St James’s Place head of responsible investment Emma Hunt has landed at Impax Asset Management as a senior client director.
From 14 September Hunt (pictured) will be in charge of overseeing Impax’s segregated mandates, as well as its fund clients and strategic distribution partners. She will report to Meg Brown, executive director of marketing and business development.
Hunt is a heavyweight in the ethical investing space, having headed up the responsible investment teams at Mercer Investments and Willis Towers Watson, as well as being joint lead of Federated Hermes’ EOS team during her 25-year career.
She was recruited by SJP in January 2019 to lead the strategic and operational development of its responsible investment offering and enhance its stewardship capabilities in a move that was viewed as the wealth manager positioning itself to become a more ESG-friendly outfit. Hunt’s Linkedin profile shows she was retained on a 12-month contract.
Months before her arrival SJP had rebranded its sole ethical segregated mandate to the Sustainable and Responsible Equity fund and replaced manager Aberdeen Standard Investments with Impax. Since Impax took the lead in November 2018 the £1.3bn fund has outperformed its benchmark the MSCI ACWI, returning 28.4% against the index’s 21.9%.
Brown said she was pleased to welcome someone with Hunt’s “impressive track record working at the forefront of developments in stewardship, ESG and sustainable investment” to the Impax team.
“We are always looking at ways of deepening our partnerships with our clients and achieving their investment objectives and I am confident Emma will make an invaluable contribution as Impax continues to expand,” Brown said.
Hunt added: “I have known Impax for many years and am delighted to now be joining the team. The firm’s pioneering investment philosophy, which intentionally directs capital towards companies benefiting from the transition to a more sustainable economy, is more relevant today than ever before. I am looking forward to continuing to build and strengthen Impax’s long standing client relationships in the European and Asia-Pacific regions.”
In August Impax poached Paul French from Fidelity International to serve as its director of corporate communications.
The sustainable fund group currently has £19.3bn of assets under management.
