ESG Investor’s weekly round-up of new hires in the sustainable investing sector.
First Sentier Investors (FSI) has hired Sophie Durham in the newly-created role of ESG Director of its direct infrastructure team. Durham will be part of the FSI asset management team and will also lead the ESG due diligence around transactions and investor engagement on ESG issues and reporting. She will support the implementation of ESG best practice in all companies across the portfolio. Durham joins from Kosmos Energy, an oil and gas exploration and production company.
AXA Investment Management has strengthened its responsible investing capabilities with two new hires. Effective from March 1, Virginie Derue will be heading up RI Research and focusing on key themes such as biodiversity, climate, diversity and human capital. Clémence Humeau will be leading RI Coordination and Governance and will be responsible for transversal RI projects and corporate governance, including voting policy on the aforementioned key themes. Both Derue and Humeau will report to Gilles Moëc, Head of Research at AXA IM and AXA Group’s Chief Economist. “We are convinced that embedding RI activities within our investment platforms while benefitting from strong industry experts to showcase our leadership in research and active ownership is a winning combination to further accelerate on RI,” said Marco Morelli, Executive Chairman of AXA IM.
Roland Rott has been appointed Head of ESG & Sustainable Investment Research at La Française Group. Rott will lead all sustainable investment research and engagement activities with a team of five ESG analysts at the firm’s research department. He is also responsible for ESG data and methodologies, steering of ESG change projects, participating in ESG product development and marketing across group entities. Rott will continue to work in close collaboration with Laurent Jacquier-Laforge, Global Head of Sustainable Investing, to define and implement the group’s ESG strategy. Jacquier-Laforge commented: “Roland’s contribution will be instrumental for successfully transforming La Française Asset Management’s open-ended funds to a 100% sustainable product range by end of 2022.”
Michal Nachmany joins the network of specialist advisory firm Chronos Sustainability as Specialist for Climate Policy, providing consultancy advice on the firm’s responsible investment and climate change programmes. Nachmany is a research specialist on data and evidence-based decision making on global climate legislation, policy and the low carbon transition. Previously, in her academic career at the London School of Economics and Political Science, she led the development of Climate Change Laws of the World, a global climate change law database. Nachmany is also the founder of Climate Policy Radar, a project to map and analyse the global climate policy landscape to support evidence-based policymaking and investment and drive the low carbon transition.
Lindsay Smart has been named Head of Sustainability at Triple Point, an alternative asset manager supporting small to medium-sized businesses. Prior to this, Smart worked at impact investment bank ClearlySo, where she was Head of Impact Research and Innovation, and also at ESG research and service provider Vigeo Eiris.
