David Pitt Watson

David Pitt-Watson is a leading thinker and practitioner in the field of responsible investment and business practice.  Until the end of 2012, he was Chair of Hermes Focus Funds, and a former board member of Hermes Fund Managers. As co-founder and former Chief Executive Officer of the Focus Funds and Equity Ownership Service; he built and led the largest responsible investment group of any institutional fund manager in the world.  David is an independent non-executive at KPMG, and an advisor to Aviva Investors.  He is Chair of the UN Environment Programme’s Finance Initiative.  He leads the RSA’s Tomorrow’s Investor Programme, which has successfully championed better pension arrangements in Britain, and is a director of the International Corporate Governance Network. He heads the Investment Committee at NESTA, the innovation charity, and he is Treasurer of Oxfam.   Throughout his career he has been deeply involved in policy making in the UK, Europe and around the world particularly in the area of corporate governance and financial market regulation. His book, The New Capitalists, has been influential around the world, and translated into five languages.