With thanks to Miriam Heale, Allen & York Recruitment
UPShas appointed Scott Wicker as the company’s first ever chief sustainability officer, promoting him from his previous position of vice-president for sustainability and plant engineering. Wicker’s priorities in his new role will include encouraging greater awareness in sustainability issues among UPS’s many global operations.
Claudia Krusehas been appointed head of corporate governance at APG Asset Management. She has worked in the field of responsible investment since 2000 and, in 2008, was named a “rising star of corporate governance” by Yale School of Management’s Millstein centre for corporate governance and performance. Previously, she was an associate director in the governance and responsible investment team at F&C Investment.
Scottish Widows Investment Partnership (SWIP)has recruited Craig Bonthron as investment manager to help develop and manage SWIP’s suite of ethical and environmental products. Bonthron comes from Kleinwort Benson Investors, where he worked on a number of environmental funds.
Appointment of the month
The Global Sustainability Institute at Anglia Ruskin University has announced that Dr Aled Jones will be its inaugural director. The institute will span a broad portfolio of areas and interests, including environment, built environment, technology, tourism, business practice, education and health.
Jones also chairs a working group on climate finance within the Capital Markets Climate Initiative on behalf of Greg Barker, the UK minister for climate change, and was previously the deputy director at the University of Cambridge programme for sustainability leadership.
Matt Bonassand Michael Rudd have joined the international energy and utilities sector group of law firm Bird & Bird. Bonass joins the corporate group, while Rudd joins the commercial department. Based in the London office, they will both focus on transactions in the alternative energy, power and utilities sectors. Bonass and Rudd previously worked for SNR Denton, where they headed up its climate change, renewables and cleantech group.
Electronics company AEG Power Solutions has appointed Dietmar Papenfort as vice-president and general manager of its energy efficiency strategic business unit, which was created at the end of 2010. Joining AEG in July, Papenfort is the current vice-president of sales for EMEA and APAC at Active Power, a US international power supply company.
Bärbel Schomberghas joined the sustainability advisory board of ECE, a real estate project developer based in Hamburg. ECE is Germany’s first real estate company to set up an advisory committee staffed with external and independent sustainability experts. Schomberg has her own consultancy firm – Schomberg & Co – and previously served in senior positions at Commerzbank and Dresdner Bank.
Bridges Ventures,the sustainable growth investor, has expanded its investment team with the appointment of Alistair Tillen as investment director. Tillen will work across the investment sectors of the Bridges Venture Funds: under-served areas, environment, education and skills, and health and wellbeing.
Prior to joining the Bridges Ventures team, Tillen was co-founder and CEO of Simply Switch, an online and call centre based price comparison and switching service, designed to help people save money on household bills.
Steel producer Evraz Grouphas announced the appointment of Oleg Kuzmin as vice-president of corporate communications. Kuzmin’s role will include overseeing corporate social responsibility. Prior to joining Evraz, Kuzmin worked for pipe and wheel company Interpipe.
Karen Murray, the former group quality assurance compliance manager at Home Retail Group, has joined Asda in the post of ethical sourcing manager, home and leisure.
Glenn J Bradley has joinedHardscape Products as regional and ethical trading manager. Among other things, he will be responsible for ensuring that the company’s products are ethically sound within a proven supply chain. Bradley was formerly global supply chain director at Kane Granite Products.
Caroline Isaksson, formerly of Forex Bank, has joined WSP Group as an environmental consultant.
Swiss-based carbon offset developer South Pole Carbon Asset Management has hired two new people. Joining the Zurich-based team will be James Emanuel as sales director and Anja Kollmuss as head of consulting. Emanuel recently worked as head of environmental markets for the London-based financial arm of agricultural giant Archer Daniels Midland. He has also served as in house expert counsel to the UK government in matters relating to carbon trading.
Kollmus previously worked at the Stockholm Environment Institute in the US and was a contributing author to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Third Assessment Report.
SolFocus, which develops and manufactures solar energy systems based on CPV technology, has promoted its chief operating officer Bob Lengendre to the position of president and COO.
CSR Europehas appointed Christine Neumann to its membership services team. Neumann’s background is in EU relations, having previously worked at the Austrian and German permanent representations to the EU.
Wim Kok, non-executive director of Royal Dutch Shell, will step down in May. The former Dutch prime minister also currently serves as chairman of the corporate and social responsibility committee. If re-elected as a non-executive director at the AGM, Kok’s successor as chairman of the CSR committee will be Charles Holliday, former chairman and CEO of DuPont.