4 new hires deepen ESG bench

Lombard Odier Investment Managers (“LOIM”) today announced that is adding significantly to its ESG ranks, hiring 4 new members to its Sustainable Investment Research, Strategy and Stewardship team. Commenting on the need to increase focus on ESG, LOIM CEO Hubert Keller said:

“The speed, scale and urgency of the transition to a sustainable economic model is unparalleled. Sustainability challenges are already fundamentally reshaping risk and return dynamics across all sectors and asset classes. Investors have trillions of dollars at stake in this revolution and, at LOIM, we believe it is central to our fiduciary duty as asset managers to help our clients position their portfolios for the transition.

“Furthermore, given the lack of consistent, credible data on many of the sustainability challenges companies face, we believe traditional ESG approaches cannot fully capture the risks or harness the opportunities of the transition. In our view, positioning a portfolio for transition, requires forward-looking, judgemental analysis across all sectors to ensure the portfolio behaves as expected as the transition unfolds, and accelerates. Deepening our expertise around sustainable investment is therefore central to our ability to deliver on clients’ long-term objectives, and our strategic development at LOIM.”

LOIM’s new hires include:

• Kristina Church, Senior Investment Strategist. Ms. Church was most recently Global Head of Future Mobility Thematic research at Barclays Capital, and head of the European Automotive Equity Research team. In her role at LOIM, Kristina will focus on research and investment strategy for sustainability across all asset classes and will produce a regular outlook for clients.
• Thomas Höhne-Sparborth, Senior Sustainability Analyst. Höhne-Sparborth joins LOIM from Roskill Consulting Group, where he was Director of Economics and Analytics. At LOIM, Thomas will focus on the financial and macroeconomic analysis of sustainability challenges and their implications for business models and risk – return dynamics across all industries and geographies.
• Ruairidh Cumming, Quantitative Analyst. Mr. Cumming was most recently at Cabot Financial, where he developed bespoke pricing models using machine learning tools. At LOIM, he will be responsible for applying the latest data science techniques to enhance the research and analysis capabilities of the team.
• Laura García Vélez, Quantitative Analyst. Vélez is an environmental engineer, most recently with the World Wildlife Fund.

The new hires will work on a team led by Dr. Christopher Kaminker, Head of Sustainable Investment Research, Strategy & Stewardship. Dr Kaminker said:

“We are delighted to welcome Kristina, Thomas, Ruairidh and Laura to the team. They bring industry-leading expertise to our research capability and will significantly strengthen our ability to identify investment opportunities, generating actionable intelligence to refine risk-return considerations across asset classes. This will also ensure we continue to offer cutting-edge sustainable investment strategies to our clients.

“The broad combination of expertise these four hires bring to the team will be vital in addressing the complex and interdisciplinary nature of sustainability challenges and opportunities. Kristina’s knowledge and command of the investment-relevant dynamics in the mobility space, which is a cross-cutting issue, will reinforce our ability to analyse other key sustainability challenges. Thomas is also an expert in this domain with an in-depth understanding of how automotive electrification, for example, interacts with energy; mining; innovation; services; trade; pollution and resource productivity.

“Ruairidh and Laura’s expertise in data science, forecasting and macroeconomic analysis will further strengthen our sustainability insights and solutions, in turn helping our clients navigate the challenges and opportunities presented by the global transition to a more sustainable economic model.”

Lombard Odier Investment Managers is the asset management business of the Geneva-based Lombard Odier Group, with over 140 investment professionals and 52 billion CHF ($53.5B) assets under management.