Speakers
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Aaron Pinnock Impact Investment Analyst, Church Commissioners for England
Aaron leads on impact investment at the Church Commissioners for England, the £9.2bn endowment fund of the Church of England. Aaron’s responsibilities include identifying impact investment opportunities as well as portfolio impact measurement and management, with a particular focus on the fund’s alignment to its 2050 net zero emissions goal. The fund was awarded IPE’s first award for best in Impact Investing in 2020, and a whitepaper outlining their approach can be found at http://cofe.io/RealImpact. Prior to the Commissioners, Aaron was an Investment Consultant at PwC, developing a specific focus on sustainable and impact investment following backing from the firm’s internal innovation incubator. Aaron also co-leads the UN-convened Net Zero Asset Owner Alliance’s Climate Solutions Reporting workstream and sits on UKSIF’s Analyst Committee.
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Neil Mason Strategic Finance Manager, Surrey County Council
Neil leads the c£5b Surrey Pension Fund, with over 100,000 members and more than 300 employers.
Surrey is part of the Border to Coast asset pool, nearly qualifying as the “Coast”.
The Surrey Fund has been acknowledged for outstanding approach to risk management and governance in recent years and continues to strive for new ways to innovate and collaborate.
This year has also been recognised for its excellence in sustainable investing, winning accolades at the Pensions Age Awards, the LAPF Awards and the Public Finance Awards.
Neil is a member of the PLSA Policy Board and Local Government Committee. He is also an independent member of the Local Pension Board at his old stamping ground, the London Borough of Hounslow.
He is the father of twin 18 year old boys and a long suffering supporter of Queens Park Rangers. The inability to watch them live during lockdown was a blessing.
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Fran Browne CFA, Principal and Senior Investment Consultant, Mercer
Fran is a Principal and Senior Investment Consultant within the UK Wealth business at Mercer. Fran supports her clients with advice in relation to a variety of investment-related issues including pensions risk management, asset allocation, investment manager selection, implementation and monitoring. Fran’s main role is as lead investment advisor to 12 DB pension schemes, which range in size up to £500m of assets. She builds long lasting trusted relationships with her clients, some of whom she has advised since joining Mercer in 2011.
Based in the London office, Fran has worked at Mercer for ten years, after starting her investment consulting career at JLT. Her particular areas of interest and expertise are in long-term journey planning, advising clients on positioning their portfolios as they move closer to their end games, and advice on portfolio structuring. Fran is a CFA Charterholder and a graduate of Bristol University.
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Hill Gaston CFA, Sustainable Investment Consultant, Mercer
Hill is a Senior Investment Consultant within Mercer’s Sustainable Investment team. He has extensive experience advising institutional investors on a range of areas including climate change, impact investing, sustainable investment strategies and trends, policy, stewardship and regulatory developments.
Much of his time is spent helping clients incorporate climate change considerations into their investment strategies. This includes advising leading investors to set net zero targets using Mercer’s Analytics for Climate Transition (ACT) tool and framework.
Hill develops intellectual capital, most recently contributing to the Mercer and the UK-China Green Finance Centre report “Resilience - Lessons to Scale Responsible Investment”.
Hill holds a joint Honours degree in Economics and International Development from the University of Bath and is a CFA Charterholder.
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Sarah Teacher Executive Director, Impact Investing InstituteSarah is Executive Director at the Impact Investing Institute, an organisation with a mission to accelerate the growth and improve the effectiveness of impact investing in the UK and internationally. She leads key projects for the organisation on sizing the UK impact investing market, place-based impact investing and encouraging charitable endowments to allocate for impact.
Sarah joined the Institute from Lendlease Europe where she was Social Impact Investment Manager. Prior to her work at Lendlease Sarah worked in roles at the intersection of social impact, sustainability and private capital – be that corporate investment or philanthropic. She was a Consultant at Sancroft International (2013-2017), an international sustainability consultancy focused on the social, environmental and ethical risks faced by major businesses; an Associate at On Purpose, a one-year programme for early-career professionals identified as future leaders in social enterprise (2012-13); and Director for Next Generation Philanthropy at the Institute for Philanthropy (2006-2010), leading workshops for philanthropists interested in increasing the impact of their giving.
Sarah graduated from Lady Margaret Hall College, Oxford, in 2005 with a first-class degree in Modern History, and obtained an MPhil in Development Studies from Clare College, Cambridge in 2011. She serves as a Director of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors and its European Chair.
