The Rising Importance of ESG for Hedge Funds

Toby Belsom is Director of Investment Practices at the UN PRI, managing a team that develops and publishes asset-specific guides and tools for PRI signatories. Current work includes hedge funds and passive strategies, as well as strategic asset allocation and sovereign debt. Previously, he spent 10 years as a UK equity portfolio manager at Aviva Investors and nine years in the nineties as an equity analyst at NPI and Henderson Investors. After leaving Aviva he spent several years as a consultant, working on an IPO process and ESG/equity markets advisory work. He then worked for ShareAction as Head of Research, where he managed the Asset Owner Disclosure Project as well as a range of surveys, policy, and ESG advocacy work.

Michael Kraten, Ph.D., specializes in the analysis of business opportunities and risks with complex factors and highly uncertain outcomes for sustainability. He is a professor of accounting at Houston Baptist University, where he designed and now teaches graduate courses in entrepreneurial finance and advanced international accounting, and undergraduate courses in advanced financial accounting and advanced auditing and internal control. He also serves as the chair of accounting, finance, and economics programs at HBU, and as the director of accreditation for all business programs, and is the founder and director of the Campus Learning Community on Sustainability.

Dr. Kraten is on the Editorial Advisory Board of the CPA Journal, the Senior Planning and Operations Committee of the Sustainability Investment Leadership Council, and the Advisory Board of the Center for Professional Accounting Practices at Fordham University. He also publishes on his personal blog https://savethebluefrog.com/ supporting ESG initiatives.

Britt Erica Tunick is a senior consultant specializing in media relations, corporate positioning, content creation, and event planning. She is an award-winning journalist with more than 20 years of experience writing about the financial services industry for AR Magazine (Absolute Return & Alpha) KPMG’s M&A practice, Investment Dealers’ Digest Magazine. EO News, Euromoney Magazine, the Sunday Business, and the Financial Times. Britt holds a bachelor’s degree in English/Journalism from Pepperdine University and a master’s degree in Public Affairs. She is a member of 100 Women in Hedge Funds, the Society of American Business Editors & Writers, and is the president of the Junior League of Bergen County. Britt is the July 2010 recipient of the American Society of Business Publication Editors’ Northeast Region Silver Azbee award and received 1st and 3rd place editorial awards from Euromoney/Institutional Investor in 2009. In 2008 she was awarded the New York Financial Writers’ Association’s Emil Meier Award.