PRI board investment manager election candidates: Sandra Carlisle

Main PRI contacts are set to receive an invitation today (September 29) to vote on behalf of their organisation.

CANDIDATE STATEMENT

Title: Head of Responsible Investment
Signatory organisation: Newton
Signatory organisation seconding your candidacy: Standard Life Investment

CANDIDATE STATEMENT
I am standing for election for the asset manager vacancy on the PRI board as a candidate for change. I believe passionately in responsible investment as a means to secure a sustainable long- term financial system that meets the needs of investors. I applaud the PRI’s success in the decade since its launch in raising the awareness of responsible investment in global markets.
I endorse the PRI’s aims and ambitions. I believe that the PRI can continue to act as a force for great good in driving the changes necessary to forge a sustainable financial system. However, I believe that the PRI has lost its way. It needs urgently to redefine its mission and purpose if it is to remain relevant to its global signatory base, who are operating in in increasingly complex financial system. The need for the PRI to represent global responsible investors has never been more acute as we face the consequences of financialisation resulting from the global financial crisis and the threat of runaway climate change.
As a committed RI professional with nearly 30 years’ experience in financial markets, I believe that responsible, long-term, investment is the best means of protecting savings and investments. I have long experience working at global investment banks and investment managers, including JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank, Citi, F&C and Newton. I have extensive knowledge of primary and secondary debt and equity markets and have worked on government privatisation programmes, distressed sovereign and corporate debt restructuring and clean tech and renewable IPO fund raisings. Throughout my career, I have been committed to finding market and investment- based solutions to social, environmental and economic problems. As a PRI board member, I can bring this experience to the PRI to enable the organisation to respond better to the needs of its diverse signatory base, including RI market leaders and signatories starting out on their RI journey. I commit to represent all signatories equally without fear and without favour.
I am a passionate believe in social justice. I believe that all investment has impact and that investment can be harnessed to provide positive social outcomes that deliver appropriate risk- adjusted returns for investors. In my role as EMEA lead on the BNY Mellon Social Finance Advisory Group, I am working actively with my colleagues to develop a social finance proposition to enable BNY Mellon to play a meaningful social finance role as the investments company for the world. Link*BIOGRAPHY*

• Almost 30 years financial market experience in major global investment banks, including JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank and Citi as well as at leading responsible investors, F&C ( now BMO)
  and Newton
• 3 decades experience in fixed income, privatisations, distressed sovereign and corporate debt restructuring, equity capital markets and global equity markets
• At JPMorgan from 1986-1992 I was a founding member of the global distressed debt unit. I worked on the Mexican Brady Bond deal and other innovative sovereign debt restructurings. I was part of the capital markets team which re-opened the debt markets for corporate Mexican borrowers in 1992. We won IFR deal of the year in 1992. Worked on the privatisation of the Argentine state-owned telecoms operator
• First female managing director appointed in Citi’s Global Markets and Banking division, EMEA in 2000
• Set up global SRI investment research team at Citi in 2005. No 1 Extel –rated team from 2005-2008 for SRI and long-term thematic research
• At Citi, brought to the market several clean tech and renewable energy companies, including Chinese and Indian issuers
• PR and strategic communications experience gained at global corporate communications consultancy, Brunswick. I set up the climate change and sustainability practice in 2009. In that role I advised several leading multinationals, including Chinese, Japanese and Latam corporates on their CSR and sustainability strategies. Contributing author to the Brunswick Review on climate change and CSR issues
• Longstanding advocate of gender diversity as a business issue. Co-founder in 2000 of Citiwomen, Citi’s global diversity network for female employees. Citiwomen won an Opportunity Now Business in the Community award in 2000
• Newton lead, 30% Club Investor Group
• Visiting academic fellow, Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford
• EMEA lead for BNY Mellon Social Finance Advisory Group
• Working group member, Investment Association, Human Capital Reporting Working Group