Breen takes over as head of SRI at Triodos as Holterhues joins Oikocredit

Erik Breen is taking over as Head of the SRI Business Line at Triodos Bank from Eric Holterhues, who is joining social investor Oikocredit as Managing Director of its Dutch operations.

Breen joined Triodos Investment Management, the funds arm of the Dutch sustainable bank in early 2014 from Robeco where he was Senior Vice President and head of Responsible Investment. His initial focus at Triodos IM was SRI product innovation.

Breen is chairman of the International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN), treasurer of Dutch corporate governance platform Eumedion and a member of the Council of the International Integrated Reporting Council.

Holterhues, a keen supporter of the visual and performing arts, joined Triodos in 2000 and helped to set up its Cultuurfonds, the first cultural investment fund in the Netherlands.

He became Head of Triodos’ SRI effort in 2012. His role as portfolio manager of the Triodos Cultuurfonds will temporarily be taken over by Raymond Hiltrop, fund manager of Triodos Multi Impact Fund, Triodos said comes as Triodos has been boosting its team with the recent hires of William de Vries, former Head of core fixed income at Kempen Capital Management and Hans Stegeman, former Chief Economist Netherlands at Rabobank.

This month it said it would integrating its sustainable and financial analysis within the investment process by bringing the asset management of its SRI proposition in-house.

Under the revamp, the asset management services currently provided by Delta Lloyd Asset Management and the Triodos MeesPierson joint venture are to be phased out by 2018 in a move that Marilou van Golstein Brouwers, Chair of the Management Board of Triodos IM, termed a “logical next step”.

Oikocredit said Holterhues would take over from Hann Verheijen – another former Triodos executive – in October 2016.

Oikocredit is a cooperative society with total assets €1.1bn that grew out of a World Council of Churches meeting in 1968.