Annabel Brodie-Smith heads up the Association of Investment Companies’ communications team. Her role is varied but chiefly focuses on communicating the uses and benefits of investment companies to the media, opinion formers, advisers and private investors. She also communicates the AIC’s work and current initiatives to key audiences and oversees the AIC’s training and information programme for advisers and wealth managers.

Prior to joining the AIC in 1997, Annabel worked at Hill & Knowlton, the PR agency. Annabel graduated from LSE/King’s College, has an M.A from Syracuse University in New York and a postgraduate diploma in public and media relations.

Patrick Thomas is Head of ESG Investing and Investment Director at Canaccord Genuity Wealth Management. Patrick set up CGWM’s range of ESG portfolios and is responsible for running them. Patrick chairs the ESG Committee. He also sits on the firm’s Portfolio Construction Committee, Fund Selection Committee and Alternatives Committee.

He specialises in managing investment portfolios for intermediaries, trusts, charities and pension funds, specialising in discretionary mandates.

Bev Shah is passionate about empowering the investment and asset management sector to forge a more equitable and inclusive culture. As a British-Indian, dyslexic woman (mother of two) with more than 15 years’ experience in the City at some of the world’s largest financial institutions, she founded City Hive to be the change she wanted to see in the world.
City Hive is a Network for Change, and she deeply believes in the power of diverse thought and experience in rebuilding trust in financial services and enhancing investment performance.
Bev says: “The investment and asset management industry is going through huge change, and part of that change must be to attract and retain people with a cross-section of views and backgrounds. Without this diversity of thought, how can we avoid herd behavior and see investment opportunities that others might miss?”

Ketan joined EdenTree Investment Management in 2003 as a Research Analyst. He began his career at JP Morgan, before moving to Insight Investment as a global healthcare & biotech analyst. He is co-manager on the Amity UK Fund, Amity Global Equity Fund and UK Equity Growth Fund. He has been a CFA Charterholder since 2009, and holds a post-graduate degree in both Geography and Economic History from the University of London.

As EQ’s head of investment, Sophie has oversight and responsibility for all aspects of EQ’s investment activities. She is chair of the investment management committee and serves on EQ’s executive management team and board of directors.

Sophie joined EQ in 2015 as an investment analyst, specialising in open and closed-end funds, as well as tax-efficient investments including the Enterprise Investment Scheme and Venture Capital Trusts. Prior to joining EQ, she began her career at Tilney Bestinvest in 2011.

Having spent many years in senior marketing, product development and communications roles at a number of asset managers, Mikkel is now Regulatory Manager at the global fund data and technology company, FE fundinfo. As well as ensuring the company and its clients are fully aware of, and prepared for, regulatory changes, he is responsible for the company’s approach to ESG.

Reporting to the international business of Federated Hermes’ CEO, Leon is responsible for developing and directing the responsibility integration program across the group. This includes ensuring that investment teams are aware of and integrate ESG performance in investment decisions and that engagement is effectively incorporated alongside investment activities.
In this role he also oversees and contributes to how the firm’s responsibility activities and performance are integrated into our client relationship management and reporting, the delivery of our corporate citizenship programme and the development of responsible structures and processes for the firm. He also leads a number of corporate and public policy engagements.
Previously, Leon was responsible for the development and delivery of EOS at Federated Hermes’ global corporate and public policy engagement programme from 2012-2016 and acted as its commercial director from 2009-2012. Prior to that, Leon worked within the Hermes UK Large Cap Focus Fund for seven years, where he was responsible for executing the fund’s engagement programmes. He also has 12 years of strategy consulting and operational industry experience.

Sarah is responsible for the Investment Association’s policy on stewardship, corporate governance and responsible investment matters; working with investors, regulators and companies to promote the long-term success of investments. The IA is the trade body representing the UK asset management industry whose members manage some £8.5trn of assets. Prior to this Sarah worked at the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association and the Charity Finance Group on a range of areas of financial policy. She graduated from the University of Bristol with a BSc in Physics and Philosophy and Masters of Philosophy and also holds a Post-Graduate Diploma in Economics from Birkbeck, University of London. Sarah is a Trustee and Chair of the Resources Committee for the Peel Institute, a charity focused on building a connected community and alleviating poverty in Clerkenwell, London.

Abbie Llewellyn-Waters is the manager of the Jupiter Global Sustainable Equities Fund.

She joined Jupiter in 2006, is a global equities fund manager in the Environment and Sustainability team, and has been a lead manager of institutional funds since 2012.

Abbie is a contributing member of several industry initiatives: for example, she is an Ambassador for the Diversity Project and a member of the 30% Club UK Investor Group.

