Net Zero Investor’s Annual Conference 2023

James is responsible for CCLA’s approach to sustainable investing. This includes our work to deliver real and lasting change through active stewardship, integrating environmental, social, and governance factors into our investment processes and ensuring that our portfolios are aligned with the values and mission of our clients.

James joined CCLA in 2010 and has developed and led programmes that have improved corporate behaviour on a wide range of issues including climate change, mental health, the Living Wage and modern slavery. This track record led to James being named one of Financial News’ 40 Rising Stars of Asset Management in Europe, 2020.

Prior to joining CCLA, James completed his PhD in economic geography at the University of Nottingham. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts.

James is responsible for CCLA’s approach to sustainable investing. This includes our work to deliver real and lasting change through active stewardship, integrating environmental, social, and governance factors into our investment processes and ensuring that our portfolios are aligned with the values and mission of our clients.

James joined CCLA in 2010 and has developed and led programmes that have improved corporate behaviour on a wide range of issues including climate change, mental health, the Living Wage and modern slavery. This track record led to James being named one of Financial News’ 40 Rising Stars of Asset Management in Europe, 2020.

Prior to joining CCLA, James completed his PhD in economic geography at the University of Nottingham. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts.

David is the Chair of the Transition Pathway Initiative (TPI), which assesses companies’ preparedness for the transition to a low carbon future, supporting the efforts of investors in addressing climate change.  

Prior to this, David was the Head of Responsible Investment at the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), the largest UK pension, where he worked from 2001 to 2023. He led USS’s RI team from 2006, which included all USS’s ESG integration and stewardship related activities across both public and private asset classes, including ESG and climate related reporting.

David is a former Board member of the PRI, is an advisor to the Board of the IIGCC, and until June 2023 was on the Board of the International Centre for Pensions Management.  

More broadly, David is a member of the FTSE Russell Sustainable Investment Advisory Committee, and was also a member of the UK Investment Associations’ Sustainability and Responsible Investment Committee.

Prior to joining USS, David worked as an Environmental Manager for a UK retail company, and was for five years a University lecturer in Environmental Management.  He has a Masters Degree in Environmental Impact Assessment.

Hyewon Kong is a vice president and Head of Responsible Investing at the Investment Management
Corporation of Ontario (IMCO), which manages over $70bn of Ontario public-sector pension funds,
where she leads environmental, social and governance (ESG) and sustainable investing strategies across
all asset classes. With over 20 years of experience in both corporate and investment management in
Asia, Europe and North America, Hyewon has been an ambassador of sustainable investing as an
experienced portfolio manager and a subject matter expert on ESG.
Hyewon serves on the Board of Directors of the University of British Columbia (UBC) Investment
Management Trust and Canada’s Sustainable Finance Action Council (SFAC) Taxonomy Technical Expert
Group. She also lectures on environmental finance and sustainable and impact investment courses. She
co-founded and co-chairs Canadian Responsible Investment Working Group and has been named as
Canada’s 2020 Clean 50 leaders for creating broad collaborations in the Canadian financial industry to
drive a sustainability agenda.

Morten joined us in September 2018 and was appointed to the Board in October 2018. He is responsible for leading all aspects of the business in its support of its clients and the workforce.

Morten has spent most of his career in financial services. He joined the pensions and investment industry in 2001 and spent over 10 years with the £90 billion Danish pension scheme ATP, where he held different senior positions across administration, investments, product and business development. In 2010 he moved to London where he founded NOW: Pensions and, as CEO, grew the business to become one of the largest defined contribution providers in the UK.

Elaina Elzinga, CFA, is a Principal in Investments at the Wellcome Trust, overseeing their Absolute Return strategy and their work on climate, net zero and sustainability. Wellcome is a global charity, headquartered in the UK, that is committed to improving human health and that is funded from a diverse, unconstrained portfolio of over £38 billion.

Elaina is a member of the senior leadership team and is responsible for Wellcome’s investments in hedge funds with low equity market beta and other uncorrelated assets. She also oversees the Investment team’s initiatives on climate, including their roadmap to net zero, and their broader work on stewardship.

In addition, Elaina is a Non Exec Director of the listed Octopus Renewables Infrastructure Trust, a FTSE 250 investment trust which invests in European wind and solar assets. She is also a Trustee for the Cambridge University Endowment Trustee Body and a Non Exec Director for Premier Marinas.

Before she joined Wellcome in 2010, Elaina worked in both Investment Banking and Investment Management at Goldman Sachs. Elaina lives in Kent with her husband and three daughters.

