People & Appointments: Rakhi Kumar to leave State Street

Rakhi Kumar, Senior Managing Director and Chief Strategist of ESG and Asset Stewardship at State Street Global Advisors (SSGA), is leaving the company in May to take on an undisclosed role. Robert Walker and Benjamin Colton are to take over as co-heads of asset stewardship. SSGA has confirmed that it will not be seeking an immediate replacement for Kumar.

Isabella Hervey-Bathurst has been tapped by Schroders to join the management team of the Schroders ISF Global Climate Change Equity fund. Hervey-Bathurst, who has supported the fund as an analyst since 2014, will be a named manager alongside Simon Webber, who established the strategy in 2006.

Hyewon Kong has been named Vice President of Responsible Investing at the Investment Management Corporation of Ontario, which manages more than C$60bn (€39.3bn) of Ontario public-sector assets, where she will develop sustainable investing strategies and oversee ESG integration. Kong joins from AGF Management, the Toronto-listed asset manager, where she was Head of ESG. She is co-founder of the Toronto Responsible Investment Working Group, a network of over 200 practitioners.

Victoria Márquez-Mees has been hired as the first Chief Accountability Officer at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. In her new role, Márquez-Mees will spearhead the development bank’s newly-approved Independent Project Accountability Mechanism. Previously, she oversaw the accountability mechanism at the Inter-American Development Bank for more than a decade and chaired the Independent Accountability Mechanisms Network of international financial institutions.

Mark Ashworth from Law Debenture has been appointed to the Independent Governance Committee of UK asset manager Legal & General Investment Management. The committee is responsible for ensuring all LGIM-operated pension schemes act in the interests of their beneficiaries. Ashworth is currently Chair of five other UK pension schemes and chairs the governance committee at another.

Michael Neumann has joined ESG data firm Arabesque as Head of AI Quant Investment Strategies to lead the development of products and strategies. Neumann has a background in academia and has held quant investment-focused roles at Dimensional Fund Advisors, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and quant equity start-up dataffirm.

Jason Fletcher and Jacqueline Jackson have been appointed CIO and Head of Responsible Investment at the £16.7bn (€19.1bn) London CIV, one of eight pooled UK local authority pension funds. Fletcher, who joins from LGPS Central where he was CIO, replaces former HSBC UK pensions head Mark Thompson who resigned last year after less than a month in the role. Jackson was formerly an Account Director at carbon data provider Trucost. Dawn Turner, who resigned as CEO of Brunel Pension Partnership in July last year, will continue to provide London CIV support on responsible investing until July, when both hires are due to take up their roles.

Diederik Timmer, Executive Vice President of Institutional Relations at Sustainalytics, has been named Chair of US sustainable investing membership body US SIF. The group also announced the election of Iyassu Essayas, Director of ESG Research at Parnassus Investments; Kristin Fafard, Chief Investment Strategist at Community Capital Management; and Amberjae Freeman, Chief Operating Officer at Etho Capital to the board. The full list of appointments can be viewed here.

Julian Kramer has been appointed by sustainability-focused Triodos Asset Management as Head of Business Development & Investor Relations where he will lead a 12-person sales team. Prior to this role, Kramer was Deputy Head of Wholesale Distribution Europe at BNP Paribas Asset Management.