RI People & Appointments, Nov. 21: top asset management exec joins BSkyB board

Martin Gilbert, founder and chief executive of UN Principles for Responsible Investment signatory Aberdeen Asset Management, has been nominated to the board of satellite broadcaster BSkyB. Gilbert, and Matthieu Pigasse, CEO of Lazard France, will take over as independent non-executive directors as of the company’s annual general meeting on November 29. They replace David Evans and Allan Leighton who are retiring. It’s significant because of the focus on BSkyB Chairman James Murdoch over the phone hacking scandal. Announcement

Oekom, the Munich-based ESG research house has appointed Julia Haake as Director of its Paris office. Haake was formerly Director of Corporate Partnerships and Business Relations at WWF France.
Monique Barbut is stepping down as chief executive of the Global Environment Facility, the international climate change body, at the end of her second three-year term. “I am content that we have everything in place to find a new CEO worthy of this Council,” she told a meeting earlier this month.

Tomas Otterström has stepped down from his role as deputy chief executive of Helsinki-based green investment manager GreenStream Network, according to a report in Carbon Finance. He no longer appears as a member of the firm’s management team on its website. GreenStream, which has €140m in assets under management, is a founding member of the Finnish Sustainable Investment Forum, Finsif.David Smith, the former head of Asia excluding Japan research at proxy firm Institutional Shareholder Services, has been named head of corporate governance, Asia, at Aberdeen Asset Management.
Andrika Boshyk, the former Assistant Director of Canada’s Social Investment Organization (SIO), has set up her own firm, The Boshyk Group, consulting on socially responsible investment (SRI) and corporate social responsibility (CSR).

Walter van Damme has been named CEO of Kardan Water International Group, the Chinese water infrastructure subsidiary of Dutch real estate firm Kardan. He takes over from Iris Arbel, who will remain within the Kardan Group “to take on a new challenge”.

The Carbon Disclosure Project, the emissions disclosure initiative backed by 551 institutional investors, has advertised two senior level job vacancies. They are: Manager, Investor Engagement, North America and Director of CDP South America, Sao Paulo. The deadline for applications is December 1 and November 30 respectively.

The Church Commissioners, the manager of the Church of England’s £5bn portfolio, is looking for a Chief Operating Officer. The new role reports to the Director of Investments and will be “critical to the continuous operational improvement of this multi-asset investment portfolio”.

The United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund is recruiting a Chief of Operations. The New York-based post is in the Investment Management Division (IMD) of the $43.4bn (€32.3bn) fund. Link