Martin is the Global Head of Nuveen Natural Capital, the land-based asset management division of Nuveen, and is responsible for over $12B of assets extending to more than 3 million acres in 10 countries globally.

Martin’s 30 years in the agriculture industry has included posts within corporate agriculture, consultancy and investment. Prior to joining Nuveen Natural Capital in September 2014, he led the deployment of institutional investors’ capital into farmland in New Zealand, Australia, Romania, Poland and Chile for Bank of New York Mellon’s asset management subsidiary Insight Investment. After 13 years with the Cooperative Group Farms in the U.K., his lead into agriculture investing was 5 years spent working on agricultural investment projects for private investors in Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and Ukraine.

An Agricultural graduate of the University of Reading, Martin was Chairman of the 2017 Oxford Farming Conference. He was a 2006 Nuffield Scholar and is a member of the Institute of Agricultural Management and a Director of Nuffield International.

Before joining Smart Pension in 2019, Paul was a Managing Director at BlackRock (and subsequently Aegon), leading their UK defined contribution workplace pension business. He has also held senior positions at Fidelity, AXA and PwC.

Anna-Stina Wiklund is a sustainable investments expert with 17 years of experience working in the investment management industry in Finland and Sweden.

She recently joined the Church Pension Fund in Finland as Head of Responsible Investing and Portfolio Manager with focus on forest, infrastructure and impact investments.

She has also held a board member seat at the Finnish Sustainable Investment Forum Finsif since 2021.

Gustave joined London CIV in November 2020 as a Responsible Investment Manager. Having previously worked as a Senior ESG data Specialist for a large financial services organisation, Gustave now leads the Pool’s work on ESG risk analysis, providing insight into potential risks and opportunities that may impact the Pool’s performance. He is also responsible for the development and implementation of the London CIV’s Net-Zero Strategy. Gustave has studied the interactions between finance, economics and the environment at the London School of Economics, where he holds a BSc in Environmental Policy with Economics, and at Imperial College, where he obtained an MSc in Climate Change Management and Finance.

Kingsmill Bond is a senior principal in the Strategy Team. His role is to write research on the energy transition narrative, with a focus on financial market participants.

Kingsmill spent 25 years as a sell-side equity analyst and strategist, writing research for investors such as Blackrock and Fidelity. He worked for Deutsche Bank, Citibank, and Sberbank in London, Hong Kong, and Moscow. He analyzed a wide range of stocks and themes, from the resurgence of Russia to the growth of the internet, from the rise of China to the implications of the US shale boom. About 7 years ago Kingsmill figured out that the energy transition would be the greatest driver of financial markets and geopolitics in our era, and he has been working on it ever since. Kingsmill believes that energy lies at the core of all of our systems, and the shift from fossil fuels to renewables can only be compared with the industrial revolution of 250 years ago, which enabled a 50-fold increase in primary energy demand and shaped the modern world.

Philip Dawes, Head of Distribution (UK & Ireland), BNP Paribas Asset Management

Philip is Head of Distribution UK & Ireland at BNP Paribas Asset Management having joined in November 2017 from Allianz Global investors. He is responsible for distribution and client servicing for the UK & Ireland, for both institutional and wholesale clients.

Ed leads the implementation of LGPS Central net-zero programme, which covers public and private asset classes as well as OECD and emerging markets. Prior to joining LGPS Central, Ed was head of climate policy at PRI and a member of UN convened Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance secretariat, where he led PRI’s work on climate-related disclosure, the Inevitable Policy Response, and public policy. Before joining PRI, Ed worked for the UK Foreign Office and was awarded an MBE for his service to UK–Chinese relations on green finance.

Tatjana Greil-Castro joined Muzinich in 2007. Tatjana is a Portfolio Manager with 27 years of corporate credit experience. She is a founding member of the European Leveraged Finance Association and a member of the European Central Bank’s Bond Market Contact Group. In 2019, Tatjana was appointed as an advisor to the Dalai Lama Centre for Compassion. Prior to joining Muzinich, Tatjana worked for Metlife Investments, where she served as an Associate Director of the High Return Unit. Earlier, Tatjana worked as Senior Portfolio Manager in European high yield for Fortis Investments and as a Portfolio Manager and Credit Analyst at Legal & General Investment Management. She started her career as a high yield telecom analyst with Merrill Lynch. She has an M.Sc./B.S. in Economics from the University of Vienna, a Masters from the Kiel Institute of World Economics in Germany, and a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics & Political Science.

