Investor Advisory Group (IAG)

IAG Chair

Paul Lee was appointed as an inaugural Member of the UKEB on 15 March 2021. Paul is an investor who has worked in the City of London for more than 20 years and is now Head of Stewardship and Sustainable Investment Strategy at Redington, the investment consultancy. He spent more than a decade in various roles at Hermes, including helping create and build its Equity Ownership Service (EOS), a world-leading stewardship business. After a time as Head of Investment Affairs at the NAPF (National Association of Pension Funds, now the PLSA) he was hired by Aberdeen Asset Management as its first global head of corporate governance and stewardship. He left following the merger with Standard Life and spent three years as an independent consultant on ESG and stewardship matters, mainly advising investors on enhancing their approach. Paul was a member of the Capital Markets Advisory Committee of the IASB, the main formal grouping for investor input on the development of IFRS standards, from 2015 to 2020. He was also a member of the Auditing Practices Board (which became the FRC’s Audit and Assurance Council) from 2007 to 2014, and in 2019 was on the secretariat for the Brydon Review into the Quality and Effectiveness of Audit. He is currently a member of the committee of reference for the Premier Miton Ethical Fund and writes a respected blog on fairness.

IAG Members

Alastair Drake is a Senior Vice President at Moody’s Investors Service, based in London. He heads up the Accounting Specialist team at Moody’s, leading accounting research and assessing the reporting quality of corporates and deepening the insight of analysts into key accounting issues. Prior to joining Moody’s, Alastair was a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he specialised in accounting advisory and accounting structuring transactions. He started his career at PwC in audit in Johannesburg. Alastair is a Chartered Accountant (South Africa) and has lived and worked in the UK for 20-plus years.

Chris Bamberry is an equities research analyst at Peel Hunt, an investment bank which focuses on mid and small-cap UK companies. He has over 25 years’ experience in the investment profession, on both the sell and buy side. Chris qualified as a Chartered Accountant with KPMG and holds an LL.B. (Hons) from the University of Edinburgh and ASIP designation. He is also currently a member of the CFA UK Professionalism Steering Committee.

James Vane-Tempest joined Jefferies, a global investment bank, in 2009. He is Head of European Healthcare Research and has over 20 years’ experience in the investment industry. Prior to Jefferies, he worked at JPMorgan as an investment banker and before that, was at Goldman Sachs as a research analyst. James was named the #1 stock picker in the UK across all sectors in the Thomson Reuters Analyst Awards 2017 and was a runner up in the Institutional Investor Survey in 2022 and 2023. James received a BSc (Hons) in Physiology with Business from the University of Edinburgh.

Louise Dudley joined Federated Hermes in March 2009 and leads the ESG and responsible investment research strategy within the Global Equities team. Building on her experience developing factor testing platforms and enhancing the factor modelling capabilities of the team’s systems, Louise has applied this comprehensive analysis to ESG applications. Having delivered research supporting the returns from ESG integration, this has led to the creation of innovative customised product solutions and tools fulfilling client needs. Louise originally joined Federated Hermes as a member of the stewardship advisory business, EOS. Prior to this, she worked for Coca Cola in a financial accounting role having graduated with a Master’s degree in Engineering from the University of Durham. Louise holds the IMC and is a CFA charterholder. She is a board member of the UK Sustainable Investment & Finance Association and in 2017 was named one of Financial News' Rising Stars of Asset Management.

Nicole Carter is the Deputy Head of ESG Strategy and an Executive Director at AQR Capital Management. She has been a member of AQR’s ESG Working Group since 2016 and chairs the ESG Reporting and Communication committee. Nicole is active in the sustainability investment community; she has served on ESG working groups of the Managed Funds Association and CFA UK. In addition to her ESG role, Nicole is AQR’s Head of Benelux, responsible for relationships with clients and prospects in the region. Prior to AQR, Nicole worked in telecommunications and for a retail-focused technology start-up. Nicole received her B.A. in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from the University of Oxford, where she was the president of Oxford Women in Politics and is a CAIA charterholder. She is pursuing a Master of Liberal Arts in Extension Studies: Sustainability at Harvard University.

Rupert Krefting is Head of Corporate Finance and Stewardship at M&G Investments. Rupert qualified as a chartered accountant then worked in investment banking for more than two decades, before joining M&G in 2016. Rupert leads M&G’s engagement and voting activities including climate, coal and diversity engagement programmes and externally represents M&G with the following associations:

• Member of the Investment Association’s Stewardship Committee and Chairs the Corporate Reporting and Audit Group
• Institutional Investors for Global Climate change (IIGCC) – sits on the Corporate Programme Advisory Group and Escalation Working Group
• Climate Action 100+ - co-lead on BASF and Rio Tinto
• International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN)- chairs the new Natural Capital Committee
• Member of the Pre-emption Group

Stanislav Varkalov is a director in the Corporate Solutions team within Capital Markets at Lloyds Bank, where he primarily helps clients to address IFRS, UK and US accounting aspects of their financial risk management and complex financing transactions. Stan is a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants as well as of the Association of Corporate Treasurers, and a CFA charterholder.

Tony Silverman is a Director at AM Best in London responsible for the generation, maintenance and implementation of industry leading and globally consistent credit rating criteria. A current focus is IFRS 17 where he is project managing AM Best’s global implementation of the standard. Previously he was lead credit analyst on several major European insurers. Tony is a member of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries’ Financial Reporting Group. He joined AM Best in 2013. Earlier in his career Tony was a Director in the European Insurance team at Deutsche Bank Equity Research. He received top rankings in industry standard fund manager surveys. He was Sector Head, European Financials, at Standard and Poor’s Equity Research. Tony’s background includes wider commercial experience with a patent monetisation company and consulting with PwC. Tony is an FIA (Fellow of The Institute and Faculty of Actuaries) and holds a Mathematics degree (Cambridge University).