The latest moves in wealth management from across Europe and the UK.

Ocean Dial Asset Management
Ocean Dial Asset Management has appointed Swati Jain (pictured) as global head of sales and distribution.

Prior to her joining the company, which provides investors access to the Indian growth story, Jain worked for Kratos Capital, IIFL Wealth, Ashburton Investments, Kotak and HSBC.

She comes with a record of accomplishment in asset management business development and has focused on distributing India, emerging market and frontier market equity products to international investors across a wide range of institutional and wholesale investor types, in multiple jurisdictions. 

She brings with her an understanding of Indian capital markets, strategy and distribution built over a 16-year career. Jain will be based in Ocean Dial’s London office for this new role. The appointment comes at a pivotal stage for the business with the firm being able to offer more investors exposure to India through its niche investment products, and provide access India’s attractive growth prospects.

Ocean Dial manages $270 million in long-only Indian equities primarily across two funds, Gateway to India and India Capital Growth, as at the end of December 2021.

Climate Asset Management
Climate Asset Management has appointed Amy Merrill Steen as senior legal counsel as part of its ambitious growth plans to become the leading global investment manager in natural capital and nature-based carbon credits.

Merrill, who is the former negotiations lead for Article 6 of the Paris Agreement at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), comes with extensive legal experience. She will work closely with Martin Berg, the newly-appointed chief investment officer of the Nature Based Carbon Strategy, and the carbon team. The Nature Based Carbon Strategy aims to unlock a supply of high impact and high integrity carbon credits to support corporates and investors with their net-zero targets.

As a senior lawyer at UNFCCC, she advised on economic instruments, the transparency regime, compliance processes and general counsel matters. For the past decade, and most notably at the recent COP26 in Glasgow, she led the UNFCCC secretariat’s support to successful conclusion of negotiations on Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. She was also the legal advisor to the Clean Development Mechanism Executive Board and served as secretary to the Paris Implementation and Compliance Committee and the Kyoto Protocol Compliance Committee.

Before joining the UNFCCC in 2011, Merrill was senior associate of the climate change and climate finance practice at Linklaters in London, where she advised international banks and multinational corporates on climate finance and carbon finance legal structures.

Climate Asset Management aims to provide nature-based solutions for institutional investors and corporations as they address their climate change obligations and net-zero commitments. Through its Natural Capital Strategy, it aims to deliver attractive, long-term returns and create impact at scale by protecting and restoring vital biodiversity. Its Nature Based Carbon Strategy seeks to unlock the supply of high impact carbon credits for corporates and investors seeking to achieve net zero. The firm hopes to raise $1.6 billion with these strategies.

ABN AMRO
ABN AMRO announced that its chief innovation and technology officer, Christian Bornfeld, has decided to leave the bank from 1 May. He has accepted a position closer to his home and family in Denmark. 

The Netherlands-based bank has now started to find a new CI&TO. 

"I want to sincerely thank Christian for his vision and leadership and the tremendous work he has done for ABN AMRO in the past four years. It is with great regret that we will see him go, but I fully respect his desire to work closer to his home and family in Denmark. Until 1 May, Christian will be fully committed to ABN AMRO. He has been a driving force for the bank in recent years, as one of the architects of our current strategy and of our ambition to serve our clients as a personal bank in the digital age. Christian has been instrumental in future-proofing the bank’s IT landscape and our way of working and in reinforcing our bank-wide KYC capabilities and activities. His knowledge, skills and companionship will be sorely missed. I wish Christian every success and happiness in his new job,”Robert Swaak, the bank’s chief executive, said.

Boodle Hatfield
Private client partner, Clare Stirzaker, is joining Boodle Hatfield from PricewaterhouseCoopers, where she led the private client legal team.

Stirzaker specialises in succession planning and related legal and tax matters for international private clients and family offices.