Legal and General Capital has appointed former MP Julia Goldsworthy as head of social impact investment.

Previously Goldsworthy was director of strategy and economy at the West Midlands Combined Authority, where she led negotiations on the regional second devolution deal and local industrial strategy.

Before that she spent three years at PwC focusing on the market response to the emerging devolution agenda.

Goldsworthy also served as a Liberal Democrat MP and Treasury special adviser in the coalition government, on work spanning a broad range of issues, often with a place-based, inclusive growth focus. 

Among her non-executive positions she is a board member for homelessness charity Crisis.

As head of social impact investment, Goldsworthy will work with new and existing partners to centre local perspectives and expertise across place-based partnerships and investments.

She will also ensure each relevant division or subsidiary of L&G is engaged effectively for the benefit of local communities. 

The new role is a recognition that extra commitment and early-stage collaboration is needed to help meet local investment needs and create investible proposals, L&G Capital said.

Announcing Goldsworthy’s appointment, L&G Capital said the hire continues its long-term commitment to driving positive change “through impact-led investing that meets local and national social and environmental needs”.

This includes directly addressing pressing demands at local, national, and even international levels, while also offering commercial opportunity.

L&G Capital pointed to oversubscribed housing waiting lists, regenerating left-behind communities, and scaling up technology to rise to the challenge of reaching net zero, as some of the areas that can create positive social and environmental outcomes, and risk-adjusted returns.

To date, L&G has invested more than £30bn in projects including in residential property, specialist commercial real estate, clean energy, alternative credit, and venture capital through L&G Capital.

Goldsworthy joins a growing team led by L&G Group social impact and investment director Pete Gladwell.

Her appointment follows that of John Alker, formerly of UKGBC, in 2021 as head of sustainability. 

Goldsworthy said: “Much of my career, working in both the public and private sector, has been motivated by wanting to create the best possible conditions for communities and citizens to fulfil their potential. As such, I’m thrilled to be joining L&G as their head of social impact investment to help deploy the transformative power of patient institutional investment in every corner of the country. 

“Tackling the deep structural inequalities in the UK has been a longstanding mission of mine throughout my personal and professional life. Playing my part in helping LGC work with our towns, cities, and communities to achieve their ambitions on this agenda is the opportunity of a lifetime to make a game-changing difference.”

L&G Capital significantly increased its alternative asset commitments in 2022, investing around £5bn towards levelling up the UK’s towns and cities, driving regional economic growth, tackling the housing crisis, and supporting the climate transition, whilst expanding its footprint into the US for the first time. 

This led to the delivery of over 17,000 new homes, 2.7m sq. ft of commercial real estate across the UK and US, and investments in multiple innovative clean energy start-ups and scale-ups to support the transition to a low carbon economy. 

In 2023, it has continued to achieve further milestones in its alternative asset investments, including investing more than £50m into clean energy technologies to decarbonise real estate.