TIM CURRELL
Principal Investment Consultant
Aon Hewitt
Tim is a principal investment consultant and divides his time between Aon Hewitt London and Leeds offices. He has been an investment consultant since 2000 and advises pension fund clients on a full range of investment issues. Tim heads up Aon Hewitt’s policy and research in corporate governance and sustainable investment.
Aon Hewitt has a long history in the understanding of, and support of, what we now refer to as ‘Sustainable Investment’. For example, we helped to found the Marathon Club (“Investing as if the long term really mattered”) and were heavily involved from the earliest stages of the UN PRI.
Our philosophy is that sustainable investment issues are of vital importance to all long-term investors. As a result, we continually look for ways to integrate sustainable investment into all aspects of our mainstream service to clients including manager evaluation, risk and portfolio monitoring, asset allocation and asset ownership.
PAUL TODD
Head of Investment Policy
National Employment Savings Trust
Paul leads on NEST’s responsible investment approach, fund choice development, investment proposition, and how member analysis drives the investment solution.
He was previously seconded from the DWP to the European Commission as national expert on pensions and social security.
Prior to this Paul was Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and head of office for the Minister of State for Pensions, following time in the DWP with responsibility for occupational and private pensions policy development – including leading on the development of the Pensions Protection Fund.
ALED JONES
Non-Executive Director
UK Sustainable Investment & Finance Association
Aled Jones has worked in the fund management and pensions industries for over a decade, focusing on responsible investment. He began his career as an analyst before moving on to fund management, working in the SRI teams of Jupiter and F&C. In 2007 Aled moved to the asset owner side of the market working for the Pensions Protection Fund and most recently the London Pensions Fund Authority as the in-house expert on RI & ESG issues. Since 2008 Aled has served as a non-executive director on the Board of the UK sustainable investment and finance association (UKSIF).
DAVID RUSSELL
Co-Head of Responsible Investment
Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) Ltd
David Russell is Co-Head of Responsible Investment for the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) Ltd. USS has a Responsible Investment (RI) team of five and an RI strategy which focuses on integrating extra financial factors into its investment processes across asset classes, and on engaging with companies and other assets were these issues pose a risk to the fund’s investments.
David is a Steering Committee member of the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC), and also a Board member of the PRI Association. He is also on the British Venture Capital Association Responsible Investment Advisory Board, and Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors Valuation Sustainability Group.
David has previously worked as an Environmental Manager for a UK retail company, and was for five years a University lecturer in Environmental Management.
DOMINIC SCRIVEN, OBE
Chief Executive Officer
Dragon Capital Group Limited
Dominic is British and graduated in 1985 from Exeter University, in Law and Sociology. During more than twenty years in investment, he has worked in Europe and Asia, and for public UK, US and Chinese firms. He enrolled in Hanoi University in 1992, and two years later in 1994, co-founded Dragon Capital. Dragon Capital has an asset base of around $1bn, and invests across the Vietnamese economy. The company is a core developmental shareholder in VFM, Vietnam’s first domestic fund manager; and also HSC, the securities arm of the HCMC provincial government. A Vietnamese speaker, he sits on a number of boards including five public companies. He was awarded an OBE in 2006, and pursues external interests ranging from art and propaganda, to conservation and sustainability.
DONALD MACDONALD
Director of the Trustee Board
BT Pension Scheme
Donald MacDonald was enormously privileged to enjoy four exciting years as
Chair of the Board for PRI, during which period the Signatory base grew by a factor of almost eight, with the organisation becoming a significant global driver for improved investor behaviours. He believes that the commitment and leadership of the PRI Board, and the enthusiasm and determination of the PRI Secretariat and staff, have carved out a unique role and a solid base for PRI and its Signatories within the investment industry.
He retired from the Board of PRI in December 2010, and although no longer formally linked with PRI, he continues to be an advocate for PRI and for improved standards of stewardship to be exercised by asset owners and managers. Drawing from the experiences of PRI, he believes that new forms of collaborative responsible investment vehicles will be well positioned to meet the century’s strategic sustainability challenges in carbon reduction, water, energy, food and wood, transport and infrastructure.
With a background in the UK telecommunications industry and the trade union movement, Donald MacDonald lives in Scotland, is married, and has three adult children, and four grandchildren. Formerly a keen climber, his main hobby is now trying to repair things that he has accidentally broken while sailing a small yacht on the west coast of Scotland.
EBBA SCHMIDT
UK Pension Protection Fund
Ebba Schmidt leads the implementation of the UK Pension Protection Fund’s responsible investment strategies across all asset classes. She is also working on building the Fund’s sustainable investment portfolio. She is on the Board of the Network for Sustainable Financial Markets, and chairs the PRI Fixed Income work stream. She was part of the group that developed the International Corporate Governance Network’s (ICGN’s) model mandates for fund manager contracts.
Prior to joining the PPF, she was a consultant at PIRC (the corporate governance advisors). She also worked on the analysis and quantification of environmental impacts, e.g. carbon footprints, at Trucost (the environmental data provider).
She has an M.Sc. in Geophysics and researched paleo climate change in the Arctic and Antarctic. She then worked in oil and gas exploration, and ran a management fast track programme at a multi-national oilfield services company.