She has a degree in Classics from University College, London.

Craig has over 30 years’ experience of financial markets, covering various roles including payments, trade finance and money markets & foreign exchange execution. Craig joined the corporate bond dealing desk at King & Shaxson in May 2010, to assist clients with fixed income trade ideas and execution. Craig joined the ethical fund management team in 2012 with a focus on the platform proposition. He believes investing in companies that are challenging and changing historic practices and making the world a better place is the right thing to do and will very soon be the norm.

Claire Jones is an actuary with approximately 20 years’ experience spanning pensions, investment and sustainability.

She is head of responsible investment at LCP, helping clients to include ESG factors in their investment processes, with the aim of delivering sustainable long-term financial returns. I seek pragmatic and proportionate approaches that are suitable for the majority of our clients, enabling them to meet regulatory expectations in a time and cost effective manner.

Claire ensures ESG and stewardship considerations are embedded in LCP’s investment manager research across all asset classes, so that their assessment of managers’ responsible investment practices influences manager selection advice to clients. She also leads LCP’s research into specialist investment funds that have an ESG focus.

In addition, she is a member of the Pensions Climate Risk Industry Group which is producing guidance for pension scheme trustees on climate-related risks. She was a member of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries’ Resource and Environment Board from January 2014 to August 2019. Her role included chairing the board’s research subcommittee and leading a working party that produced four reports to help pensions actuaries take account of environmental issues in their advice.

Harriet Parker joined Liontrust in 2017 as part of the acquisition of Alliance Trust Investments (ATI). She has worked in the investment industry since 2004, initially joining the sustainable investment team at Aviva Investors after completing a research internship focused on promoting responsible business in China.

Over this time, she has covered a variety of sectors and themes, and currently focuses on telecommunications and related themes globally. Most recently, her engagement focus has been on gender diversity and corporate tax responsibility across the portfolios and she is a member of the Principles for Responsible Investment’s Tax Taskforce and Tax Advisory Committee. Harriet has a BSc in Economics & Management at the University of Bristol.

Hortense leads the team providing independent research on ETFs and index funds domiciled in Europe for Morningstar. Since 2016, her responsibilities have expanded to include sustainable fund research in the UK. She joined Morningstar as an equity ETF analyst in 2010 from Bloomberg, where she was a financial journalist. She began her career as an M&A analyst at Société Générale in Hong Kong. Morningstar passive research, under Hortense, won the category of ‘Best thought leadership paper’ at the Investment Week Fund Services Awards 2015, ‘Best ETF research’ at the Investment Week Investment Research Awards 2017 and ‘Best ETF research provider’ at the ETF Express Awards 2017.

Dan leads Morningstar’s 20-strong investment management team for the EMEA region, working with advisers and institutions to help them deliver investment solutions to investors.

Dan joined Morningstar in 2014 as co-head of investment consulting and portfolio management in the EMEA region. He previously served with Albemarle Street Partners, an investment consultancy partnership that he co-founded. Prior to Albemarle, he worked for Saltus Partners, managing the firm’s flagship Saltus Multi Asset Class Fund. He has also worked as fund manager and head of fund research for Williams de Broë (formerly Christows).

Dan has 19 years’ experience in research, investment management and investment consulting. He has managed a wide variety of portfolios, specialising in multi-asset risk graded products. He is also a well-known commentator on investment issues.

Andrew oversees the sustainable investment business at Newton, as well as communicating the firm’s approach to purposeful ownership to its global client base. He joined Newton in 2019, prior to which he was head of sustainable investing at Hermes Investment Management where he gained a deep knowledge of responsible investment, sustainability and impact investing.

He has over 30-years of investment experience operating at a senior level previously working at Northern Trust, Julius Baer Investment Management, Lazard Brothers Asset Management and Baring Asset Management. He is also a member of the investment committee of the Trafalgar House Pension Trust and has had a variety of external advisory roles, including mentoring of individuals.

Eric Pedersen is the head of responsible investments at Nordea Asset Management, and serves on the Danish Corporate Governance Committee, the board of the Danish Fund and Asset management Association, and the Finance Denmark Forum for Sustainable Finance. Eric holds an M.A. in Economics from the University of Copenhagen.

Having completed his Master’s thesis on Economic Reform in India, he began his professional career at the United Nations, being employed as a junior economist by UNDP in Mali, West Africa. After joining Unibank of Denmark (the Danish predecessor bank of Nordea) in 1996, he has worked in various roles in the asset management area, including head of product development, head of strategy for the asset management and life business, and branch manager of Nordea Bank S.A., Singapore branch. His latest previous position was as deputy CEO of Nordea Funds.

