City Moves for 10 July – Who’s switching jobs?
Today’s City Moves includes Waverton, Royal London Asset Management and Octopus Ventures.
Waverton
Waverton Investment Management has announced the appointment of Michael Allen as chief operating officer (COO). Michael joins from Lazard Asset Management, where he was COO for London, Dublin and Dubai. Michael has more than 30 years’ industry experience including roles as COO at Augustus Asset Management and head of fixed income administration at GAM. At Waverton he will be responsible for formulating the firm’s business operations strategy and policies, and overseeing the firm’s operations teams. Michael will be replacing Mark Harrison who has served as COO since 2016 and in a consultancy capacity for the past year.
Royal London Asset Management
Royal London Asset Management (RLAM) has recruited Carlota Garcia-Manas and Beth Goldsmith to its responsible investment team. Both joined this week and report to Ashley Hamilton Claxton, RLAM’s head of responsible investment. Carlota, appointed as senior responsible investment analyst, joins from the Church of England National Investing Bodies, where she spent three years running corporate engagements focused on climate change, international corporate tax, and board diversity. Prior to that she was the director of products and services at tech start-up Datamaran and head of research at Eiris (now Moody’s). At RLAM, she will be responsible for leading company engagement strategy and will work with the wider Royal London Group to develop its approach to climate risk across the business. Beth joins as responsible investment analyst from KPMG where she worked for five years in its sustainability and responsible investment team. Beth has also worked for Amey as an assistant environmentalist and has expertise in carbon supply-chain management and health-and-safety data and reporting. At RLAM she will assist fund managers in researching and analysing environmental and social issues.
Octopus Ventures
Octopus Ventures, part of Octopus Group and one of Europe’s largest venture capital (VC) firms, today announces the promotion of Simon King to partner, as the business strengthens its senior leadership team. Simon, who joined Octopus in 2012, heads the company’s future of industry team and brings years of experience in areas including artificial intelligence and machine learning. He has led investments in a number of pioneering portfolio companies and sits on the board of Elvie, Smartkem, Waveoptics, Origami Energy, Trafi, Edgify and Memrise. With £1.2bn under management, Octopus Ventures is one of the largest VCs in Europe. In his new role, Simon will oversee all deal origination