Asset managers State Street Global Advisors (SSGA) has appointed Xinting Jia to the newly created role of environmental, social and governance (ESG) investment strategist for Asia Pacific.
Based in Melbourne, Jia would report globally to Karen Wong, global head of ESG, and regionally to Michele Barlow, head of strategy and research for Asia Pacific and would work closely with clients in Asia Pacific to support the firm’s ESG strategies.
Jia joined SSGA from CareSuper where she led the super fund’s ESG policy formation, implementation, and stewardship. Prior to that, Jia was head of Asia for responsible investment at Mercer Investments where she advised Asian institutional investors on how to integrate ESG factors into their investment processes.
Wong said the firm was excited to create the new role as ESG was truly mainstream in Asia Pacific and represented over a third of the world’s professionally managed assets.
“Xinting has extensive experience in sustainable investing in Asia Pacific. As institutional investors in the region advance along their ESG journey, the need to find the right ESG investment solutions is an urgent one,” said Wong.
“Xinting will work with them to understand the relationship between ESG integration and performance, the possibility of integrating stewardship activities to maximize outcomes, implementation methods to benchmarks and address the ESG data challenge.”
