RI People & Appointments, April 7: CII, LGS, Calvert Investments, Swiss Sustainable Finance

Michael McCauley, Senior Governance Officer at the $178bn (€164bn) Florida State Board of Administration, has been elected as the new Chairman of the Council of Institutional Investors (CII), the Washington-based body representing US institutional investors with above $3trn in assets. He succeeds Jay Chaudhuri, General Counsel for the State Treasurer of North Carolina. McCauley was elected by the CII’s public pension fund members. Three new co-chairs were elected: Dave Donlin (Target); Meredith Miller (UAW union’s medical benefits trust; and Theresa Whitmarsh (Washington State Investment Board). Announcement

Craig Peate has been named as the new Chair of Australia’s Local Government Super, the A$8bn (€5.6bn) super fund with around A$5bn in responsible investment strategies. He takes over from Bruce Miller whose two-year term has ended. Miller becomes Deputy Chair. Peate, an existing director, has served on LGS’s Board’s Governance and Remuneration Committees and its Investment Committee. Other new board members include Katherine O’Regan and Jeff Morris, who replace Leo Kelly and Keith Rhoades. The appointment of O’Regan, a former government advisor, brings LGS closer to its goal of having 40% representation of female directors. Link

Alexandra Ergon has joined Calvert Investments, the £13.6bn (€12.5bn) US SRI specialist, as Client Executive for its Institutional Client Relationship group. Before joining Calvert she was Head of Relationship Management at DuPont Capital Management, the asset management arm of the industrial giant. Before joining DuPont in 2008, Ergon was Director of Investment Strategy and Communications within the Investment Advisory Services division of Smith Barney Consulting Group.

In case you missed it: Bennett Freeman, Senior Vice President, Sustainability Research and Policy at Calvert Investments, is leaving the firm on April 30 after nine years leading the US SRI specialist’s environmental, social and governance analysis, shareholder advocacy and public policy initiatives. “It has been a privilege to work with a great team at Calvert and with companies, other investors and NGO allies to use the power of responsible investment to advance corporate responsibility and sustainability on some of the toughest issues around the world,” Freeman said. He will be available via this email address.

Allie Rutherford has joined CamberView Partners, the San Francisco-based advisory firm founded by Abe Friedman, the former Global Head of Corporate Governance and Responsible Investment at BlackRock. She was most recently a Director at Ernst & Young LLP (EY), leading the firm’s US corporate governance initiatives, where she helped set up EY’s Center for Board Matters. Before that she was with Proxy Governance and the Investor Responsibility Research Center. She serves on the Advisory Board of the University of Delaware’s Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance. Announcement

Sir Martin Harris is to retire from his role as chair of the trustee board for the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) after nine years in the role. IPE reports that Harris stepped down at the end of March, and the scheme is set to announce his replacement very soon.The leadership of Swiss Sustainable Finance (SSF), Switzerland’s new lobby for sustainable investments, has recommended its 81 members elect Jean-Daniel Gerber, a former official at the Swiss Economics Ministry, as its new President during the organisation’s annual meeting in June. If elected, Gerber would replace Klaus Tischhauser, who is stepping down in June after serving as president since its launch last summer. Tischhauser is Chief Executive of responsAbility, the Zurich-based microfinance fund provider. Gerber is currently Chairman of the Swiss Society for Public Good and of the Swiss Investment Fund for Emerging Markets (SIFEM).

Larry Lebowitz, chief investment officer of The Investment Fund For Foundations (TIFF) has resigned after a four-and-a-half-year tenure. In a statement, TIFF says Lebowitz came to the decision after a “series of productive and forward looking conversations”. TIFF CEO Dick Flannery will act as interim CIO while it searches for a successor to Lebowitz. TIFF, formed in 1991 by a network of foundations to serve the investment needs of the non-profit community, has 800 foundation members and manages over $11bn (€10.1bn) in assets.

Aviva, the UK insurance and asset management group, has announced a number of appointments to its Independent Governance Committee (IGC). The company Law Debenture is to be the IGC’s corporate chair, with director Inder Dhingra carrying out the role. Aviva has also new independent members: Marcia Campbell, who currently sits on the board of Sainsbury’s Bank and Robert Talbut who was executive director and CIO for Royal London Asset Management from 2004 and 2014. Brian Gabriel, Director of Corporate Pensions and Business Solutions at Aviva, and Craig Hunter, Existing Business Commercial Director at Aviva, have also been appointed to the IGC.

Peter Wakkie has resigned from ABN AMRO’s Supervisory Board, where he was Chairman of the Remuneration, Selection and Nomination Committee. He has taken responsibility for the row over the cancelled salary increase for six managing board members, and what the bank said was “the commotion that ensued”. A lawyer, he joined the Supervisory Board in 2009, having been heavily involved in resolving the accounting crisis at retailer Ahold in 2003, it said.

The Banking Standards Board, the new UK body financed by the banking industry to raise standards, has unveiled its new 14-member board, chaired by Dame Colette Bowe. There will be nine non-practitioner and five practitioner members. Non-practitioners include Gillian Guy (Citizens Advice) and Baroness Onora O’Neill (Equalities and Human Rights Commission). Practitioners include James Bardrick (Citibank), Craig Donaldson (Metro Bank), Alison Robb (Nationwide), Antonio Simoes (HSBC). The BSB will take forward the work of the review conducted by former FT Editor Sir Richard Lambert in 2014.

Mark Victor Hansen, founder and co-creator of the ‘Chicken Soup for the Soul’ franchise, has joined the Advisory Board of Principal Solar, the Dallas-based over-the-counter traded solar power firm. Hansen, who gained international recognition for authoring books that sold over 500m copies worldwide, will provide strategic counsel as the Company grows its operations through acquisitions and project development.