
Urban planner. Responsible investment professional. Transit advocate.
Diagnosis. Insights. Engagement. Initiative. Multilingual.
Toronto. Vaughan.
Jean-François has 10+ years of experience in financial services, media, sustainability consulting, and public policy. He has worked with firms and governments in Europe, Latin America, the U.K., and the U.S. His research has helped financial institutions to adopt socially-responsible investment practices as former Lead Analyst at Sustainalytics. Jean-François has a reputation for applying creative approaches to problem-solving. He has written about how investors can protect the environment through reduced deforestation and flooding. Jean-François is fluent in French and Spanish, and is available to work in those languages.
Jean-François currently works as a Research Fellow with Dr. Diane-Laure Arjaliès and Dr. Jury Gualandris at the Ivey Business School at Western University. He is part of a team researching how to incentivize regenerative agriculture in southern Ontario. One of the projects is funded through an inaugural Canadian Sustainable Finance Network (CSFN) Research Grant through the Institute for Sustainable Finance.
Jean-François completed a Master of Planning in Urban Development at Toronto Metropolitan University (Formerly Ryerson University) in spring 2022. His master’s major research paper was about how the City of Toronto can remove obstacles to use reserve funds for parkland acquisition and described 25 financial tools that can be used for this purpose. He held a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council – Canada Graduate Scholarship (Master’s) and the Ontario Graduate Scholarship. He holds an Honors in Business Administration from the Ivey Business School at Western University, where he did an exchange term at the Rotterdam School of Management at Eramus University in The Netherlands. In 2016, he obtained the Canadian Securities Certificate. He is also the Executive Director and Co-Founder of A Voice for Transit, an advocacy organization focused on transit equity in the Toronto region.
His work has been featured in the following outlets:
- Biodiversity finance for cities: The time is ripe for new financial tools for urban parks, OPPI Y Magazine, Fall 2022, Jean-François Obregón Murillo
- Paying for Parkland, Novae Res Urbis: Toronto, June 24, 2022, Rahul Gupta
- The Time is Ripe: A survey of financial tools to enable urban biodiversity conservation finance in the City of Toronto, Ecological Design Lab. November 15, 2021, Jean-François Obregón.
- Taking the TTC During COVID-19, A Voice for Transit, August 30, 2021 – Faizan Ahmed, Ozora Amin, Austin Devaraj, Sherwin Lau, Devan Moura, Jean-François Obregón
- Circular Investing, pp.48-54 Sustainalytics, January 29, 2021 – Christine Ha Kong, CFA, Jean-François Obregón, Martin Vezér, PhD (This chapter is a part of 10 for 2021: Investing in the Circular Food Economy, which won the 2021 UN PRI Award for ESG research innovation of the year and the 2021 Environmental Finance Award for impact research)
- Inequitable Transit in Toronto, A Voice for Transit, May 5, 2020 – Faizan Ahmed, Ozora Amin, Devan Moura, Jean-François Obregón
- How insurers ready for catastrophe, Morningstar Canada, April 9, 2020 – Andrew Willis
- Insuring a volatile planet (chapter), 10 for 2020: Creating Impact Through Thematic Investing, Sustainalytics, January 2020 – Jean-François Obregón, Justin Cheng, Megan Wallingford, Doug Morrow
- Beef, Banks and the global context behind Brazil’s deforestation, Corporate Knights, August 27, 2019 – Jean-François Obregón, Jessica Grant and Thijs Huurdeman
- Brazil: Deforestation in the Global Context – Part 2, Sustainalytics, August 22, 2019 – Jean-François Obregón, Jessica Grant and Thijs Huurdeman
- Brazil: Deforestation in the Global Context, Sustainalytics, July 24, 2019 – Jean-François Obregón, Jessica Grant and Thijs Huurdeman
- Can Italian Banks Avoid Another Financial Crisis?, Sustainalytics, April 30, 2019 – Jean-François Obregón
- Money where it matters, Corporate Knights, May 4, 2011 – Jean-François Obregón