David Pitt-Watson is a pioneering thinker and practitioner in the field of responsible investment. He is a Fellow at Cambridge Judge Business School, and former Pembroke Visiting Professor.

He was co-founder, and former CEO of the Focus Funds and Equity Ownership Service at Hermes (now Federated Hermes). These ventures became a seedbed for responsible investment, strategic change, and improved corporate governance in Britain and globally. He was co-Chair of the UN Environment Programme’s Finance Initiative for the Paris climate conference. He was closely involved in the foundation of the UN’s Principles for Responsible Investment, and was a director of ICGN, establishing its business ethics committee.

In recent years he has held non-executive roles in business and charities including Senior Non-Executive at KPMG, Treasurer of Oxfam, Chair of the endowment at NESTA, and Trustee of the IPPR. His work to promote better pension arrangements in Britain, has resulted in significant improvement to the cost, transparency and structures through which pensions are provided.

He has written extensively on investment and governance including two books (co-authored with Stephen Davis and Jon Lukomnik); What They Do With Your Money, and The New Capitalists. These have been influential globally; the latter translated into five languages.