI-driven Solutions: Wequity's core offerings revolve around AI-driven solutions that assist finance professionals, portfolio managers, and private equity players in navigating ESG compliance and sustainability reporting.
Compliance and Risk Monitoring: Wequity's solutions are designed to help organizations with compliance and risk monitoring related to ESG issues, ensuring they meet regulatory requirements and manage sustainability risks effectively.
Sustainability: The interview highlights the focus of Wequity's work on sustainability, promoting responsible business practices and helping companies make meaningful changes in their strategies and processes.
Challenges in ESG Data Analysis: The interview discusses the challenges faced by investors and companies in gathering and analyzing ESG data, particularly dealing with a mix of structured and unstructured data from various sources.
Data Collection and Reporting: Wequity aids private equity players and corporates by automating the data collection process for ESG reporting. Users can upload various documents, and the platform pre-fills the ESG reports and questions accordingly.
Wequity’s Future Vision: Wequity's co-founder, Gabriel Levie, shares the company's vision for the future, which involves extensive integration of AI into their platform to automate workflows and facilitate data extraction, reporting, and analysis.
Wequity’s Growth Prospects: The interview explores potential growth scenarios for Wequity, including partnerships with consulting and law firms, which would expand the company's reach and credibility.
Startup Life and Well-being: Towards the end of the interview, the conversation shifts to managing stress and maintaining overall well-being in the context of startup life. Gabriel Levie shares insights into his well-being routine and the importance of open communication with co-founders.
Summary:
This episode features Gabriel Levie from Wequity, a Belgium HQ’d startup providing AI-driven solutions for ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) compliance.
The conversation delves into the rapidly evolving ESG reporting space and the movements driving companies to analyze and report on their impact and activities related to sustainability.
Gabriel provides valuable insights into the complexities of ESG reporting, the regulatory landscape, and the mission of Wequity to streamline and improve sustainability reporting processes for organizations.
Gabriel highlights that regulators worldwide are increasingly enforcing ESG reporting requirements.
In Europe, they have the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR). In the US, the SEC is also starting to address these topics.
These regulations are in response to consumer and citizen demands for climate-related information, and various stakeholders, such as financial institutions, investors, and companies, are positioning themselves to comply with these new rules.
The discussion expands on the complexity of sustainability reporting, which includes environmental, social, and governance issues.
Gabriel emphasizes that reporting is not sufficient; it should drive companies to make meaningful changes in their strategies and processes.
We touch upon various topics within ESG reporting, such as carbon emissions, energy consumption, water usage, labor conditions, human rights, and biodiversity.
Gabriel explains the challenges faced by investors and companies in gathering and analyzing ESG data.
Investors rely on various data sources, including information provided by corporations, which may not always be up-to-date or comprehensive.
Meanwhile, companies often manage ESG data manually, dealing with a mix of structured and unstructured data from internal documents, ERP systems, PDFs, and Excel files.
Sharing his motivations behind starting Wequity, Gabriel mentioned that he was particularly driven by his experiences at Oxford, where he engaged in several ESG initiatives.
He and his co-founder Franck identified the need to address data challenges in sustainability reporting, enabling companies and investors to make informed decisions and contribute to a more sustainable future.
The early stages of building Wequity involved iterating on product development, with a focus on providing a solution that genuinely fulfills users' needs and helps them achieve their objectives.
His co-founder utilized no-code tools to quickly develop the first versions of the product and actively contributes to ongoing product development.
Gabriel then shares more about Wequity and its role in the ESG reporting space.
He explains that Wequity offers AI-driven solutions for finance professionals and corporate risk monitoring and compliance to help organizations navigate ESG compliance with ease.
They serve two main groups of users: portfolio managers and private equity players or corporates.
For portfolio managers, Wequity provides assistance with do no significant harm analysis and screening, focusing on monitoring companies' ESG-related events and controversies.
This approach offers a more frequent and high-speed analysis, which is particularly beneficial for companies outside the large caps category.
On the other hand, Wequity aids private equity players and corporates with ESG reporting by automating the data collection process.
Users can upload various documents such as PDFs, Excel, and CSV files, and the platform pre-fills the ESG reports and questions accordingly.
This streamlines the reporting process and saves time, making it easier for companies to meet regulatory requirements and respond to stakeholder queries.
Gabriel shares Wequity's vision for the future, which involves integrating AI extensively into their platform to automate workflows and facilitate data extraction, reporting, and analysis.
They aim to align the product with evolving regulations and prioritize client needs based on interviews and feedback.
Wequity also plans to form partnerships with consulting and law firms to expand their reach and credibility.
We also discuss the challenges faced by Wequity.
The primary challenge is raising awareness about the importance of ESG reporting and the need for their product.
Educating the market and convincing potential users to adopt their solutions are ongoing tasks.
Additionally, building a credible track record as a relatively small player in the industry and finding the right talent for the team present challenges.
Regarding prioritization, Gabriel mentions the use of the Cycle app to gather feedback from clients and prospects, helping them identify and focus on the most critical needs and personas.
In terms of AI and large language models, Gabriel expresses excitement about the possibilities they offer.
Wequity can gather a vast volume of structured and unstructured data, enabling comprehensive analysis of companies' ESG performance and impact.
This data-driven approach can help companies set realistic and credible transition pathways to improve their ESG practices.
Overall, Gabriel emphasizes that while AI can automate data analysis and reporting, it's essential for companies to take responsibility and make the necessary changes in their practices to drive positive impact on ESG topics.
Wequity's role is to simplify the reporting process and empower companies to focus on implementing effective ESG strategies.
Gabriel explains that, in the short term, Wequity's objective is not to offer advisory services itself.
Instead, the company aims to partner with established experts in the field who have credibility and a proven track record in sustainability consulting.
He recognizes that while some companies prefer to keep sustainability strategy in-house, many will require the assistance of consultants to make sense of the data, set action plans, and create a roadmap for improvement.
Gabriel emphasizes that each case will be unique, and Wequity will tailor its approach based on individual client needs.
With a product-driven focus, Wequity seeks to provide a platform that facilitates data-driven decision-making and sustainability strategy implementation.
Gabriel envisions a future where the product can offer valuable insights based on patterns found across various industries, enabling prescriptive analytics for more effective actions.
This data-driven approach aligns with Wequity's mission to make sustainability efforts more efficient and impactful.
The discussion then takes a nostalgic turn, as Gabriel reflects on his time at Oxford, which played a pivotal role in shaping him as a leader and an entrepreneur.
He shares how he engaged with initiatives such as supporting a startup focused on food tech.
This experience exposed him to the world of entrepreneurship and inspired him to pursue his own venture. Gabriel speaks highly of the bright minds he encountered at Oxford, and the influence of being surrounded by people who were initiating projects and making a difference in the world.
Moving on to a critical aspect of startup life, Gabriel shares his approach towards managing stress and maintaining overall well-being, which he considers essential and crucial for founders' sustained success.
He outlines key elements of his well-being routine, including prioritizing sleep, regular exercise, and emotional well-being through apps like the "Mood Meter" developed by Yale University.
He also emphasizes the importance of open communication with co-founders and seeking support from external sources to share the ups and downs of the entrepreneurial journey.
Gabriel also highlights Balderton Capital’s extensive resources on Founder Wellbeing.
Links:
Wequity Offical Website: https://www.wequity.app/
Gabriel Levie LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabriel-levie-623654117/
Yusuf Raza LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yusurfaza/
Michael Hutson LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hutsonmichael/
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