People & Appointments: Net Zero Banking Alliance chair to step down from role

Simon Connell, global head of sustainability strategy at Standard Chartered and chair of the Net Zero Banking Alliance, has announced he is leaving the bank. He will subsequently relinquish his chairmanship of the NZBA, as well as stepping down from the Banking Environment Initiative at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership. Connell, who joined Standard Chartered in 2013 and has held several ESG roles since, did not say where his new role would be.

Alexander Seidler has joined Credit Suisse as global head of sustainability risk. Seidler has spent much of his career at UBS, working mainly in environmental and social risk, most recently as APAC lead.

HSBC has appointed Alexi Chan to the newly created role of head of global banking sustainability and Jonathan Drew as head of global banking sustainability APAC. With the new appointments, the group now has a banking sustainability lead in place for each of its regions of operation. Chan is set to announce a “refreshed structure” for the global banking sustainability team, according to an internal memo seen by RI.

In other HSBC appointments, Farnam Bidgoli has been promoted to global head of ESG solutions from her previous role heading up the EMEA ESG solutions team. She joined the bank in 2017 as head of sustainable bonds DCM EMEA, and previously spent just over seven years at Sustainalytics.

Four new members have been elected to the board of Swiss Sustainable Finance. Sandra Cafazzo, member of the executive committee of Robeco Switzerland; Anne Marion-Bouchacourt, chief country officer at Societe Generale Switzerland; Mirjam Staub-Bisang, CEO of BlackRock Switzerland; and Maria Teresa Zappia, deputy CEO of BlueOrchard join the board, bringing its total membership to 15.

Marcus Looijenga has been promoted to partner at PwC. He leads the sustainability and ESG assurance practice at the auditing giant’s Dutch operation, and is a lecturer on auditing and ESG assurance at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

Kalina Lazarova has joined UK pension and savings giant Phoenix Group as corporate governance and voting lead. She leaves her role as head of governance, responsible investment at BMO Global Asset Management. She previously worked at Fidelity Investments.

Sabine Hampel has been promoted to head of equities at German ESG manager EB-SIM. She joined the firm in January this year as manager of the EB-Eco-Equity fund from ACATIS Investment, where she was also a portfolio manager.

Investment manager Downing has appointed Roger Lewis to the newly created role of head of ESG. Lewis leaves River and Mercantile, where he was group head of ESG.