RI People & Appointments, June 10: Natural Capital Declaration project manager named

Liesel van Ast has been appointed Project Manager of the Natural Capital Declaration (NCD), the global initiative that commits banks, investors and insurers to integrating natural capital considerations into financial products. The NCD said she was formerly Senior Analyst with Trucost, the environmental data researcher, which is now supporting the NCD. Other supporters include: Dutch development institution FMO, First Green Bank, TEEB for Business Coalition and the Association for Sustainable & Responsible Investment in Asia (ASrIA). Link

Emma Davies, former Chief Investment Officer at Big Society Capital, has joined the £14.5bn (€17bn) Wellcome Trust as an investment manager. She has taken on responsibility for part of the Trust’s directly managed equity portfolio. She previously ran the London office of hedge fund group Perry Capital, before helping to set up Big Society Capital, the trust said.

Jackie Ballard has stepped down as CEO at Womankind Worldwide, the international human rights charity. Ballard joined from Action on Hearing Loss last September. The charity, which is dedicated to raising the status of women, has also advertised a vacancy for Chair of its Trustee Board. Link

Four new corporate members have joined the board of CSR Europe, the European corporate responsibility body. They are Marina Migliorato (Enel), Annemarie Muntz (Randstad) and Åsa Pettersson (Vattenfall) and Serdar Dinler (CSR Turkey). Celia Moore (IBM) was re-elected as chair for another two years. Announcement*Vicky Bowman has been appointed* as Director of the new Myanmar Centre for Responsible Business, an initiative of the Institute for Human Rights and Business (IHRB) and the Danish Institute for Human Rights (DIHR). The centre is currently being established in Yangon; Bowman is a former British diplomat fluent in Burmese. Link

The Coalition for Universities for Responsible Investing (CURI), which provides a forum for dialogue on socially and environmentally responsible investing among Canadian universities, has recruited some new team members. They are Mavis Chan, Edith Wambayi, Irene Parvin and Stéfanie Fréel. CURI said: “Our new colleagues will assist CURI in fulfilling ambitious plan for fundraising, communications and research.” The coalition is set to launch its Benchmark Report, what’s claimed to be the first comprehensive study of Canadian universities’ RI policies and practices.

Richard Pennycook and Richard Pym have respectively been named Group Finance Director and chairman at the UK’s Co-operative Bank. The former joins from supermarkets company Morrisons, where he was FD. Pym is the former CEO at Alliance & Leicester, who currently chairs UK Asset Resolution. He succeeds Paul Flowers, who is stepping down.

Joji Cariño has taken over as director of the Forest Peoples Programme, the UK-based advocacy group. She succeeds Marcus Colchester, who remains as Senior Policy Advisor.

A Low Carbon Finance Policy Adviser is being sought by consulting firm E3G in London, reporting to its Programme Leader Low Carbon Finance. Link