Corporate governance
Funding for our activities comes from both the public and private sectors across five key areas: partners (Strategic and Associate), sponsors, summit ticket sales, public funding and grants.
Our corporate governance structure encompasses the organisation’s board of directors and our steering committee of Strategic Partners.
Steering committee
The Global Fashion Agenda steering committee acts as the sounding board by providing essential leadership to support Global Fashion Agenda’s mission. The steering committee convenes three times a year and comprises two senior sustainability representatives from each Strategic Partner company. Our Strategic Partners are a small group of hand-picked companies, representing different market segments and geographies, who are committed to driving sustainable progress and provide essential leadership to support GFA’s mission. Each company contributes a fixed amount of money annually.
Board of directors
The board of directors is Global Fashion Agenda’s executive body and signs off on the organisation’s budget and strategy. The board is comprised of six to eight appointed executive members, who have experience from the fashion industry or from other areas relevant to Global Fashion Agenda’s purpose. The board’s role, in addition to ensuring corporate governance and compliance, is to oversee that Global Fashion Agenda operates in a healthy manner in terms of the organisation, team, funding and overall objectives and activities.
Cristiana Falcone
Senior Adviser | World Economic Forum
Cristiana Falcone is a global leader in media, business and social development sectors. She began her career in radio and television, covering foreign affairs including war and humanitarian crises. Over the past 15+ years she has honed her experience as a strategic adviser, investor and philanthropist and acquired vast experience with multinationals, international organisations and the media. She presently serves as Senior Adviser to the Executive Chairman and founder of the World Economic Forum. Joining the Forum in 2004, she led the Media, Entertainment and Information Industries, building and managing strategic partnerships with industry leaders, policymakers, experts and academics worldwide. Furthermore, Falcone is an early investor and adviser in several young talented hand-picked start-ups, a member of the board of directors of Viacom and Revlon and holds leadership roles in several organisations. As CEO of the JMCMRJ Sorrell Foundation, she leads transformative initiatives in health, education and poverty alleviation worldwide. Falcone graduated from the University of Rome – La Sapienza in Political Science and earned her Master’s Degree in Humanitarian Assistance from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. She holds a Master’s in Diplomatic Studies from the Italian Society for International Organizations and the Italian Ministry for Foreign Affairs Diplomatic Academy as well as several post graduate certificates in leadership, change management, corporate strategy and business management.
Eva Kruse
Group SVP, Brand and Impact at PANGAIA
Eva Kruse is the Group SVP, Brand and Impact at PANGAIA, a direct-to-consumer materials science company on a mission to save the environment through breakthrough innovations for everyday lifestyle products. PANGAIA functions as a global collective of scientists, designers, thinkers and creators from all backgrounds and walks of life, driven by purpose and powered by science – designing a better future. Eva Kruse has been a pioneer by spearheading the movement towards a more responsible fashion industry for more than a decade, as the founder and CEO of Global Fashion Agenda (GFA) – the non-profit organisation behind the renowned landmark event Copenhagen Fashion Summit. Her mission the past many years has been to guide and mobilise industry leaders in taking bold and urgent action on sustainability. Under Kruse’s leadership, GFA has also accelerated the industry’s transition towards a more circular fashion system through its 2020 Commitment and policy work, as well as setting the benchmark on measuring and reporting on industry progress with Pulse of The Fashion Industry Report and industry guidance with the Fashion CEO Agenda. Previously, Kruse also co-founded Danish Fashion Institute along with Copenhagen Fashion Week in 2005. The fashion week in Copenhagen is now Scandinavia’s largest fashion event and was one of the first fashion weeks in the world to arrange an open programme with fashion events for the public. Through working with the fashion industry’s leading brands, United Nations, European Commission and many international foundations, Kruse strives to drive awareness and action on sustainability with the aim to safeguard the future of our planet. As a globally recognised voice in sustainability and keynote speaker at conferences across the world including TEDx Talk, Kruse holds the Human Rights Prize from the French Embassy, and a Royal Order of Chivalry from the Danish Monarchy.
