People & Appointments: EFRAG announces Harushimana as TEG chair

Sébastien Harushimana has been appointed as financial reporting technical expert group chair for EFRAG for an initial three-year term. He will take up the role in September. Harushimana is a financial reporting and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) expert with more than 25 years’ experience across roles in international accounting consulting and internal and external audit. He has worked in various auditing roles at PwC for the past nine years, including as director of the International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) and IFRS team. He is also a guest IFRS lecturer at the University of Liège in Belgium.

The International Capital Market Association’s executive committee of the principles has elected Amundi SRI credit portfolio manager Alban de Faÿ as vice-chair. Isabelle Laurent, deputy treasurer and head of funding at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), has been re-elected as chair of the steering committee. BNP Paribas head of sustainable capital markets Agnès Gourc has also been re-elected as vice-chair. All three members will serve until the 2024 general meeting.

Jim Skea, professor of sustainable energy at Imperial College, has been elected as the next chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He succeeds South Korean economist Hoesung Lee, who has stepped down after more than seven years in the role. Skea has been part of IPCC for more than 14 years, previously co-chairing a working group on the mitigation of climate change. He has also been chair of the Scottish Just Transition Commission since 2018.

Ethan Zindler has been appointed as climate counsellor to US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. He will also lead the Treasury’s climate hub in the role. He replaces John Morton, who left in December to return to the private climate finance sector as global head of advisory at natural capital investment specialist Pollination. Zindler joins from BloombergNEF, where he was head of Americas for 17 years.

Helen Dean is stepping down from her role as CEO of Nest in 2024 after nearly eight years. Prior to her work at Nest, she was director of policy and product at the Personal Accounts Delivery Authority. The search for her successor will be led by the Nest board in collaboration with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

Melissa Fifield has been appointed head of BMO’s climate institute. Fifield was previously head of corporate social responsibility and sustainability for three years at Bank of the West, which was acquired by BMO in February. Her previous roles included senior director of global sustainability at Gap Inc.

Australian pensions giant AustralianSuper has appointed Deborah Gilshan as head of ESG and stewardship for Europe. She has worked across global investment stewardship for more than 22 years, having held roles at Aberdeen Standard Investments, Railpen and the UK’s Co-operative Insurance Society. Gilshan is also the founder of The 100% Club, a network dedicated to the advancement of women.

Amy Wilson has been hired as head of stewardship strategies at Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM). She previously headed up EOS at Federated Hermes’ stewardship team, where she spent more than five years.

Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) has expanded its sustainable finance team. Cédric Chaudron has been hired as executive director of sustainable finance. He was most recently head of sustainable capital markets Asia at Rabobank, where he spent more than eight years. He will continue in his role as a member of the green and sustainable loans committee at the Asia Pacific Loan Market Association. Amanda Helmore has been appointed as a sustainable finance associate director. She joins from HSBC, where she held roles across corporate coverage and was also a sustainable finance champion for Australia.

Julie Segal, senior manager of climate finance at Environmental Defence Canada, has started as a visiting fellow on Just Transition at the London School of Economics and Political Science’s Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment. Segal was previously an impact investing senior analyst at the McConnell Foundation for more than four years.

Riona Bowhay has joined Aviva’s sustainable finance centre for excellence as a senior macro stewardship analyst. She leaves KPMG, where she worked across climate for the past three years, most recently as climate risk and strategy manager. Bowhay was also a workstream lead at the Transition Plan Taskforce (TPT), where she led on engagement with 25 companies to test out the TPT’s drafts.

The International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) is recruiting a sustainability manager to lead the implementation of the foundation’s three-year sustainability plan, including the adoption of a robust sustainability governance framework and the development of sustainability policies. The successful candidate will also support the International Sustainability Standards Board’s (ISSB) stakeholder outreach activities and participate in relevant monitoring and reporting.

Quilter Investors has made two appointments to its responsible investment team. Chris Wu has been hired as a responsible investment quantitative analyst. Wu was most recently a social data science researcher at the London School of Economics and has a decade of experience in applied data science. Jonathan de Pasquallie has joined as a responsible investment analyst from KPMG in the Crown Dependencies, where he provided investors with ESG due diligence.

The French Agency for Ecological Transition (ADEME) is recruiting a business transition plan coordinator as part of the Assessing low Carbon Transition (ACT), an initiative launched by ADEME and CDP in 2015. The successful candidate’s responsibilities will include coordinating the development strategy of the ACT approach alongside ADEME and ensuring national reporting through ACT.

Dhaka has named Bushra Afreen as Asia’s first chief heat officer as part of the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Centre, an organisation focused on solutions to climate change. Afreen is also a policy consultant at Obhoyaronno, the Bangladesh Animal Welfare Foundation, and director of product development and social welfare at Islam Garments.