RI People & Appointments, July 10: SocGen appoints Head of Sustainable Bonds as Weinberger takes Americas role

The latest ESG movers & shakers.

Jonathan Weinberger, who formerly headed up green and social bonds for Societe Generale in his role as Head of Capital Markets Engineering, has been named the bank’s new Head of Debt Capital Markets for the Americas. He replaces Andrew Menzies and will move from London to New York. Weinberger’s position will be filled by Julien Brune and Arnaud Mezrahi, formerly co-heads of hybrid structuring, who will continue to focus partly on green bonds and other new product development in their role. However, the bank has appointed a dedicated Head of Sustainable Bonds too. Stéphane Marciel, previously Head of Sovereigns, Local Authorities for CEEMEA (Central Eastern Europe Middle East & Africa), will be based in Paris and will work closely with the Environmental and Social Advisory and Positive Impact Finance teams to develop Societe Generale’s sustainable financing offering.

Katherine O’Regan has been named chair of Australia’s Local Government Super (LGS). O’Regan, an existing Director, succeeds Craig Peate, following the conclusion of his successful two-year term. Peate continues as a Director and will remain on the Board as Deputy Chair. LGS Acting CEO, Donna Heffernan, said: “This appointment is great news for LGS on two fronts. Not only will our members continue to benefit from Katherine’s wealth of local government and financial services knowledge and experience, but we are also delighted to announce our first female Chair.” Announcement

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board has announced a series of senior executive appointments. Neil Beaumont joins as Senior Managing Director & Chief Financial and Risk Officer, taking over from Benita Warmbold who will retire. He was most recently Vice President, Finance Minerals America, BHP Billiton. Graeme Eadie will step back from his role as Global Head of Real Assets effective July 15. Ed Cass is appointed Senior Managing Director & Global Head of Real Assets. Geoffrey Rubin is appointed Senior Managing Director & Chief Investment Strategist.

UBS Wealth Management has appointed a new Global Head of Alternatives & Syndicate Distribution who will take responsibility for the firm’s sustainable investing work. Bryan Crawford will be based in Hong Kong, but will oversee UBS Wealth Management’s global distribution for hedge funds, private equity, real estate and sustainable investment, it said. Existing Head of Sustainable Investing Advisory, Karsten Guettler, who is based in Zurich, will report to Crawford. Crawford will also head the syndicate business, which will work with UBS Investment Bank on public equity and debt capital markets transactions.

Fatoumata Bouare, Director Risk Management at the Bank of Africa Group, has been appointed Chief Risk & Finance Officer at Dutch Development Bank FMO. Bouare will succeed Jürgen Rigterink, who had temporarily taken on the Chief Risk & Finance Officer responsibilities in addition to his role as FMO’s CEO. Bouare will take up her new role from October 2017.Georg Kell, former Head of the UN Global Compact, has been named Chairman at UK specialist ESG quant fund manager Arabesque – where he has served as a member of the firm’s Advisory Board for two years. He succeeds Harvard academic Robert Eccles in the role. Kell served as founding Executive Director of the United Nations Global Compact, the world’s largest voluntary corporate sustainability initiative, for 15 years.

Low-carbon index and research firm ET Index has appointed two former HSBC executives as Senior Vice Presidents: Joaquim de Lima, former Global Head of Quantitative Research at HSBC, joins as SVP, Indexing Strategies. He will be responsible for creating the world’s first global macro quantitative climate framework. And, Vijay Sumon joins as SVP, Product Development from HSBC, where he served as Global Head of Indexation Research. Both de Lima and Sumon focused on climate change research and tools while at HSBC. ET Index is co-chaired by former UK Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Chris Huhne and James Cameron, the co-founder of Climate Change Capital.

Charles Perry, co-founder of UK sustainability advisory firm SecondNature (now Anthesis Group), has been named as Tomorrow’s Company’s new Chief Executive – succeeding founder Mark Goyder at the ‘social good’ think tank. Tomorrow’s Company convenes business leaders, the investor community, policymakers and NGOs to develop practical solutions that create long-term sustainable business.

Giuseppe Vegas, of Italy’s market regulator CONSOB, has become a member of the Management Board of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the body which aims to enhance investor protection and promote stable and orderly financial markets. He takes over from Gérard Rameix, of France’s Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF).

After holding its annual members’ meeting in June, Spainsif has reshuffled its governing board. The presidency remains with Jaime Silos from CSR association Forética. Five vice-presidencies have been selected, representing financial institutions, asset managers, service providers and academia, NGOs and trade unions. They are: Grupo Cooperativo Cajamar (a group comprising 20 savings institutions), Fonditel (Telefonica’s pension fund), Instituto de Empresa Business School, Ocopen (a not-for-profit association of pensions consultancy firms) and Comisiones Obreras (the largest Spanish trade union by members). Meanwhile, Novethic, the French research group, has joined Spainsif becoming its 60th member.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) is seeking an Agricultural Economist for its Projects Directorate (PJ) – Environment & Sustainable Territorial Development Department (ETD) at its headquarters in Luxembourg. The main area of responsibility will be the wider primary sector value added chain (mainly agriculture/horticulture, agri-food, irrigation, forestry/forest industries) and also bioeconomy, as well as related commercial services.