Tatjana has been a long-standing advocate for diversity and inclusion throughout her 27-year career. She is member of Girls are Investors (GAIN) where she shares her insights, passion, and experience with young women to highlight how they can contribute to make the world of finance not only a dynamic and intellectually challenging sector, but also a place to positively contribute to society. She spends her free time in East Anglia where she is transforming an arable farm into a centre of biodiversity and carbon sink.

Alan is a portfolio manager in the Emerging Markets Fixed Income team at Ninety One with responsbilities for Emerging Market and Asian credit strategies.

Prior to joining the firm, Alan worked at BlueBay Asset Management where he was a portfolio manager specialising in Emerging Markets. From 2008 to 2011 Alan worked at Alchemy Special Situations as an executive responsible for European distressed debt and special situations investing. Prior to Alchemy, Alan was a vice president in fixed income at Citigroup Salomon Smith Barney. Alan started his career at Deloitte in Australia.

Alan graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce, first class honours (Accounting and Finance) degree from the University of Western Australia and completed a Masters in Business Administration at INSEAD, France. He is also a qualified Chartered Accountant (Australia and New Zealand).

Padmesh Shukla is CIO of £14 billion Transport for London Pension Fund where he has delivered major changes from diversifying the Fund’s bond and equities portfolio to building its over £5 billion alternatives programme, with non-UK assets making up close to 80% of the Fund. He has also lead the Fund’s sustainability and engagement strategy, which lead to the Fund announcing a very ambitious Net Zero and “ESG tilted” investment targets late last year. Emerging markets and climate change are of particular interest to him, having previously worked at the World Bank and the Centre for International Development. He went to Harvard University on full scholarship for his Masters in International Economics and Development (major in Finance) and has a Bachelors in Civil Engineering. He sits on the UK CFA Asset Owner Council and several boards and is involved in multiple research and policy initiatives.

Back

Valeria Piani is Head of Stewardship at Phoenix Group. She joined the firm in September 2021 to lead a stewardship team and collaborate with Phoenix’s Asset Management partners to influence ESG performance by investee companies. She has over 15 years of experience in the industry and has held a number of senior positions at different firms. She joined UBS Asset Management in 2017 as Strategic Engagement Lead responsible for the manager’s climate change engagement programme, stewardship reporting and integration research in the industrial sector. Prior to this, Valeria worked for nine years as Associate Director at the UN-backed Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) where she managed a team of 11 members responsible for coordinating investor collaborative engagement activities with companies on a range of ESG issues. When at the PRI, she supported over 30 investors coalitions involving more than 200 asset owners and investment managers. Topics included among others director nomination, gender diversity, emissions reduction and human rights.

Her recent publications include reports on engaging on climate change and the added value of stewardship more broadly. Her research on the effectiveness of shareholders’ collaborative engagement activities with companies on ESG issues has been published by the Business & Society Journal and Emerald Group Publishing and was selected by the editors as an Outstanding Author Contribution in the 2014 Emerald Literati Network Awards for Excellence. Valeria is currently a member of the PRI Advisory Committee of Advance, the AOA Engagement and Policy Dialogue Track, the IIGCC Net Zero Stewardship working group, the UK Transition Plan Taskforce workstream focused on sector templates and the DWP UK Taskforce on Social Factors.

Honor joined UCIM in May 2020 from her role as Head of Responsible Investment at Redington, an investment consulting firm advising long term savers and investors. At Redington, Honor built and oversaw Redington’s Responsible Investment strategy and worked closely with the Manager Research and Investment Consulting teams to provide advice to a range of institutional clients. Honor has a Geography degree from Cambridge University. She is a CFA Charterholder and has a Masters in Sustainability Leadership from Cambridge University.

Julius spent his executive career in the insurance and asset management industries. More recently he has held a series of non executive and advisory roles on trustee boards, for insurance companies and fintechs, including NEST, NatWest, Heineken, Prudential, Royal London, decisionsdecisions, Guiide and most recently for Cushon where he has been responsible for the design of their award winning default fund strategy. He has consulted for BlackRock, Capita and USS.

Olga is the Head of Responsible Investment at the Church Commissioners for England, where she works across the Church Commissioners responsible investment and stewardship activities, and with the other investing bodies of the Church of England to develop and deliver responsible and ethical investment policies. Olga also holds the position of Chair of the UKSIF Policy Committee, Co-Chairs the Indonesia Investor Policy Dialogue on Deforestation and leads the Policy workstream of the Net Zero Asset Owner Alliance. Olga is a Fellow of the Institute of Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability.  Prior to joining the Church Commissioners, Olga worked in human rights and environmental law.

