RI People & Appointments, July 14: Goldman’s Joffe joins TIAA-CREF as MD of corporate governance

Bess Joffe, who has spent just under four years leading Goldman Sachs’ corporate governance engagement with institutional shareholders as a vice president in investor relations, has joined TIAA–CREF, the $569bn US retirement services provider in the academic, research, medical and cultural fields as managing director of corporate governance. Interestingly for a US fund, the TIAA–CREF governance position will see Joffe move back to London from her current New York base. Prior to joining Goldman Sachs in 2010, Joffe was an associate director at Hermes Equity Ownership Services in the UK. At TIAA–CREF, Joffe will report to Jonathan Feigelson, senior managing director, general counsel and head of corporate governance. She starts her new role on August 4, 2014.

Tuulia Syvänen has been named Chief of Staff at the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the corporate sustainability reporting organization, a new role. She was most recently Executive Operating Officer at Fairtrade International FLO in Germany. In the role she will coordinate strategy development and monitoring, as well as operational management. Announcement

My-Linh Ngo, a former member of the SRI team at Henderson Global Investors that was made redundant back in 2011, has joined BlueBay Asset Management, the London-based fixed income and alternatives specialist, as a Senior ESG Analyst. Ngo will head up Bluebay’s efforts to integrate ESG across its US$63.9bn in global assets. Most recently, Ngo was on contract at Schroders in their RI team coving maternity leave. Meg Brown, a former Director, Climate and Sustainability Research at Citi had been working with BlueBay in an advisory capacity on the design and implementation of a bespoke ESG risk management process, a successfully completed assignment that led BlueBay to the hire of Ngo. Brown is currently dividing her time between a role as UK Liaison at the Global Impact Investing Network and other independent consultancy posts.

Claire Veuthey has set up in San Francisco as a sustainable finance and sales and market development advisor following her departure from Sustainalytics, the ESG research firm, in late April after almost four years with the company. Veuthey had been a Senior Responsible Investment Adviser with Sustainalytics and joined after its takeover of Singapore-based Responsible Research.

Simon Billenness, the shareholder advocacy campaigner who consults to non-profits, corporations, trade unions, and social investment firms on CSR, is currently serving as Interim Executive Director of the US Campaign for Burma, which works for political for freedom in the country. The role is for two months while Jennifer Quigley is on sabbatical.

Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), the governance research firm that’s now owned by private equity firm Vestar Capital Partners, is seeking a Regional Manager, London. The role will be responsible for developing the ISS Corporate Services business in Europe. It’s one a raft of openings on ISS’s careers site.Jean-Baptiste de Franssu, former head of Invesco’s European business and a president of the EFAMA, the European asset management association, has been appointed to run the €5bn Vatican bank. The appointment is part of a major clean-up of the bank, which closed hundreds of accounts under pressure from international anti-money laundering regulators amid concerns about its use as a tax haven. De Franssu is joined on the Vatican bank board Clemens Boersig, chairman of the board of Deutsche Bank Foundation; Mary Ann Glendon, a Harvard Law professor and former US ambassador to the Holy See; and Sir Michael Hintze, Australian-British financier and philanthropist.

Berenike Wiener has been appointed to the Advisory Council for the Global Challenges Index (GCX), the German sustainable equity index, succeeding Burkhard Küstermann. According to the Hanover bourse, which runs the GCX jointly with German ESG research firm Oekom, Küstermann has left the council to take up a professorship at a technical university in east Germany. Wiener comes from the Association for German Foundations where she is an expert on sustainable and mission investing. The GCX’s six-member Council determines which companies qualify as sustainable enough to be included in the 50-member index. Announcement (German):

The vacancy for Secretary to the Ethical Investment Advisory Group (EIAG) of the UK’s church investment bodies has been advertised. The role became vacant with Edward Mason’s appointment to the new role of Head of Responsible Investment at the Church Commissioners. The EIAG provides ethical investment advice to the Church of England’s national investing bodies; the candidate will need a “strong intellect with the ability to understand a wide range 
of subjects including technical material, understanding organisational priorities, the wider social environment and institutional constraints, and how to translate all of these into deliverable and sustainable strategies”.

The International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN), the body whose members represent more than $18trn in assets under management, is seeking a Senior Policy Advisor to promote its “policy initiatives, build relationships with key stakeholders and regulators” and support the work of its policy committees. The role will report to, and work alongside, ICGN Managing Director Kerrie Waring.

The Carbon Trust, the UK organisation which helps accelerate the move to a low carbon economy, is recruiting a Business Development Associate Director for its Carbon Trust Certification subsidiary. “Our plan calls for continued growth to reach a break-even position, and grow internationally,’ the job ad states.

Comic Relief, the charity known for its Red Nose Day and Sport Relief fundraising events, is looking for a Finance Director to report to the Chief Operating Officer, a new role.