People Moves: who is hiring who within the industry?

An overview of the most important hires and departures within the net zero community so far this month.

People’s Partnership appoints Brunel chief to board

People’s Partnership, formerly B&CE Pensions, has appointed Laura Chappell, chief executive of the Brunel Pension Partnership, to its board as a non-executive director.

Chappell has been with Brunel Pension since 2017, first as chief compliance and risk officer and as chief executive since 2019.

Commenting on her most recent appointment, Chappell said: “I’m thrilled to be joining the board at such an exciting time for both People’s Partnership and UK pensions in general. The fact that more than six million people look to the partnership to help them build financial foundations for life shows it has a significant role to play in improving the wealth of the nation.”

Nazarova-Doyle exits Scottish Widows

Maria Nazarova-Doyle, head of responsible investment and stewardship at Scottish Widows, is to leave her role “in the next few months”, according to a statement.

During her time at Scottish Widows, the pensions provider has set an exclusions policy seeing £3 billion divested from companies not meeting its ESG criteria, and developed nearly £2 billion of new investment mandates with themes ranging from fossil-fuel-free impact, to self decarbonising, to biodiversity.

Prior to joining Scottish Widows, Nazarova-Doyle (above) was a principal and market engagement leader for DC & individual wealth at Mercer. She remains as a board member for the UK Sustainable Investment and Finance Association (UK SIF).

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Scottish Widows stewardship chief sees growing misalignment between pension funds and asset managers

UK Asset Owner Roundtable appoints lead to review long term interests

The UK Asset Owner Roundtable has named Andreas Hoepner, a prominent academic and current head of the data science hub at the EU Commission’s platform on sustainable finance, as lead on a review of how asset managers have interpreted their clients’ long-term interests in the exercise of their stewardship duties.

The review, expected to be published in October, will look at the voting track records of asset managers at certain critical companies, following an AGM season largely considered a disappointment by climate conscious asset owners.

Hoepner will be juggling the position with a wide variety of other roles, including as professor of operational risk in banking and finance at University College Dublin, and chair of financial data science provider Sociovestix Labs.

Shukla joins CofE investment committee

Padmesh Shukla, chief investment officer at the Transport for London (TfL) Pension Fund, is acting as a member of the Church of England Investment Committee on a pro bono basis.

Shukla has been at TfL Pension since 2010, and was previously climate finance lead at the Greater London Authority.

Earlier this year, Shukla disagreed with the suggestion that  Tfl Pension could divest its oil and gas holdings, a position taken by the Church of England Pensions Board as it shifted holdings from Shell last month.