Lisa Hayles is Director of International Shareholder Advocacy at Trillium Asset Management, responsible for engaging Trillium’s international holdings and global policy makers on environmental, social and governance topics. She joined Trillium in the summer of 2020 and has more than 20 years’ experience advising institutional and individual investors on  sustainable investing approaches in North America and Europe. A frequent speaker on gender equality and racial justice, she is co-founder of the Racial justice Investing Coalition and sits on the board of the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility. Lisa received her B.A.in Political Science and History from the University of Toronto and a M.Sc. in International Development from the University of Guelph. She also holds a French language Certificate for the University of Toulouse in France.​​

Joined from Aegon UK, one of the UK’s largest DC pension providers where she established and led the responsible investment team, overseeing Aegon’s climate and stewardship efforts, leading Aegon’s efforts to invest in the energy transition and serving in Aegon’s investment leadership team.

Prior to that, Hilkka led the responsible investment strategy at Inter Fund Management, part of the Interogo Foundation/IKEA and held roles at EY, the Principles for Responsible Investment, the OECD and the United Nations.

Hilkka is a co-chair of the UK Department for Work and Pensions Taskforce on Social Factors and is an active participant in industry dialogue having served on the Net Zero Asset Owner Alliance and the Steering Committee of the UK Asset Owner Council.

Chandra Gopinathan is a Senior Investment Manager in the Sustainable Ownership team at Railpen. Chandra is accountable for climate strategy, including climate solutions, climate risk management, Net Zero strategy, and engagement across Railpen’s fiduciary and investment management teams.

Before joining Railpen, Chandra gained two decades of experience in senior roles in asset management, banking and ESG, covering energy, aviation, infrastructure, real estate and structured credit across major financial institutions, including Allianz Global Investors (as part of Rogge Global Partners) and Morgan Stanley.

In addition, Chandra is a member of advisory groups at the Transition Pathway Initiative (TPI), the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC) and the FCA Climate Financial Risk Forum (CRRF). Chandra studied financial engineering at Columbia University, New York and has a CAIA designation.

Based in London, Jo leads the development of the Anthropocene Fixed Income Institute (AFII)’s research, which supports fixed income investors in aligning their portfolios to climate and sustainability goals.

Jo joined AFII from JPMorgan where she worked for 18 years in fixed income markets. She has extensive experience trading structured, flow and index credit products, and in the modeling and valuation of derivatives.

Jo has an MA Hons Mathematics & Management Studies from Trinity College Cambridge and is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute for Management Accountants. She serves as trustee and advisor to a number of charities and social enterprises in the UK.

Roger Harrabin is one of the media’s most influential voices on the environment, energy and climate
change. As Energy and Environment Analyst he reported for the BBC for over 30 years.
Roger has been a global pioneer in environment reporting. He was founder presenter of the BBC
environment programme Costing the Earth and has won many awards for his work in radio and TV.
Roger is a sought-after keynote speaker on the environment and climate change. Over his career he has
traced the growing influence of environmental issues on domestic and international politics, and on
business and society. He has many fascinating and often hilarious stories that work equally well after
dinner as during the day.

He is also a highly experienced conference chair and moderator, facilitating events across a range of
topics. He is noted for his challenging and humorous style, as well as his depth of knowledge.

His quest for impartiality led him to broadcast two three-part series on Radio 4 tackling the risks and
uncertainties in climate science and technology. His reporting on new topics has often been trend-setting
– he was, for instance, the first mainstream reporter to highlight the central role that energy would play
in the environment. He has interviewed many influential figures including Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair,
Ban Ki Moon, Al Gore and Sir David Attenborough.

Roger’s achievements have been widely recognised. He is an Honorary lifetime fellow of St Catharine’s
Cambridge; Associate Fellow, Green College Oxford and Wolfson College, Cambridge and holds an
Honorary Doctorate of Science from Cranfield University for work on the environment.

James is responsible for CCLA’s approach to sustainable investing. This includes our work to deliver real and lasting change through active stewardship, integrating environmental, social, and governance factors into our investment processes and ensuring that our portfolios are aligned with the values and mission of our clients.

James joined CCLA in 2010 and has developed and led programmes that have improved corporate behaviour on a wide range of issues including climate change, mental health, the Living Wage and modern slavery. This track record led to James being named one of Financial News’ 40 Rising Stars of Asset Management in Europe, 2020.

Prior to joining CCLA, James completed his PhD in economic geography at the University of Nottingham. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts.