Keith Guthrie
Keith is Director – Strategic Research on Sustainable Investments at Marsh People and Investments (formerly Mercer), where he is a partner and a member of the Sustainability Policy Committee. He is also Head of Sustainability for now:pensions, a UK master trust. He contributes to work-streams at the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC) and the Investment Consultants Sustainability Working Group (ICSWG). He has 30 years’ experience in financial services, 28 of them in investment.
His research asks what fiduciary duty requires of a pension fund whose returns depend more on the condition of the whole economy than on the particular assets it holds, and which mechanisms of investor influence actually change corporate and policy behaviour.
Background
Before moving to sustainability full-time in 2023, Keith spent 15 years co-leading Cardano’s investment teams as CIO and Deputy CIO, with executive oversight of around £80 billion of UK and Dutch pension fund assets. He previously managed global multi-asset portfolios at GAM and RMB International. Keith holds a BSc (Hons) in Statistics and Actuarial Science from the University of the Witwatersrand and is a Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.
Research interests
- Fiduciary duty, systemic risk and investment objectives
- Systematic stewardship and channels of influence
- Economic and philosophical foundations of sustainable finance
- Strategic asset allocation under systemic risk
- Turning sustainability research into asset owner and trustee practice