JEANETT BERGAN
KLP
Jeanett Bergan is heading KLPs work with Responsible Investment and Active Ownership. She has more than 12 years experience in the field, working both in practice with policy development and implementation, analyses, advisory and audit. She is responsible for KLPs responsible investments and active ownership activities and to further develop KLPs leading position as a responsible investor.
She holds a Bachelor Degree in Economics and Administration from the Norwegian School of Management.
KLP is one of Norway’s largest life insurance companies with total assets of NOK 240 billion. The company provides pension, financing and insurance services to the local government sector and the state health enterprises as well as to businesses both in the public and the private sectors.
SEAN KIDNEY
Co-Founder & Chair
Climate Bonds Initiative
Sean serves as a member of the UK Government’s Capital Markets Climate Initiative and a steering committee member of the TransformUK business/NGO coalition, pushing for a rapid shift to a low-carbon economy.
Sean is also a director of the Network for Sustainable Financial Markets, an international, non-partisan network of finance sector professionals, academics and others who see the need for fundamental changes to improve financial market integrity, stability and efficiency.
Sean was previously a marketing advisor to a number of the largest Australian pension funds; Europe Manager for Climate Risk Ltd, assessing climates risks and opportunities; and a social marketer and publisher.
DR. MATTHEW J. KIERNAN
Founder and Chief Executive
Inflection Point Capital Management
Dr. Kiernan is founder and Chief Executive of Inflection Point Capital Management, a newly created, sustainability-driven multi-strategy investment management boutique. Previously, he had been founder and Chief Executive of Innovest Strategic Value Advisors, a firm he established in 1992, which was rated the #1 research firm in the world in its field.
Immediately prior to founding Innovest, Dr. Kiernan had served as Director of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development in Geneva. Prior to that he had served as a senior partner at KPMG. Dr. Kiernan has lectured on sustainable investment in executive programs at the Wharton, Columbia, Stanford, Yale, Oxford, and London business schools, and is currently on the guest faculty of HRH the Prince of Wales’s programme for sustainability leadership at Cambridge University.
NICLAS DURING
ESG Manager
CDC
Niclas During joined CDC in September 2009 as ESG Manager. Prior to joining CDC Mr. During was with McKinsey & Company’s London office where he worked on strategy and organisational matters for clients across a range of sectors including private equity, oil and gas, steel, insurance and health care. Before McKinsey he worked in operational management consulting with Celerant Consulting, and before that with the World Bank on private sector development and investment climate enhancement in a number of countries including Nigeria, Madagascar, Burundi, Afghanistan and several Latin American countries.
Mr. During is Swedish and holds a Master’s Degree in International Economics and Political Science from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Washington DC where he was a Rotary and a Fulbright scholar. He also holds a BA in the same subjects from Goteborg University in Sweden. Niclas is a CFA Level 2 Candidate and speaks Spanish, French, English and Swedish.
PENNY SHEPHERD MBE
Chief Executive
UKSIF
Penny Shepherd is Chief Executive of UKSIF, the sustainable investment and finance association. UKSIF promotes responsible investment and other forms of finance that support sustainable economic development, enhance quality of life and safeguard the environment.
Penny is also a lay member of the Professional Regulation Committee of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and a member of the Advisory Group for the Green Investment Bank.
She has over thirty years’ experience working with the finance sector, including over fifteen years on sustainability and corporate responsibility issues. She has been a member of the Mayor of London’s Sustainable Development Commission and spent twenty years in the computer industry assisting financial services and other companies.
RACHEL KYTE
Vice President
Business Advisory Services
Rachel Kyte is IFC’s Vice President for Business Advisory Services and a member of its Management Team, leading more than 1,000 staff across 66 countries. IFC is a member of the World Bank Group.
IFC’s Advisory Services work with private sector clients to increase access to finance, improve standards, and transform markets with sustainable practices. Working with governments, they improve the investment climate, especially for smaller businesses, and facilitate partnerships with the private sector to provide services such as infrastructure.
ROB LAKE
Director of Strategic Development
PRI
Rob joined PRI in May 2011 to oversee strategic initiatives, signatory relations and recruitment, public policy work and the PRI’s Academic Network. From February 2007 to April 2011 Rob was Head of Sustainability and Governance at APG Asset Management, Amsterdam. In that role he was responsible for integrating sustainability and corporate governance factors into APG’s investment process across all asset classes, and for managing an active programme of engagement with companies, regulators and policymakers.
Rob is a member of the Program Board of the Sustainable Investment research programme funded by MISTRA, the Swedish government environmental research agency, and the Advisory Group to the Chair in Socially Responsible Investment at the Ecole Polytechnique, Paris, and the University of Toulouse.
WOLFGANG PINNER
Head of Responsible Investments
Erste Asset Management
Since 2006 Mr. Pinner focused on SRI investment. He became CEO of VINIS, a consulting company for SRI investments. With VINIS Mr. Pinner had the responsibility for the SRI-strategy of VBV-pension fund and of Erste Bank. There was a close cooperation with Erste Bank’s asset manager Erste Asset Management initiated. At VINIS, there is a direct responsibility for fund management of three equity products (Austria, Europe Emerging, Global) combined with an indirect responsibility for fund management of other equity and bond products.