People & Appointments: Hires at SEB, Green Investment Group and Two Sigma

Lars Eibeholm has taken up a new role as Head of Sustainability for Denmark at Swedish financial group SEB. Eibeholm moved from the Nordic Investment Bank (NIB), where he has spent the last two-and-a-half years in Treasury and Sustainability as a Member of the Executive Committee. He will be based in Copenhagen and report to SEB’s newly-appointed Chief Sustainability Officer, Hans Beyer.

Generation Investment Management has named a number of new partners. Anthony Woolf, Andrew Mobbs, Flavia Lugangira, Ghessycka Bennett and Michelle Huang will join the investment management firm co-founded by former US Vice President Al Gore and ex- Goldman Sachs' Asset Management Head David Blood. 

Macquarie’s Green Investment Group (GIG) has announced three new senior appointments. Professor David Viner, lead author on the Special Report on Climate Change and Land Use from the International Panel on Climate Change, has been appointed Head of GIG’s Green Impact Advisory Team. Chris Morrison will lead GIG’s activities in distributed energy and new energy technologies across Europe, having run Vitol’s UK energy storage business. Former CEO of Vattenfall Vindkraft, Ole Bigum Nielsen, has been appointed to lead the business’ Asset Creation and Management team.

Warren Valdmanis, Ian Blacsco, and Geoff Lieberthal have been named Senior Investment Partners in a new arm of the $60bn US hedge fund Two Sigma, which has been created to “make private workforce impact investments, with a goal to find consumer, business-services, education and healthcare companies that unlock human potential”. Valdmanis was Managing Director at Bain Capital until last year when he joined Two Sigma. Blacsco was also at Bain Capital, leaving back in 2008 to join Fidelity Equity Partners and then Riverside Partners. Lieberthal was Vice President of Bain Capital and has since been at TPG Capital and Lee Equity Partners. They will be joined at Two Sigma Impact by David Saltzman, Co-founder and Executive Director of anti-poverty NGO the Robin Hood Foundation; Ann Ruble, Two Sigma’s founding Head of HR; and Gaby Sulzberger, a long-term company director. 

LeapFrog Investments has announced the appointment of Bharat Doshi to its Global Leadership Council. Doshi spent a four-year term on the Central Board of Directors at the Reserve Bank of India, as well as serving as Executive Director at Mahindra Group and working within India’s Ministry of Finance and the Bombay Chamber of Commerce. 

Barclays has announced new sustainability moves. Justin Peagram,a Managing Director in Banking Coverage, joins the Sustainable and Impact Banking team from the Natural Resources Banking team. Amit Chandra, a Managing Director in Equity Capital Markets, will lead Barclays’ Equity Capital Markets Sustainable and Impact Banking efforts in the Americas. Greg Cass and Atul Jhavar, Directors in Debt Capital Markets, will run Barclays’ green, social and sustainability debt financing business for investment grade clients in the Americas and Asia-Pacific respectively. Finally, Alex Dyroff and Eldar Pius will serve as ESG specialists within Barclays’ Leveraged Finance business in the Americas, Europe and the Middle East. 

CDC Group, the UK’s impact investment and development finance institution, has announced the appointment of Sherine Shohdy as its new Coverage Director for Egypt. Shohdy most recently worked as a Senior Consultant to the IFC and has held senior positions at Hassan Allam Holding, its subsidiary Hassan Allam Utilities and the Arab African International Bank.

Steve Kenzie has been appointed new Co-Chair of the UN Global Compact’s Global Network Council and will take a seat on the UN Global Compact Board. Kenzie has managed the UK Network Secretariat since 2007 and has been leading the UN Global Compact’s Regional Network Council for Western Europe and North America since 2018. 

The UK Government is recruiting an inaugural Chair for its new environmental watchdog, the Office for Environmental Protection, which aims to independently scrutinise and advise the government to ensure it sets and meets targets to protect the environment.

Visa has appointed its first Chief Sustainability Officer to coincide with the launch of its inaugural green bond, priced at $500m. Douglas Sabo has served within the company’s responsibility and sustainability functions for more than 12 years, most recently as its Vice President and Head of CSR and Philanthropy.

Steven Donziger, the lawyer known for a multibillion-dollar environmental battle with Chevron, has been disbarred. In February 2011, Chevron sued Donziger and others involved in the legal case in Ecuador, under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, alleging that they had engaged in acts amounting to extortion. In 2018, Donziger was found guilty of professional misconduct and provisionally suspended from the practice of law.