External advisory committee

If you run a sustainable fund, you can buy in third party research and effectively ‘outsource’ decisions about the sustainability of each investment. We think it is better to do this in-house, but also want to have some form of oversight. This is the role of our External Advisory Committee.

The committee is an extra check or challenge to ensure we act in the spirit of our Sustainable funds – as well as to share its knowledge and experience. It is external, comprising four specialists with complementary expertise from the academic, corporate, client and investment worlds relevant to sustainable investing.

Ben Yeoh (Chairman)

Ben is a senior portfolio manager of Global Equities at the Royal Bank of Canada. He is in charge of the integrated ESG and RI process for the Global Equities team. He has a Starmine award for best Healthcare stock picker and an Extel Thomson award for best integrated SRI research.

Nicola Parker

Nicola is a Charity Investment Advisor focusing on clients with an interest in Socially Responsible Investment. This involves both helping charities to monitor the performance of their fund managers on an ongoing basis and assisting with periodic strategy and manager reviews and changes. 

Alex Edmans

Alex is Professor of Finance at London Business School and Academic Director of the Centre for Corporate Governance. Alex’s research has been covered by the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, New York Times, The Economist, The Times and has spoken at the World Economic Forum in Davos, testified in the UK Parliament, and presented to the World Bank Board of Directors.

Rachel McEwen

Rachel McEwen joined SSE in 2007 and, as Chief Sustainability Officer, is responsible for its sustainability strategy, climate change policy, community funds and corporate heritage.