Jan 21: The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) has appointed Susanne Stormer as the Chair of the Global Sustainability Standards Board (GSSB), the governance body responsible for setting the GRI Standards.
Susanne is Leader in Residence at Copenhagen Business School, and brings a diverse professional background and extensive reporting experience. She was most recently a Partner at PwC Denmark, providing sustainability advisory and assurance services, prior to which she was Vice President of Corporate Sustainability at Novo Nordisk for 13 years.
Susanne has served on the EFRAG Project Task Force that developed the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), as a SASB Standards Board Member, and as a founding member of the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC).
She will officially assume her three-year term with the GSSB on 1 April 2026.
Jane Diplock, Chair of the Supervisory Board at GRI, said: “We are delighted to welcome Susanne as the next Chair of the GSSB. She brings extensive experience and cares deeply about the issues, with a career in corporate sustainability that goes back almost as far as the founding of GRI three decades ago.
Her background as a reporting practitioner, an adviser and standard-setter makes her an ideal candidate to place the GRI Standards and reporting on impacts at the heart of the evolving global system for sustainability reporting.
GRI and its governance bodies extend sincere thanks to the membership of the GSSB for their dedication to serving the GRI mission.”
Susanne Stormer, incoming Chair of the GSSB, said: “The GRI Standards and I have travelled together through the evolution of corporate sustainability reporting, which is why I am so excited to join the GSSB as Chair. We share the vision of a world where organizations are accountable for their impacts on the economy, people and planet, and now is the time to build on GRI’s long-held leadership position and shape the future of sustainability reporting.
Clarity on materiality as well as consistent, comparable data are critical for management reporting and for the transparency needed to hold organizations accountable for their environmental, social and economic impacts. That’s why we need global standards.
I look forward to working with colleagues and partners across the reporting ecosystem to promote credible, timely, and decision-useful reporting, so that organizations and their stakeholders can collectively act on impacts and drive investments towards more sustainable business practices.”
The GSSB has 15 members, including the Chair, who all serve voluntarily. Alongside Stormer’s appointment, GRI has reappointed four members of the GSSB to serve a second term:
- Jeff Robertson (Director of Environment and Sustainability at Bimbo Canada, a division of Grupo Bimbo);
- Deborah Ng (Head of ESG and Sustainability, GMO LLC);
- Galya Tsonkova (Head of Sustainability Reporting and Nature Programs, Coca-Cola HBC AG);
- Chulendra de Silva (Founding Partner of InterBalance Consulting).
