Caroline leads Railpen’s investment stewardship work globally across £35bn of assets under management.

She was previously in charge of the investment, stewardship and collective engagement programme at the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA). Prior to this, she was Head of Public Policy at the UK Sustainable Investment and Finance Association (UKSIF) and a Senior Policy Adviser at PIMFA (then APFA), having started her career in fixed income research.

She is Co-founder and Chair of the UK-focused Governance for Growth Investor Campaign (GGIC), the $4.5tn Investor Coalition for Equal Votes (ICEV) and the $2.5tn Workforce Directors Coalition (WDC) and a fully accredited professional pension trustee at the Standard Life Master Trust – where she is also Chair of its Investment Committee. She has won various industry awards, including as “ESG Investment Woman of the Year” and “Investment Woman of the Year” and was picked as one of Financial News’ “Top 50 most influential in European Sustainable Finance” and “Top 25 Rising Stars of Asset Management in Europe”.

In her spare time, she is a Board Director of the Social Market Foundation (SMF), a cross-party think-tank, and also sits on the ICGN’s Global Policy Committee.

Caroline Escott

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Caroline Escott

Will Farrell

Federated Hermes
Assistant Manager, EOS
London

Will co-leads the climate change theme at EOS, the stewardship arm of Federated Hermes Limited, where his coverage includes companies in Europe and Australia, primarily financial services, energy, chemicals, and materials. Prior to joining EOS, Will worked in the energy and infrastructure investment banking team at Macquarie Capital, where he specialised in renewable energy. Before that, Will held a number of roles across the UK climate policy space, including as a parliamentary researcher for Rt. Hon. Chris Skidmore MP on climate and energy issues, and as a climate and economic policy analyst at a diplomatic institute. He was appointed as a voluntary adviser to Rt. Hon. Alok Sharma MP, President of COP26, on preparations for COP26 after co-founding a Westminster climate policy group in 2019, which engaged MPs and Members of the House of Lords to advocate for more ambition on climate action in public policy. Will has a Bachelor’s degree (1st Class Honours) in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science.