People & Appointments: Macquarie Asset Management appoints new CSO

Kristina Kloberdanz has been appointed chief sustainability officer at Macquarie Asset Management. She makes the jump from the corporate world, having previously held the same role at Mastercard and headed up corporate responsibility at IBM, where she worked for 24 years. She also chaired the World Economic Forum’s Trillion Trees US Stakeholder Council. She replaces Chris Leslie, who is moving to focus on Macquarie’s investments in the energy transition.

Charles Counsell, CEO of the UK’s Pensions Regulator, has announced plans to step down at the end of his four-year term. Counsell, who was previously head of the regulator’s rollout of automatic enrolment into a workplace pension, will leave in March 2023. The regulator has begun a search for his replacement.

In other UK regulatory news, Financial News has reported that just one candidate of the 17 applying for the post of chair of the Financial Conduct Authority disclosed that they come from an ethnic minority background, while only three are women. According to data obtained by the publication under the Freedom of Information Act, three of the candidates chose not to declare their gender or ethnic background, meaning the true figure could be slightly higher.

Ben Caldecott, director of the sustainable finance group at Oxford University’s Smith School and co-head of the UK government’s Transition Plan Taskforce, has been appointed to the recently established board sustainability committee at Singapore’s DBS as a non-director member. The committee is chaired by DBS CEO Piyush Gupta and has three other members.

Climate change investment and advisory firm Pollination has made a string of new hires as it restructures its senior leadership. Co-founders Martijn Wilder and Tony O’Sullivan will become CEO and board chair, respectively, while ANZ’s Paul Orton has also been appointed to the board. Diana Callebaut, head of real assets and private markets at New South Wales’ sovereign investment manager has joined as global head of investment. Shane Flatman, COO of OneVentures and former COO of BlackRock Australia, joins as chief financial officer. Clean energy expert Rob Grant joins as head of projects. The last three are all newly created roles. In addition, Brendan Baker has left his role as vice-president, ESG climate specialist at MSCI to join the firm as a director.

Ben Story has joined UK-based Sustainable Development Capital as group chief operating officer. Story, who leaves his role in Rolls-Royce’s executive team, has more than 25 years’ experience in the banking sector and was head of UK investment banking at Citigroup.

Ram Sri-Saravanapavaan has been promoted to vice-president, senior analyst ESG at Moody’s ESG. He has spent 11 years at the firm, joining its EMEA financial institutions group in 2011.

The IFRS foundation is seeking new trustees from Asia-Oceania, the Americas and Europe to serve three-year terms.