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.

Ita McMahon joined Castlefield in 2017 and oversees the stewardship strategy for the investment team. She was previously a responsible investment analyst at Royal London Asset Management. Prior to joining the investment industry, McMahon was a consultant, advising leading global companies on their sustainability programmes. She began her career as a carbon trading policy adviser at Defra.

Chris Fidler leads the promotion of CFA Institute industry codes and standards globally and helps to identify areas where new standards are needed. Prior to joining CFA Institute, Fidler was a management consultant at Thought Logic Consulting, LLC, and served in a number of management roles at Capital One Financial Corporation.

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 joint-CEO, 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.

Sophie holds a MSc in Finance & Economics from the University of London and is a CFA Charterholder.

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.

Dr Vian Sharif’s work centres on driving the development of innovative technology solutions to catalyse the shift to more sustainable capital allocations with a focus on the natural environment. Her work includes collaborating with academics at Cambridge and Oxford Universities on the development of science-based insights for investor decision-making with a focus on nature risk and impact, including the Benchmark for Nature Project, the Cambridge AI for the study of Environmental Risks Centre and as a guest researcher at the Oxford Martin School.

She is the founder of ESG nature insights fintech platform NatureAlpha, and heads sustainability at financial investment technology firm FNZ. Prior to this she spent over a decade in the global asset management industry. As part of a number of governmental and international sustainability advisory groups, she was a guest researcher at the Oxford Martin School, member of the Taskforce for Nature-Related Financial Disclosures Technical Experts Group and the UK government’s business advisory group to the Convention on Biological Diversity. She holds a PhD in environmental behaviour change, and a masters degree from Cambridge University.

Julia is a passionate advocate of the need for the financial services community to play its part in addressing climate change and other major environmental and social challenges. She has been working to expand sustainable and responsible investment (SRI) since long before it was fashionable – having first become involved in the early 1990s.

She has run her own business, SRI Services, since 2010.  Its focus is Fund EcoMarket, the ‘whole of SRI market’ fund information database tool – with related support.  The website and linked app are designed to help financial services professional change the way people invest.  SRI Services also helps others build sustainability into their propositions through data provision and consultancy.

Julia is the technical author of the PIMFA ESG Academy, working with TISA, and on the BSI (fund PAS) steering group, and a regular event organiser and speaker. She is also a director of the not-for-profit industry association UKSIF, who she also helped create Good Money Week (previously National Ethical Investment Week) during a previous stint on their board (2002-09).

Prior to running her own business Julia was responsible for the SRI and ethical investment area at Friends Provident, where she worked from 1996-2008.

Paul Scaping is a public policy specialist at the Investment Association (IA). He leads the IA’s advocacy work on climate change and the transition to net zero. Scaping has been at the IA for five years and was previously interim head of government affairs before focusing on the IA’s engagement at COP26. He previously worked in government relations consultancy after starting his career as a parliamentary researcher in the House of Commons.

Andrew Parry is responsible for the oversight of the investment functions within these businesses, he also sits on the executive committee. Previously Parry oversaw the sustainable investment business at Newton, as well as communicating the firm’s approach to purposeful ownership to its global client base.

He has more than 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.

Peter Michaelis joined Liontrust in April 2017 following the acquisition of Alliance Trust Investments, where he was head of investment. Peter has been managing money in sustainable and responsible investment for over 20 years.  After completing a PhD in Environmental Economics, Peter started his career working for the Steel Construction Institute as an environmental engineer. He then moved to Henderson Global Investors where he was able to use his experience as a sustainable and responsible investment analyst and assistant portfolio manager. In 2001 he moved to Aviva Investors, where he was promoted to lead portfolio manager on a number of its sustainable and responsible investment funds, before being made head of sustainable and responsible investment.

Peter holds an MA in Physics from Oxford University, an MSc in Energy and Environmental Engineering from the University of Sussex and a PhD in Environmental Economics from the University of Surrey. In addition, he has the CFA Society of the UK Investment Management Certificate (IMC).

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.

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.

Rebecca Kowalski has worked in the Scottish IFA industry for more than 25 years. Much of this was as a technical paraplanner, a role in which she achieved three Paraplanner of the Year awards, in 2008, 2014 and 2016. Kowalski then moved into a compliance and management role, delivering T&C training and supervision to financial advisers, as well as mentoring less experienced paraplanners.

Inspired by her climate activist daughter, Kowalski has developed a huge interest in sustainable investing, because in her own words “it has, after all these years turned financial services from a job into a vocation. When you care passionately about something, you have to make sure you do it right”.

As a result in 2021 Rebecca decided to carve out time to launch her own sustainable investment consultancy, Overstory Finance, designed to help IFAs embrace sustainable investing and remove any hurdles that might prevent them from doing so.

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 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.

Anna Mercer is head of 3D research at Square Mile Investment Consulting and Research. In this role, she is responsible for the output of 3D Investing, which focuses exclusively on responsible investment research. The 3D ratings assess funds against the 3D-framework of ‘do good’, ‘avoid harm’ and ‘lead change’ and were designed to help advisers identify funds appropriate to their clients’ responsible investment goals.

Mercer completed the Business Sustainability Management Course from the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership in 2021, and is studying for the CFA ESG.

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.

James Alexander joined UKSIF as chief executive in October 2020, with a strong vision and mandate to further enhance the organisation’s key role in promoting and expanding sustainable investment and finance in the UK.

James has a background in international climate finance and infrastructure finance as well as many years’ experience in leadership roles in membership organisations. Most recently, James supported global megacities to overcome the substantial barriers to financing climate action as director of the City Finance Programme at the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group and head of the C40 Cities Finance Facility – a project preparation facility he developed, now supporting cities across the world to structure nearly a billion dollars of sustainable infrastructure transactions.