Gemma is an investment manager on the central charity team with a firm-wide role leading our responsible investment approach, and is also director of responsible investment.
Gemma joined Quilter Cheviot in 2015. She has over twenty years’ investment experience, and has spent the majority of that time focused on the charity sector, and specifically clients with complex ethical and socially responsible investment requirements. Gemma started her career at Lloyds Bank and she joined Newton in 2002 following the acquisition of the Henderson private client and charity business; and latterly was at Kleinwort Benson.

Matt Crossman is stewardship director at Rathbones, having joined the company in 2004 as an ethical researcher. He oversees the work of the Stewardship Committee and ensures active voting at company AGMs, whilst also being the group lead on the integration of ESG factors into the investment process. He also leads thematic engagement with companies on ESG issues, with a particular emphasis on modern slavery in supply chains and climate risk in the energy sector.

He is a graduate of the University of Bristol where he studied law, with a focus on the administration of environmental law and also has a post-graduate qualification in sustainable development theory and practice. He is a trustee of of LoveBristol, an urban regeneration charity, and served on the board of the Ecumenical Council for Corporate Responsibility.

Tim Cockerill for Rowan Dartington
Tim leads on the fund research for Rowan Dartington, covering open ended funds, investment trusts and ETF’s. He is responsible for overseeing the management of the model portfolios of which there are over 60, including ones for the Asian market. He is chair of Rowan Dartington’s Asset Allocation Committee and leads on ESG research and model construction having established RD’s ESG service when he joined. He also works closely with SJP (Parent company) on Responsible Investment.

Tim has over 30 years’ experience of investment management. He joined Rowan Dartington in 2011, prior to this he worked for Ashcourt Rowan, and before this a number of other wealth managers as well as providing consultancy. He is also a frequent commentator in the press on a wide range of investment and fund related issues.

Ashley has more than 14 years of experience working with institutional clients on responsible investment. She joined RLAM in November 2013 following the acquisition of The Co-operative Asset Management (TCAM) by the Royal London Group. Ashley is responsible for RLAM’s responsible investment strategy across all of our asset classes. She oversees a team of seven people, and has management responsibility for our company engagement, ESG analysis, and proxy voting.

Before joining RLAM, Ashley worked with the UK’s local authority pension funds on company engagement as a shareholder engagement executive at PIRC and the Local Authority Pension Fund Forum (LAPFF). Ashley is Canadian, and started her career working with Canadian pension funds, foundations and mutual funds as a research analyst and corporate engagement consultant for SHARE, a non-profit based in Vancouver, Canada. She has a Master of Arts degree (Political Science) and a Bachelor of Arts degree (Political Science and Sociology) from the University of British Columbia. Ashley is RLAM’s subject matter expert and spokesperson on responsible investing and corporate governance, and provides regular press commentary. She sits on the Sustainability and Responsible Investment committee of the Investment Association.

Natasha joined Sarasin & Partners in 2013, where she oversees the firm’s stewardship activities. Specific areas of work include steering the integration of environmental, social and governance (ESG) matters into the investment process, managing voting and engagement, and leading outreach on several policy and market-related matters.

Natasha is a member of the Financial Reporting Council’s Investor Advisory Group, as well as the Advisory Board for Sir Donald Brydon’s review of the effectiveness and purpose of audit.

Natasha has a background in development economics and responsible investment. Prior to joining Sarasin & Partners, she spent six years as the senior analyst leading ESG integration and several areas of policy work at the Universities Superannuation Scheme’s investment management arm.

Natasha has a Masters in Economics from the University of Cambridge, an MSc in Natural Resource and Environmental Economics from University College London, and is a CFA Charterholder.

Diane is responsible for managing Square Mile’s responsible investment and consulting process and output, as well as looking after a number of consulting clients. As part of this role, she regularly attends external investment and governance committees providing strategic and fund oversight. She is also a member of Square Mile’s Management team. As a senior member of the research team, Diane also co-leads our multi-asset research and conducts ESG analysis on both asset management groups and their funds.

Amy Clarke is chief impact officer at Tribe Impact Capital. Amy is an environmental scientist by training with over 25 years’ experience in corporate sustainability and impact investing. Before co-founding Tribe, Amy headed up sustainability teams at both Bank of America and Microsoft, as well as the private client team at Charities Aid Foundation. She started her career in environmental consultancy, before moving into sustainable consulting with EY and PwC. Amy sits on the board of Big Issue Invest (the social investment arm of the Big Issue Group), the Development Council of the Future Fit Benchmark and is an advisor to the Ocean Plastics Leadership Network. Amy works directly with Tribe’s clients to ensure their values are reflected in their portfolios and leads on impact identification and evaluation.