ESG Investor’s weekly round-up of moves and appointments in the sustainable investing sector, including the ISSB, Hymans Robertson, 2DII, ACA Group, Edison, UKSIF and Util.
The IFRS Foundation Trustees have appointed Jeffrey Hales, SASB Standards Board Chair and Accounting Professor at University of Texas, and Michael Jantzi, Value Reporting Foundation Board Director and Sustainalytics founder and former CEO, as members of the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) members, effective July 2022. Their appointments make the ISSB quorate. Hales has served as Chair of the SASB Standards Board since 2018. He is also a professor of accounting at the University of Texas in Austin, US, focused on reporting standards, regulation and behavioral finance. Hales was previously a member of the Climate Disclosure Standard Board, now consolidated into the IFRS Foundation. Jantzi has 30 years’ experience in responsible investment and sustainable finance. He joins the ISSB from Morningstar, where he currently serves as Managing Director of ESG Strategy, having founded and led Sustainalytics, an ESG research and ratings firm acquired by Morningstar in 2020. Jantzi currently serves on the Board of Directors of the VRF and of the Principles for Responsible Investment. Hales’ role will be part time, while Jantzi’s role is full time. Both will be based at the IFRS Foundation’s ISSB office in Montreal. The appointments bring the ISSB’s membership to eight, which allows the ISSB to operate. In the next several weeks, the Trustees will complete the ISSB’s full membership with appropriate balance and diversity of expertise and geographies around the world. They currently plan to announce further appointments in July, with a goal to reach the full complement of 14 members during the third quarter of 2022.
UK-based pensions and financial services consultants Hymans Robertson has appointed three new members to its Responsible Investment (RI) team. RI Analyst Rachel Barrack has previously worked for Copylab and in her new role will be working with one of the RI team’s largest clients and aiding their RI agenda. Mhairi Gooch has joined as Senior RI Consultant and will lead on net-zero, with her appointment following the firm joining the Net-Zero Consultants Initiative in 2021. Gooch joins from River and Mercantile having previously spent the majority of her career at Mercer. Olivia Mooney joins as RI Consultant from the Principles for Responsible Investment and will be the stewardship lead in the team. She will support clients in developing their own approaches to stewardship and will increase Hymans Robertson’s RI engagement with third parties. Simon Jones, Hymans Robertson’s Head of Responsible Investment, said: “Our clients increasingly want to be effective in their actions and be clear on the outcomes they are helping achieve. Our growing team, bolstered with additional expert support from the wider business, allows us to support our clients in achieving these ambitions.”
2° Investing Initiative (2DII) France, a branch of the independent non-profit think tank, has appointed Hélène Lanier as managing director. Lanier has 15 years of experience in regulation and the finance industry, specialising in European decision-making mechanisms and strategic issues for the financial sector. She joins the 15-person 2DII team which focuses on legacy and emerging research streams, which has been operating in France for nearly ten years. Lanier said: “Working for 2DII is a great chance to promote impacting projects and collaborate with engaged and passionate people. I am committed to consolidating existing relationship and developing new cooperation schemes with private and public partners. The objective is to foster awareness of emerging climate and nature-related issues for the financial sector and accelerate implementation of robust tools and methodologies”.
ACA Group, a risk and compliance-focused finance sector consultancy, has announced the appointment of Marie Luchet as Managing Director of ESG. Luchet has 20 years of experience in the industry, previously serving as the Director of Continental Europe with Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI). In that role, she was responsible for overseeing the design and implementation of PRI’s European strategy, including assisting investors in implementing ESG integration practices for various investment strategies and asset classes and tailoring market strategies for PRI’s ESG and climate outputs. Luchet also previously served at ECOFI Investments where she was Head of Responsible Investments, with responsibilities including designing and implementing the ESG integration strategy for listed equity and fixed income portfolios, as well as creating the investment products’ ESG reporting. Dan Mistler, AC’s Head of ESG Advisory, said: “We see the ESG market changing, and Marie’s expertise and leadership will help ACA’s clients stay ahead of the curve, particularly in drawing on her first-hand experience in global best practices for ESG integration.”
Investment research and advisory company Edison Group has appointed James d’Ath as Director of ESG. D’Ath has nearly 30 years of experience in investments and international equity markets, working as Barclays Wealth, ING and ICAP. In 2016 he founded Sustainix, an independent research and analytics consultancy aimed at advising and supporting financial services companies in incorporating climate conscious and sustainable investment principles in their investment and engagement practices. At Sustainix, d’Ath focused on research products and modelling, as well as aiding organisations in understanding and navigating TCFD guidance. In his new role he will be responsible for helping to drive Edison’s expanding range of ESG solutions for clients, commercialising the need for firms to accurately measure and disclose their climate related financial information. Fraser Thorne, Edison’s CEO, said: “We are delighted to welcome James to Edison as we continue to bolster our business-critical ESG offering. An expert in the field, James’ extensive experience across finance and sustainability will ensure we continue to enhance our growing ESG solutions services in line with unprecedented demand from the industry.”
Michael Meehan has stepped down as Chair of the UK Sustainable Investment and Finance Association (UKSIF). Meehan had been in the role for three years, and during his tenure UKSIF had recruited James Alexander as Chief Executive, increased membership numbers to nearly 300 and enhanced the firm’s events programme and participation in regulatory advice. Meehan said: “As my business and family interests move towards Canada, the time is right for a new Chair to take the helm at UKSIF. The new Chair joins the organisation at a great time for the sustainable finance agenda and a period of immense growth and development for UKSIF with a revitalised Board, CEO and staff team and substantial growth in UKSIF’s membership, influence and programmes”. UKSIF aims to bring together the UK’s sustainable finance and investment community to promote the sector, representing nearly 300 members, managing over £10 trillion in assets under management, including investment managers, pension funds, banks, financial advisers, research providers and NGOs.
Sustainable investment-focused British fintech firm Util has hired Mike Goynes as its new Chief Technology Officer. Util is actively looking to expand into the US market, and the hiring of Goynes brings experience of the sector from his role as Chief Data Officer of the US$1 billion valued supply chain risk firm Interos. In his previous role Goynes created and led multi-discipline engineering teams and held design technical infrastructure that provides risk data to over two billion supply chains and hundreds of millions of organisations. Prior to this, Goynes was Vice President at Optoro, a circular economy company awarded Enterprise of the Year by the World Economic Forum. Patrick Wood Uribe, Util’s CEO, said: “Mike joins Util at a pivotal moment for our company and for the sustainable investment industry broadly. As it reaches maturity, there’s growing demand for rigorous ‘greenwash-proof’ impact data across global markets, with the US catching up to Europe.”
