Harnessing The Power of Money
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David’s interest in these subjects dates back to 1990,when he joined board of PIRC as a non-executive. PIRC was then a lone and radical voice in the field. In 1992, PIRC became chief advocate for the Cadbury Report, now recognized as a milestone in corporate accountability.
By the mid 1990’s David was a consultant to Hermes Fund Managers which was pioneering new approaches to shareholder stewardship. In 1999 he joined them as director of their Focus Funds. These were Europe’s first ethical activist funds, explicitly seeking to use shareholder powers to improve company performance.
David wrote the Hermes Principles, the first statement by any fund manager of the management disciplines they expected from companies, and promising to support a company which fulfilled these principles in a hostile takeover.
He went on to found Hermes Equity Ownership Service, to provide an engagement service for a consortium of pension funds. It now has $250 billion under advice, and is the largest stewardship resource of any fund manager in the world.
Throughout the period, and to date David has been closely involved in efforts to promote responsible investment. He was closely involved in the establishment of the Principles for Responsible Investment, and chaired the UN Environment Programme’s Finance Initiative in the run up to the Paris climate conference.
