Pat Cleary has been elected Chair of the Merseyside Pensions Committee – which administers the £9bn (€10bn) local authority Merseyside Pension Fund – replacing Paul Doughty, who lost his seat in the recent UK local elections. Cleary is the first Green party councillor to hold this position. He has pledged to reduce the fund’s exposure to carbon and increase investments in the local green economy.
Dr Renée Friedman has joined Responsible Investor as Head of Events & Strategic Content, and Elza Holmstedt Pell has joined as Events Leader & Strategic Content, as RI builds out its successful RI Conferences division.
Renée was most recently a managing editor at The Economist Group. She has experience across a range of sectors and roles: in economic and political risk consulting; in finance as an economist, macro strategist and bond fund manager; in the UK and international policy spheres as an economist to the Treasury Select Committee and as senior economist and chief technical advisor for the UN Development Programme’s (UNDP) Regional Bureau for Europe and the CIS; and as an academic, designing and teaching economics courses at universities across London. She is an experienced speaker and moderator having appeared at events and workshops including those for The Economist Group, BNE Intellinews, IHS Global Insight, and the UNDP.
Elza was previously a freelance journalist and conference producer for three years, covering sustainable finance, renewable energy, infrastructure finance, energy law and policy and M&A and organising sustainable finance events in Europe, the US and Asia. She has worked as a senior reporter covering renewable energy for infrastructure finance news service Inframation and covered the Nordic M&A market for Mergermarket. She started her career as a journalist and assistant editor at Environmental Finance.
Hugh Wheelan, Co-founder and Managing Director at Responsible Investor, said: “We are extremely pleased that two talented and committed professionals like Renée and Elza have joined the RI Conferences team as we build out our highly-respected, content-driven events.”
Cyrus Taraporevala and Henry Fernandez, the CEOs of State Street Global Advisors and MSCI, have been appointed to the New York Stock Exchange’s Board Advisory Council.
Katarina Staaf has been named Managing Director of Sjätte AP-fonden (AP6), the SEK34.7bn (€3.3bn) Swedish pension buffer fund investing in private assets. Staaf is a portfolio manager with a background in unlisted investments and has worked at Swedish financial groups Skandia Liv and SEB.
Patsy Doerr has re-joined Credit Suisse, in the role of Global Head of Diversity and Inclusion, from Thomson Reuters where she led on Corporate Responsibility, Sustainability & Inclusion.
Joaquín Garralda has been elected President of Spainsif, Spain’s sustainable investment network. Garralda is a Dean of Academic Affairs and Professor of Strategy and CSR at the IE Business School. He replaces Jaime Silos, the President since 2015.
Peter Montagnon, the former Financial Times journalist turned governance expert, has died, according to the Institute of Business Ethics where he was associate director.
Charles Tilley has been appointed interim CEO of the International Integrated Reporting Council, taking over from Richard Howitt, who has stepped down. Tilley’s involvement with the IIRC dates back to its inception, and he chaired the Technical Task Force that developed the International Integrated Reporting Framework in 2013.Phil Vernon is stepping down as CEO of Australian Ethical Investment, the Sydney-listed fund manager. Vernon has been in the role for nine years, during which time funds under management have grown from A$600m (€370m) to more than $3bn. He departs on August 31 and chairman Steve Gibbs, a long-time sustainable investment figure who was on the steering committee which developed what became the Principles for Responsible Investment, will be Acting CEO until a permanent successor is found.
NN Investment Partners’ former Senior Portfolio Manager of Impact Investment and Sustainable Equities, Willem Schramade, has set up his own consultancy, Sustainable Finance Factory, to advise firms and investors on how to “make societal value more visible”. He retains his role as guest research at the Rotterdam School of Management, at Erasmus University.
Chris Wigley, a Mirova portfolio manager specialising in Green and ESG bonds, has left the firm to take up a similar role in an unnamed Paris-based house. Wigley managed Mirova’s Green Bond Fund and previously served as a consultant for the UK’s Green Investment Bank.
Chris Kaminker has left his position at Swedish financial group SEB as Head of Climate & Sustainable Finance Research to “join the buy-side as an investor” in London, according to SEB’s bimonthly Green Bond investor report. The bank’s sustainability research will now be overseen by Thomas Thygesen, Head of Cross Asset Strategy.
Jean-Aymon Massie, Founder and President of the French Corporate Governance Association (AFGE), passed away last month due to a brain tumour. He founded AVAS, the first employee shareholder association in the country.
Tamara Heddeger will take over as Managing Director of Swiss responsible investment body SVVK–ASIR. She is a former ESG Product Manager at Thomson Reuters and managed client relationships at Sustainalytics prior to that. Her predecessor, Jacqueline Oh, who has led the organisation since it was founded in 2015 by four pension funds, announced she was stepping down earlier this year to “pursue other career interests”.
Jane Stevensen, the former MD at the CDSB, the Climate Disclosure Standards Board, has been appointed to the Board of Levin Sources, a governance consultancy for the minerals sector.
Margaret Franklin has been appointed CEO of the CFA Institute, the professional development organisation.
Andrew Parry has reportedly left his role as Head of Sustainable Investing at Hermes after a decade with the UK fund manager. Leon Kamhi, the fund manager’s head of responsibility, would be taking on Parry’s responsibilities while Parry pursues a “new opportunity”.
Casper von Koskull is stepping down as President and Group CEO of Nordea by the end of 2020.
Project Heather, the proposed impact-oriented Scottish stock exchange, has named Helen Webster as Chief Operating Officer. She moves from Aberdeen Standard, where she was CEO of Aberdeen Life and Head of Governance, UK and Ireland. Elaine Morton becomes Chief Regulatory and Compliance Officer, joining from Sainsbury’s Bank.
The McKnight Foundation, the philanthropic organization based in Minneapolis, has hired Funlola Otukoya as an investment analyst specializing in ESG and impact investing.
LGPS Central, one of eight UK local authority pension pools, is seeking an Analyst for its Responsible Investment & Engagement team for a three to 12 month paid internship.
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