Speakers’ biographies

David Brown, Director and Training Lead, Pensions for Purpose; Independent Professional Trustee

David has worked in the pension and financial services industry for over 35 years with UK and international experience. As well as being Director and Training Lead at Pensions for Purpose he is an accredited professional pension Trustee. His Trustee appointments include schemes with FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 sponsors and with the Smart Pension Master Trust. He has broad investment, risk management and operational experience across both defined benefit and defined contribution schemes.

David has a particular interest in ESG and climate change, and holds the CFA certificate in ESG Investing. He is also a Fellow of the Pensions Management Institute.

David's prior experience includes senior management roles with Tesco, where he was UK and ROI Head of Pensions and Payroll Manager, professional service firms including Deloitte and KPMG, and Fidelity Investments in the US.

Catherine Macaulay is the Impact Investment Lead at Schroders. She leads the development and implementation of the impact strategy across listed and private assets. This includes the development of their impact framework and proprietary tools to measure, monitor and report their impact over time, as well as ensuring that robust impact management practices are implemented throughout the fund lifecycle for all impact-driven funds at Schroders. She joined Schroders in March 2020 and is based in London.

Prior to joining Schroders, Catherine was a Senior Analyst at Greenmantle, a geopolitical and macroeconomic advisory firm, and has spent time working with impact-oriented NGOs in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa. She holds an MA in Politics (PPS) from the University of Cambridge and an MSc in International Development from the London School of Economics. She is a CFA Charterholder.

Andy Howard, Global Head of Sustainable Investment, Schroders

Andy Howard is the Global Head of Sustainable Investment at Schroders. He is responsible for thought leadership and ESG integration at Schroders, with oversight of the Sustainable Investment team and Schroders’ stewardship activity. He joined Schroders in 2016 and is based in London.

Andy joined Schroders from Didas Research, an independent research firm he founded in 2013 focused on identifying companies well placed to sustain long-term earnings growth and equity market outperformance. The research approach at Didas was driven by the belief that in the long run, stock market outperformance, profitability and competitive advantage are intrinsically linked to companies’ abilities to adapt to changing social and environmental pressures.

Prior to this he spent six years at Goldman Sachs as Managing Director and Head of GS SUSTAIN Research, leading the team’s integration of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors with industrial, competitive and financial analysis.

Andy also worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Co in New York where he advised financial institutions and was involved in the firms’ Business in Society work with Global Witness, a development-focused NGO.

Nick Spencer, Adviser, Pensions for Purpose

Nick is a sustainable investment strategist with over 30 years’ experience in investment advisory, asset management and asset owner roles. In 2018, he founded Gordian Advice to help UK pension funds and insurance companies integrate responsible investment into their investment strategies and portfolios.

Nick is an Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA) council member and a past chair of its Sustainability Board. He co-authored a prize-winning paper on Climate Scenario analysis and the DCIF Good Citizen’s Guide to ESG, and was an expert witness to the UK Parliament’s Environment Audit Committee. Nick is an advocate for aligning the asset management industry with a broader societal purpose and is an Ambassador for the Diversity Project.

Host

Charlotte O'Leary, CEO, Pensions for Purpose

As CEO and an executive director of Pensions for Purpose, Charlotte oversees the running of the business, develops the growth and innovation strategy and looks for opportunities to build partnerships to achieve Pensions for Purpose's mission.

Charlotte is also a member of the Impact Investing Institute's Pensions Expert Panel, an ambassador for the Transparency Taskforce and a founder of 10 Billion World, an end-to-end sustainability project management business aimed at businesses and organisations setting net-zero and carbon reduction targets.

With over 15 years of experience in asset management, Charlotte started in fund analysis and progressed through to institutional business development. Charlotte has worked for some well-known institutions, including Jupiter, Pictet and Cambridge Associates.

Through her roles, Charlotte has built a knowledge and passion for sustainable investing. She has demonstrated this in co-authoring a paper with the Society for Pension Professionals on social impact investing and speaking on topics such as fee and service transparency at PLSA and Transparency Taskforce events. Charlotte played a critical role in developing the Impact Investing Institute's Impact Investing Principles for Pensions and led the launch of Pensions for Purpose's Global Impact Forum (formally the Impact Investing Adopters Forum).