RI People & Appointments, Oct. 8: Winners of Moskowitz Prize for SRI named

Elroy Dimson, emeritus professor of finance at the London Business School, Oğuzhan Karakaş, assistant professor at Carroll School of Management, Boston College, and Xi Li, assistant professor at Temple University’s Fox School of Business, have been awarded the 2012 Moskowitz Prize for Socially Responsible Investing. They won for their paper “Active Ownership” which examined intensive shareholder engagements on environmental, social, and governance issues from 1999 to 2009. Their findings suggest that CSR activism creates shareholder value, consistent but in a different scale compared with traditional shareholder activism or hedge fund activism.

Katie Gordon will join fund management firm CCLA as Director, Responsible Investment & Stewardship in early November, according to UKSIF, the UK Sustainable Finance Association. Gordon was previously at Cazenove, where she was manager of SRI. James Corah is promoted to Deputy Head of Ethical & Responsible Investment at the firm. CCLA specialises in investment management for charities, faith organisations, and local authorities.

David Walker has joined US sustainable funds firm Trillium Asset Management as a research analyst. He was most recently a financial advisor with UBS Financial Services’ Boston office. He has spent most of this career at Van Kampen Funds in Houston; his last position at Van Kampen was as Senior Portfolio Manager of the Van Kampen Technology Fund/Morgan Stanley Technology Fund. Link

John Devine, the former Global Chief Operating Officer at Threadneedle Investments, has been named as a non-executive director of fund firm Standard Life Investments. SLI has £74.3bn (€92bn) in assets under management.

David Blumer has resigned as Chief Investment Officer at UN Principles for Responsible Investment signatory Swiss Re. Blumer joined the reinsurance giant in 2008 from Credit Suisse, as head of Asset Management. A successor will be announced “in due course”. Announcement*Former UK Treasury Minister Paul Myners* has been appointed a director of Ecofin Water & Power Opportunities, the London-listed utility, infrastructure, alternative energy and environmental investment management firm sectors. He will sit on Ecofin’s audit and management engagement committees. Ecofin was founded in 1992; its principal officers are: Bernard Lambilliotte, Chief Investment Officer; Chairman John Murray; and Vincent Barnouin, chief operating officer, Business Development & Marketing. Myners is also a partner at activist fund firm Cevian.

Vanina Laurent-Ledru, Director of Corporate Responsibility at drugs firm Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD), and Eckhard Koch, Director of BASF’s Sustainability Center, have stepped down from the board of CSR Europe, the European business network for corporate social responsibility. They have been replaced by senior executives from their respective companies: Karin Bernadotte, Executive Director Public Policy at MSD and Thorsten Pinkepak, head of corporate sustainability relations at BASF.

Former UK pensions minister Lord Hutton has joined the National Association of Pension Funds’ Retirement Policy Council. Kerrin Rosenberg, CEO at advisory firm Cardano Risk Management, and John Walbaum, Partner at consultants Hymans Robertson, both join the NAPF’s Investment Council.

Laurence Fink, chairman, CEO and founder of asset management giant BlackRock, has been elected to the board of the Robin Hood Foundation, the New York City anti-poverty group. Link

The National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI), the US trade body, has named Hulus Alpay as its 2013 chairman. Alpay is vice president, investor relations at Nasdaq-listed Medidata Solutions; he will succeed ARCA Biopharma’s Derek Cole.

Campaign group Fair Pensions is seeking a new trustee to act as treasurer in a voluntary capacity. The deadline for applications is October 19. Link