RI People & Appointments, Feb. 16: Archbishop Welby takes responsible investment advisory role at F&C

Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has joined F&C’s new Responsible Investment Advisory Council as president. Welby chaired the previous Committee of Reference, which advised the F&C Responsible Funds range until the end of 2014. The creation of the council follows the re-launch of F&C’s Responsible Investment capability in 2014. The council is chaired by Howard Pearce, the former Head of Pension Fund Management for the Environment Agency Pension Fund (EAPF). New members of the council include Sedex co-founder Rosey Hurst, the Rainforest Alliance’s Annemieke Wijn, former Norwegian Council on Ethics member Ylva Lindberg and Martin Smith, F&C’s Head of Product Management. “My role and that of the Council’s is to ensure the responsible investment fund range remains true to the spirit of its underlying principles,” said Archbishop Welby.

UBS Global Asset Management has hired Dinah Koehler as its Director, Sustainable Equities, working in its New York office. Koehler was previously Senior Research Manager, Sustainability at Deloitte in New York where she had worked for just over four years. At Deloitte, Koehler’s responsibilities included lead authorship on research papers on ESG measurement and financial valuation impacts.

Martin McAdam has been appointed as a non-executive director of Greencoat UK Wind, the London-listed wind energy investment vehicle. He has spent most of his career in the energy sector, most recently as CEO of Aquamarine Power. Prior to that, he was at Airtricity, where he was President and CEO of the US subsidiary. Link

Steve O’Neil has been named as chief executive of REC Solar ASA, the Oslo-listed solar energy firm, taking from interim CEO Martin Cooper, who took the role in July last year from Øyvind Hasaas. . O’Neil’s most recent position was of US industrial group Tyden. Cooper will resume his Chief Financial Officer position. Announcement

Anne Simpson, Director of Global Governance at CalPERS, James McRitchie of CorpGov.net and Nell Minow (Co-Founder, The Corporate Library; Founder and Former Board Member, GMI Ratings) are among the panellists at the long-awaited Securities and Exchange Commission’s roundtable on proxy voting on February 19. The event will be divided into two panels. The first will focus on contested director elections and universal proxy ballots. The second will look at retail participation in the proxy process.

Terry Ryan has been appointed by Mainstream Renewable Power, the Dublin-based wind and solar developer, as director of finance for its global operations. He was formerly chief financial officer at SIAC, the Ireland-based construction firm. Before that he was CFO at industrial group Glen Dimplex. Link*Newton Investment Management,* the London-based fund manager, has hired Victoria Barron as a Responsible Investment Analyst. Barron joins from Hermes Fund Managers where she was a Utilities sector lead & UK listed extractives leading engagement on corporate governance and climate change.
Barron is a member of the UKSIF analyst committee and was previously Stewardship Projects Manager at CCLA Investment Management.

Swiss private bank Notenstein, which specialises in sustainable investing, has appointed two new executives for its business in Switzerland, Martin Liebi and Roland Heiniger, effective May 1. Liebi is to take over as Head of Private Clients, while Heiniger will head the Berne office. Liebi joins from Schroder & Co., the Swiss subsidiary of UK asset manager Schroders. Since 2008, Heiniger has been Head of Private Banking for the northern and middle parts of Switzerland at Credit Suisse.

Adrian Rimmer has been named as CEO of European Environmental Markets plc, a new environmental commodities exchange platform operator. EEM will provide businesses and financial institutions with “efficient, credible trading platforms” for environmental commodities. Rimmer, former Director of Eco-Markets at ABN Amro/RBS, joins from the Gold Standard Foundation, the Geneva-based international certification body for climate and sustainable development, where he has been CEO since June 2010. EEM has “a number of acquisitions on the horizon” and is the exclusive license holder of the Global Environmental Markets platform in Europe. Link

Simon O’Connor, Chief Executive at the Responsible Investment Association Australasia (RIAA), has been named in the Australian financial trade paper, Financial Standards’ ‘Power 50’, a ranking of influential social media users creating debate on important finance matters.

The Council of Institutional Investors (CII), the US investor body, has congratulated all of the member representatives selected for its Corporate Governance Advisory Council and the brand-new Markets Advisory Council for 2015. All are from nonvoting member organizations and were appointed by the CII Board of Directors. “The Markets Advisory Council’s primary mission is to provide input to the board and staff on legal, financial reporting and investment market trends and recommend speakers and topics for CII events or initiatives,” the body said.

The Association for Sustainable & Responsible Investment in Asia (ASrIA) is looking to expand its team and is hiring an Associate Project Manager, Associate Communications Manager and long-term internships. It comes “in light of the organization’s rapid growth in the region and the numerous and exciting research projects” underway. For further information via email.