RI People & Appointments, Sept. 30: Newton, London CIV, J Safra Sarasin, Nordea, Church Commissioners, UniCredit, GRI, 2 Degrees Investing

Andrew Parry has become Head of Sustainable Investment at Newton Investment Management, part of BNY Mellon. He was formerly at UK fund manager Hermes, where he helmed the Sustainable Investing team. Newton manages £50.1bn (€56.4bn) worth of client assets, £3.3bn (€3.7bn) of which are managed on a “sustainable or ethical basis”.

Mark Thompson has resigned as CIO of London CIV, the £19bn UK local authority pension scheme, less than a month after his high-profile appointment to the role. Thompson, who was previously CIO of HSBC’s €30bn corporate UK pension scheme, said that his exit was not “a reflection of London CIV and its objectives”. The scheme is seeking a “lead on ESG” in the interim according to CEO Mike O’Donnell. This is the second c-suite departure in the UK’s local authority pensions system in recent months after the sudden resignation of Dawn Turner, CEO at the £30bn Brunel Pension Partnership, in July.

Sasja Beslik has been appointed Head of Sustainable Finance Development at J Safra Sarasin Asset Management, the fund management business of private Swiss bank J Safra Sarasin. Beslik was formerly Head of Sustainable Finance at Nordea.

Stefan Henningsson will join the Group Sustainable Finance team at Nordea as Climate Specialist. Henningsson, a former Senior Advisor for Climate Innovation at WWF, will support “Nordea’s sincere commitment to actively contribute to a greener banking industry”.

Adam Boehler has been confirmed by the US Senate as the CEO of the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), the country’s new development finance institution which will consolidate the existing Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) and the Development Credit Authority (DCA) of the US Agency for International Development (USAID). Boehler was CEO of Landmark Health.

Martin Davis is stepping down as CEO of sustainability-focused boutique Kames Kapital, a subsidiary of €318bn Dutch firm Aegon Asset Management, after six years in the role according to reports. CEO duties will be shared between Kames CIO Stephen Jones, who will take over responsibility for the manager’s UK business, and Aegon AM’s newly-appointed CEO, Bas NieuweWeme, who will oversee Kames’ European business in the interim.

Dave Jones, the former Insurance Commissioner for the state of California, has been appointed to the board of climate think tank 2 Degrees Investing Initiative (2DII). Jones collaborated with 2DII in his former role to carry out a scenario analysis of Californian insurer investments, the results of which were released earlier this year. Other new board members include Sue Reid (Ceres), Ilmi Granoff (ClimateWorks Foundation) and Tricia Jamison (a former 2DII Deputy Director); while Clara Vondrich, Director at Divest Invest, and Gabriel Thoumi (Chairman) were reappointed.Olga Hancock and Harry Ashman have joined the Church Commissioners for England’s Corporate Engagement Team as Senior Engagement Analyst and Engagement Analyst respectively. Including a planned future hire, the new appointments will bring the Responsible Investment team total to five. Hancock was previously at law firm Simmons & Simmons while Ashman was at the Capgemini group where he was most recently a sustainability manager.

Antonio Keglevich has been named to head the newly formed Sustainable Finance Advisory Team at Italian banking group UniCredit from his former role as Head of Sustainability Bond Origination. The team will be part of UniCredit’s Corporate & Investment Bank and will work together with the group’s Equator Principles Advisory Team. The bank was joint bookrunner or joint arranger for nearly 13bn worth of green bond transactions in 2018.

Verna Lin will head the China Regional Hub of sustainability reporting standards body the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) as it relocates from Beijing to Hong Kong. Lin is co-chair of the Hong Kong Society of Financial Analysts’ ESG Committee. The Hub will serve organisations across Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau.

Thomas Lammar has been appointed by LuxFLAG, the Grand Duchy’s sustainable fund labelling agency, to the LuxFLAG Microfinance Eligibility Committee. Separately, Vincent Linari-Pierron, a current member of the LuxFLAG Green Bond Eligibility Committee, has been named to the LuxFLAG ESG Eligibility Committee.

Magali Anderson has been named as the first Chief Sustainability Officer of LafargeHolcim, the €25.2bn global building materials manufacturer which resulted from a 2017 merger of Swiss and French rival cement makers. Anderson was previously the firm’s Head of Health & Safety.

James Mwangi has been named to the board of the Skoll Foundation, a California-based foundation investing in social entrepreneurs. Mwangi, an ex-McKinsey consultant, is the Executive Director of the Dalberg Group, a collection of impact-driven businesses.

Tom Harrison has left the Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts, where he was Senior Project and Research Officer, to join the Global Gas and Oil Network, a new network of NGOs around the world working to facilitate a global managed decline of oil and gas production.

Fredrik Magni will join index provider MSCI’s London office as Executive Director and Head for the Nordic Coverage. His manager, Alvise Munari, Managing Director and Head of EMEA said that Nordic investors “have a growing interest in our solutions, particularly our ESG capabilities”.