RI people moves round-up: April 2010

Former CalPERS and Hermes chief Mark Anson has joined Oak Hill Investment Management, an asset manager for high-net worth and institutional investors, as a managing partner and chair of the investment committee. He joins from Nuveen Investments where he was president and executive director of investment services. Anson is a former CEO of Hermes Pensions Management and chief investment officer at CalPERS. He is a former chairman of the board of the International Corporate Governance Network.
Achim Steiner has been re-appointed for a second four-year term as executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, saying Steiner’s tenure has seen UNEP take a much higher role. Steiner sits on the board of the UN Principles for Responsible Investment.
The United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund is looking for a new Chief Financial Officer, according to a posting on the UN’s job web site. The New York-based role reports to the CEO of the fund and is responsible for the planning, and supervision of all financial accounting and disbursement operations of the Pension Fund secretariat.
Fiona Baxter, a former senior researcher at consulting firm Innovest, has set up her own ESG research venture called Corporate Research Consultants . The new company will provide research to institutions, governments and corporations as well as to financial planners, advisors and individual investors. The company’s first ESG Workshop is set to take place in Toronto this spring.
The board of the PGGM cooperative has appointed Frank de Grave as its new chairman. He succeeds Hans Alders, who resigned on January 1. De Grave is a former chair of the Dutch Care Authority as well as Defence Minister and Secretary of State for Social Affairs. PGGM’s cooperative board is responsible for the identity, mission, view and financial policy frameworks of the cooperative.
The trustees of CalSTRS, the $132.5bn California State Teachers’ Retirement System, have elected Jerilyn Harrisas chair and Harry Keiley as vice-chair for the 2010-11 term. Harris retired from her role as science teacher in 2002 and has been on the Teachers’ Retirement Board since 2005.
Keith Shepherd has been named chief investment officer at Railpen Investments in a restructuring following the appointment of Frank Johnson as managing director. Paul Jeffries and Richard Moon have been promoted to investment manager while Justyna Jonska has been recruited as investment analyst. Joyce Martindale becomes head of investment implementation and change; Ciarán Barr is named chief economist/senior strategist.
Denise Saber, the former head of European institutional business development at Insight Investment, has joined London-based sustainable investing boutique Osmosis Investment Management as Head of Distribution.
Jason Mirsky, head of US banking solutions at RiskMetrics Group, has joined OCE Interactive’s board of advisors. OCE is the developer of Market Topographer, a new web platform for researching, benchmarking and comparing US stock valuations.
Eduard van Gelderen has been named as chief investment officer of the equities platform at APG, the manager of the assets of Dutch civil service pension fund ABP. He’ll have responsibility for emerging and developed markets equities, ESG and Treasury. He will also become a member of the asset management board. He recently worked at ING Investment Management as deputy chief investment officer.
The $1.8bn McKnight Foundation has named Ron Kroese as environment programme director. Kroese has been at the Minneapolis-based foundation since 2005 and is a former executive director of the Minnesota Environmental Partnership.
Bridget Jackson has been named as director of corporate sustainability at accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers. She will lead the firm’s internal environmental, community and corporate sustainability employee engagement strategy and will report to managing partner Richard Collier-Keywood.