Citi’s former sustainability research head Brown takes impact investing role

Meg Brown, the former Director of Climate and Sustainability Research at Citi, has been appointed UK Liaison at the impact investing body the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN).
Brown, who is an independent consultant currently working with BlueBay Asset Management, takes over from Susannah Nicklin, the former Bridges Ventures and Goldman Sachs executive who was the first GIIN Liaison to the UK. Nicklin is co-founder of start-up client relationship outfit Lotus & Co, according to her Linked-in page.

The appointment comes as impact investment – where social and environmental impacts sit alongside financial returns – is making headway in the UK. Just yesterday (April 30) for example, Bridges Ventures and Big Society Capital launched a new social impact bond fund.

And it comes on the back of initiatives such as Social Finance’s globally recognised Peterborough prison bond will work alongside fellow European liaisons, Amsterdam-based Harry Hummels, the Maastricht University professor who heads SNS Impact Investing, and Zurich-based Ingo Weber of LeapFrog Investments.
“There is real momentum for impact investment among UK investors, and the GIIN provides key support to those beginning and expanding their activity in this market,” said Brown in a statement.
In July 2012 Brown stepped down from sell-side research to undertake an internal project for Citi’s Private Bank on sustainable finance and philanthropy. She had remained with Citi when the firm integrated its SRI research into mainstream broker research departments in late 2008. The firm subsequently built out a more specialist sustainability research approach. Before joining Citi in 2005, Brown spent two years as an analyst at UKSIF, the UK’s sustainable investment and finance association.

GIIN, in partnership with the City of London Corporation, will host its first global conference on impact investing in London on October 10/11.