(Bloomberg) —
Franklin Templeton hired ESG veteran Anne Simpson from the California Public Employees’ Retirement System for a new role as global head of sustainability.
Simpson, 63, will report to Franklin Resources Inc. Chief Executive Officer Jenny Johnson when she joins next month, the company said in a statement Thursday. Franklin manages about $1.6 trillion of assets.
Simpson has focused on environmental, social and governance issues for more than three decades. She was the first chair of Climate Action 100+, a group that seeks to pressure the world’s biggest greenhouse gas producers to cut their emissions. In 2019, Time Magazine named Simpson as one of 15 women leading efforts to mitigate climate change.
At Calpers, Simpson was a managing investment-director for board governance and sustainability, and helped oversee a sustainable investment strategy with $500 billion of assets, according to the statement. Simpson also was a member of Calpers’s investment management committee.
Simpson graduated from the U.K.’s Oxford University, where she studied politics, philosophy and economics, according to the statement.
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