Paul Lee

Paul is Head of Stewardship and Sustainable Investment Strategy at Redington, the investment consultant. He is charged with building a service to assist asset owners in assessing fund managers and seeking enhanced stewardship delivery by them, as well as operationalising the firm’s promise of net zero climate investment advice across its client base among broader ESG advisory services. He also chairs the firm’s Sustainable Investment Committee. In addition, Paul is a member of the UK Endorsement Board, which approves IFRS accounting standards for application in the UK — and engages with the IASB to ensure that finalised standards are of high quality.

Paul has spent two decades in stewardship and ESG investment. Most recently he was the first global Head of Governance - Stewardship at Aberdeen Asset Management; he also worked at Hermes for more than a decade, including on the Hermes Focus Funds and helping to create and build the world-leading stewardship business Hermes Equity Ownership Service (EOS). He also served for some time as Head of Investment Affairs at the NAPF (the UK’s National Association of Pension Funds). For the last three years he has operated as an independent consultant, advising asset owners and fund managers on ESG integration and stewardship matters, and leading projects for major investor organisations, including a climate accounting project for the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) and Engaging the Engagers and Governing for Growth for the Investor Forum. He was also a member of the secretariat for the Brydon Review of the Quality and Effectiveness of Audit.

Paul is an old friend of the ICGN. He authored our best practice stewardship reporting documents in 2018, and has chaired many of our working groups over the years. Among the output from these groups were the Model Mandate Initiative (2012), the Statement of Principles for Institutional Investor Responsibilities (2013; now the ICGN’s stewardship code), and the 2009 version of our Corporate Governance Guidelines.