Varrlyn has strengthened its senior team with Jonathan Nelson, an expert in the areas of corporate governance, ESG and sustainable finance.
Jonathan Nelson joins Varrlyn with more than 15 years of experience in the financial services industry, with experience in institutional investors, research firms, and professional services.
“I started my career in corporate governance and proxy voting in the United States and eventually relocated to Europe to work with French institutional investors. , were far ahead of U.S. investors in incorporating ESG factors and sustainability into their investment portfolios,” Nelson said.
During his time at Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), one of the leading investor insight firms, Nelson worked with over 20 US investors and 12 French institutional investors. We worked to exercise our voting rights and apply our stewardship policy.
He then moved to Sustainalytics, where he helped establish a new corporate governance research team and grew the team from the ground up to an established research department for clients. Nelson worked with executives at major investment firms, working his way up from associate to product director and product manager. He also serves as a key thought leader on corporate governance issues, industry and where he represented Sustainalytics at EU level events.
“It was a challenging and thrilling experience to help build a team from scratch and grow it. I still have very fond memories of those days and our wonderful multicultural team. .”
Over the past few years, Nelson has held two other leadership roles in the industry, including CGLytics (one of the world’s largest corporate governance data and analytics providers, acquired by Diligent) and Morningstar (parent company of Sustainalytics). Served as global research director. There he worked with companies and issuers.
In his second stint at Sustainalytics, he worked in the Sustainability Corporate Solutions division, providing educational training to private companies, companies and issuers on ESG issues generally, as well as material ESG issues specific to related and sub-industries. Provided educational training. .
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Nelson’s extensive research expertise puts him in a unique position to advise institutions on implementing these insights. That’s exactly what he does now at Varrlyn, where he currently serves as a consultant to one of Varrlyn’s wealth management clients.
Nelson uses his experience to help this client “translate research into action to produce real results.” This includes standardizing how asset managers interpret and act on research insights, with harmonized responsible investment practice guidelines and firm-wide rules for asset classes and asset class strategies. Includes support to
“I work with responsible investment teams, investment teams, as well as members of product management and risk management. For this asset manager, aligning responsible investment objectives internally is a major initiative, and as Varrlyn, , we are proud to play that role.”
“This client has seen a number of improvements in its internal workflows, including company screening (exclusions and inclusions), stewardship and engagement, and proxy voting.In the coming months, we will be standardizing our internal databases and working methods. The next few months are going to be pretty tough!”
Mr. Nelson also personally supports digital transformation projects, focusing on implementing technology solutions that can automate and streamline the Responsible Investment Practice Guidelines update process and incorporating updates into the annual cycle.
Looking forward, Nelson said he is excited to join Varrlyn, a company committed to operating at the forefront of responsible investment transformation in the financial services sector. “Throughout my career, I have seen the different parts of responsible investing coalesce and now become fully integrated into investor policies.”
“Meanwhile, as the sector moves to ‘Mach 5’, we are particularly excited to see the ever-expanding role of impact investing within the industry, including a growing focus on biodiversity and the natural environment. Masu.”
