Janus Henderson Investors has made six new appointments to the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Investment Team, led by Paul LaCoursiere, Global Head of ESG Investments. In London, Dan Raghoonundon, ESG Research Lead; Charles Devereux, ESG Research Analyst; Olivia Jones, Junior ESG Research Analyst; Jesse Verheijen, ESG Data Analyst; and Bhaskar Sastry, ESG Content Manager will join; while in Denver, Blake Bennett joins the Team as Governance and Stewardship Analyst.
These new external appointees will support Paul LaCoursiere in driving the integration of ESG practices across the firm’s business and strategies. They come in addition to recent internal moves; in June, Adrienn Sarandi moved from an ESG role in the Janus Henderson Fixed Income Team, to take up the newly created role as Head of ESG Strategy and Development. Meanwhile, Xiaoyi Luo has recently moved from a front office role, to join Paul’s team as an ESG Research Analyst; while Charlotte Nisbet has become an ESG Research Analyst, having previously worked in a similar role internally. In addition, there are hires planned for more Stewardship and Governance roles over the next few months.
“I am very pleased to welcome Dan, Blake, Charles, Olivia, Jesse and Bhaskar to the ESG Investment Team at Janus Henderson. ESG has been a core part of the business for many years and is embedded into our operating model; I am thrilled that we can continue to build our ESG offering with some of the best talent in the sector and the team will be a hub of specialist technical expertise on ESG Investment Research. Janus Henderson has an ambitious strategy to further evolve our ESG integration and support investors with data, tools, and analytics and best in class reporting. These appointments represent a big step forward in delivering this goal.”
Paul LaCoursiere, Global Head of ESG Investments at Janus Henderson Investors
“The ESG Investment Team at Janus Henderson is integral to our business strategy and is key to maintaining the firm’s position as an innovator. We are keen to enhance and grow our sustainable investing business and these new appointments will help us achieve that goal.”
Enrique Chang, Chief Investment Officer of Janus Henderson Investors
Dan Raghoonundon returns to Janus Henderson after concluding a three-year PhD in Finance at the Rotterdam School of Management. Previously, he was a portfolio manager in the Emerging Markets Equities team at Janus Henderson Investors. As ESG Research Lead, Dan will steer the team’s efforts to establish and build a hub of specialist technical expertise on ESG investment research at Janus Henderson. The team will be responsible for contributing to portfolios across Equities, Fixed Income and Multi-Asset.
The ESG Investment Team is strengthened by the appointments of Charles Devereaux, ESG Corporate Research Analyst and Olivia Jones, Junior ESG Corporate Research Analyst. Charles joins Janus Henderson from Aviva Investors, where he was an ESG Sector Analyst in investment management. Prior to this, Charles spent a year as an ESG Solutions analyst and Corporate Strategy Analyst at Aviva Investors. Olivia joins from Kukua, a specialist ESG, Sustainability and Climate consultancy where she worked as an ESG and Sustainability Analyst. Charles and Olivia will conduct independent and scalable thematic, industry and sovereign research to provide support to investment teams across all asset classes, with a particular focus on equity and credit analysts and portfolio managers.
Two additions to the ESG Investment Team will also strengthen Janus Henderson’s specialist technical expertise on ESG data and applications of ESG considerations. Jesse Verheijen joins Janus Henderson as an ESG Data Analyst from Aviva Investors. For the past two years, he worked as a data scientist in the Aviva Investors Transformation team and, prior to that, as a senior risk consultant at EY. Jesse will work closely with the Head of ESG Strategy & Development and the investment teams across asset classes to further integrate ESG data, research, analysis and stewardship into the firm’s investment processes. Bhaskar Sastry, ESG Content Manager, joins from State Street Global Advisors where he has worked since 2019 as an ESG Content Specialist. He will focus on creating and managing content on the firm’s ESG approach.
Finally, the appointment of Blake Bennett in Janus Henderson’s Denver office, demonstrates the global reach of the ESG Investment Team. Blake Bennett joins Janus Henderson as Governance and Stewardship Analyst and is based in Denver; Blake was previously an Operations and Policy Analyst at the State of Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality and gained his PhD from Johns Hopkins University in Environmental Health Sciences. In his newly created role, Blake supports our investment teams across the world, focusing on corporate governance issues, including voting, and analysis of environmental and social issues, helping inform the team’s collaborative company engagement.