Harsh Saini
Global Supply Chain Expert
Harsh Saini is an industry veteran in sustainability, supply chains, thought leadership and innovation, Harsh has spent over two decades at global brands in various roles from corporate communications, marketing, trade relations, to supply chain compliance and sustainability. The majority of her career was at brands Nike, The Body Shop and global supply chain manager the Fung Group. Harsh gained experience and success delivering industry-changing improvements in diverse commercial settings around the world, with integrated brand reputation strategies to identify value-adding opportunities for brand building and reputation, increased environmental sustainability, human rights, and equality with digital innovation. Harsh has served on multiple industry committees and boards.
Niels Eskildsen
GFA Chairman & CEO, Designers Remix
Niels Eskildsen founded the Danish brand Designers Remix in 2002 together with his wife, Charlotte, its creative director. They began by redesigning used clothes and they already took a circular approach to fashion back then, one they still embrace. Since 2013 Eskildsen has served as the chair of the board of Danish Fashion Institute, the parent company behind Copenhagen Fashion Summit and Global Fashion Agenda. As chair, he has played a key role in developing these two sustainable initiatives. Eskildsen also serves as chair of the board of Copenhagen Fashion Week, and on the board of Design Society, the organisation behind Danish Design Center, INDEX – Design to improve Life and Danish Fashion Institute. For years he was also a member of the business panel for the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. Eskildsen holds a MSc in economics from Aarhus University and lives in Copenhagen with his family.
Peder Michael Pruzan-Jorgensen
Director & Owner of ORCA & Co.
Peder Michael Pruzan-Jorgensen is the Founder and Director of ORCA & Co., a strategy advisory firm that works with companies and asset owners to maximize business value and societal impact by placing environmental, social and governance factors at the heart of decision-making. Pruzan-Jorgensen was previously a member of the executive committee at BSR, where he led the organisation’s growth in EMEA as well as its work on multi-company collaboration, women’s empowerment and government and foundations. An experienced sustainability executive, he is a member of several sustainability advisory boards and works with world leading companies in multiple industries. Pruzan-Jorgensen has worked with the fashion industry through most of his business career, in recent years mostly on how to advance women’s empowerment in global fashion supply chains. He led the formation of one of the first collaborative initiatives in the luxury industry, the then Sustainable Luxury Working Group, initially focused on exotic skins supply chains. He has supported the Copenhagen Fashion Summit since its beginning.
Thomas Klausen
CEO, Dansk Fashion & Textile
Having served on the board of directors as co-chairman for more than four years Thomas Klausen was appointed as the CEO of the Danish industry association Dansk Fashion & Textile in 2012. Dansk Fashion & Textile represents approximately 400 companies with more than 600 brands in Denmark and has done this with pride since 1895. The textile and fashion industry in Denmark has a combined turnover of approximately 7 billion Euros. 60 % of this comes from export, making it one of the most important export sectors in Denmark. Previously, Klausen was president of the Tytex Group – a world leading manufacturer of medical fixation and compression textiles with manufacturing facilities in Asia, North America and Europe and a global sales reach. He has lived in many different countries setting up production and sales offices in a number of regions around the world, within the fashion and textile industry. Klausen has an E-MBA from Henley and 26 years of experience in the industry. This combined with his current position gives him a substantial insight and knowledge of the industry, its development and the future challenges of the industry.
Thomas Tochtermann
GFA Deputy Chairman and Director Emeritus, McKinsey & Company, Inc.
Thomas Tochtermann is director emeritus and senior advisor at McKinsey & Company, Inc. For over three decades, he has advised international clients in the fashion and luxury and consumer segments. Tochtermann has been building and leading McKinsey´s global Fashion & Luxury Practice for many years. He has published numerous articles and is a frequent speaker, panellist and moderator at fashion, luxury and consumer conferences. Today, Tochtermann chairs and serves on multiple supervisory boards in Germany and Denmark and serves as a trusted advisor to senior executives in companies around the globe. He has a special passion for the topic of sustainability in fashion and luxury, realised by chairing the steering committee of Global Fashion Agenda in Copenhagen and by working directly with key players in the industry to improve the state of fashion. Furthermore, Tochtermann is entering Global Fashion Agenda’s board of directors as deputy chairman.