About Northern Trust:
Northern Trust, a Fortune 500 company, is a globally recognized, award-winning financial institution that has been in continuous operation since 1889.
Northern Trust is proud to provide innovative financial services and guidance to the world’s most successful individuals, families, and institutions by remaining true to our enduring principles of service, expertise, and integrity. With more than 130 years of financial experience and over 22,000 partners, we serve the world’s most sophisticated clients using leading technology and exceptional service.
Role / Department
Northern Trust Asset Management’s is seeking an experienced and highly motivated sustainable investing specialist to join our growing global Sustainable Investing Team. This is a client facing role, based in London. The UK SI market is a strategic focus and as such this newly created role will provide on the ground expertise to support the business development efforts with serving UK clients/prospects to deliver efficient sustainable investing solutions, and insights on evolving industry topics and best practice. The individual will be required to support clients in other EMEA regions as required, though the primary focus of the role remains UK. The role will also involve working across internal stakeholders and contributing to a number of internal SI projects, serving to provide the ‘voice’ of the client in shaping deliverables.
Responsibilities
Client Engagement- Effectively communicate NTAM’s SI philosophy, approach and capabilities to existing clients and prospects.
- Respond to RFPs/RFI’s and DDQs.
- Attend client meetings and pitches, preparing SI materials and conducting presentations.
- Respond to client and prospect requests.
- Contribute to maintenance of SI team master decks, suggest areas for constant improvement.
Education & Training- Serve as a centre of excellence and knowledge on sustainable investing topics to clients/prospects and internal stakeholders
- Conduct teach in sessions as requested for clients/prospects on SI topics.
- In partnership with Product Group, Compliance, SI team colleagues and the learning and development group, identify and execute on new training content and creative ways to deliver in a scalable manner. Ie training on new SI capabilities, SI regulations, new emerging climate benchmarks, SI or thematic frameworks.
- Develop training content ie factsheets, cheat sheets, FAQ to support internal partners in their knowledge building on SI topics.
- Develop close partnerships with UK and EMEA distribution teams to keep informed and updated on SI developments an activities.
Product & Regulation- Serve as SI SME. Partner with the Strategic Product Group to shape the SI product agenda. Partner with Compliance to ensure that SI capabilities meet sustainability regulations and guidelines
- Attend and contribute to technical working groups/projects stood up to develop new SI capabilities, evolve existing capabilities to keep competitive ie data analysis to inform evolving NTAM custom screens, enhancing natural capital considerations on existing strategies, developing enhanced SI capabilities in FI- credit, sovereign, HY.
- Attend and contribute to SI regs working groups projects. Ie SFDR, SDR
- Provide feedback loop from client engagement to help inform the SI product agenda, shape the capabilities to reflect client needs, inclusive of project groups covering reporting needs both client and reg reporting.
Industry Engagement-Keep abreast of industry development and emerging SI themes.
- Monitor industry trends, horizon scanning for emerging themes, translate what they mean for NTAM and provide feedback loop to internal stakeholders such as Product, Distribution, Compliance.
- Seek opportunities to be part of SI industry working groups/ forums at organisations such as the IA, CFA, PRI, IIGCC to further NTAM’s SI knowledge, provide a feedback loop to inform decision making.
Team Engagement-
- Attend team meetings and contribute to respective regional activities, client and industry insights to foster a culture of knowledge share and collaboration.
- Contribute and attend as requested to SI Council meetings.
- Active contribution to team projects as required, examples but not limited to- RFP content review and refresh in line with regular review cycle, timely input into stewardship report content, TCFD, PRI, annual for sustainability reporting, internal team maintained decks.
Knowledge & Skills
- Deepened and technical knowledge on the financial case for ESG integration and the practical application into various asset classes.
- Strong communication skills, both written and verbal. Advanced presentation skills, ability to synthesis complex ideas and topics into easily accessible and relatable format.
- Strong relationship building and influencing skills- ability to navigate complex global organisations, build and manage multi stakeholders with respect and trust.
- Nuanced and hands on knowledge of ESG data providers, system usage, granular understanding of methodologies, pros and limitations- MSCI ESG , Sustainalytics, ISS carbon, impact, TruCost.
- In-depth an nuanced knowledge into the theory and practical portfolio implementation – Climate and decarbonisation, biodiversity- water and deforestation, impact measurement and outcomes. Understanding of 3 dimensional investing.
- Knowledge of SI frameworks and their applications- TCFD, TNFD, SASB
- Good understanding of ESG regulation ie SFDR, SDR
- Excellent analytical skills- ability to interpret and process data to problem solve.
- Proficiency in Microsoft office suite and Powerpoint skills
Qualifications & Experience
- Bachelor’s degree required. Advantageous to have also an ESG related certification – ie CFA ESG, CFA climate, SASB FSA, GARP Sustainability and Climate Risk, PRI Academy. Advanced degree (MBA, PhD, CFA, CAIA) desirable but not required.
- Ideal candidate will have 7+ years’ experience in similar ESG/SI roles within asset management, research analysis, SI strategist, consulting or relevant financial services experience that includes exposure to SI/ESG investment products.
- Proven experience in working at the intersection of SI, product and investments. Particularly advantageous experience in working with indexed SI strategies and Quant- both equity and fixed income as well as SI Liquidity funds.
- Strong experience in market analysis to support investment trends and industry insights.
Attributes
- Deep passion for sustainable investing and innovation around solutions.
- Client focused and pragmatic.
- Attention to detail with high quality output.
- Well organised, ability to focus on tasks and deliver to deadlines, sometimes tight.
- Self-motivated, a team player that works collaboratively, however can also be high functioning as an individual contributor.
- Intellectually inquisitive.
- Strong risk management awareness i.e. Northern brand, reputation
Working with Us:
As a Northern Trust partner, greater achievements await. You will be part of a flexible and collaborative work culture in an organization where financial strength and stability is an asset that emboldens us to explore new ideas.
Movement within the organization is encouraged, senior leaders are accessible, and you can take pride in working for a company committed to assisting the communities we serve! Join a workplace with a greater purpose.
We’d love to learn more about how your interests and experience could be a fit with one of the world’s most admired and sustainable companies! Build your career with us and apply today. #MadeForGreater
Reasonable accommodation
Northern Trust is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the employment process, please email our HR Service Center at MyHRHelp@ntrs.com.
We hope you’re excited about the role and the opportunity to work with us. We value an inclusive workplace and understand flexibility means different things to different people.
Apply today and talk to us about your flexible working requirements and together we can achieve greater.
