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By Wesleyan

Wesleyan appoints three ESG specialists to its team

appointments
2 min
Dan Gamson, Jacob Ayre and Jazz Sehmi

Wesleyan has appointed three new specialists to drive the integration of ESG practices across the firm’s business and strategies.

Dan Gamson joins as Group Sustainability Manager, Jazz Sehmi as Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Manager and Jacob Ayre as Community and Citizenship Officer. Each will play a key role in building Wesleyan's Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) practices.

Dan, who will lead on furthering Wesleyan’s sustainability practices both internally and within its investment portfolio, joins the team from Avanti West Coast where he worked on their decarbonisation strategy. Prior to this Dan spent 2 years working on the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games where he produced the sustainability strategy for the forthcoming event.

Jazz joins the team from the NHS where she worked as Diversity and Inclusion Manager. She brings more than 16 years’ experience to the role including expertise in building inclusive cultures and will focus on enhancing Wesleyan’s inclusivity.

Jacob will boost the mutual’s social responsibility, leading on charity, volunteering, and social mobility in communities. He brings 11 years’ experience working in social and community operations.

The new appointments will help Wesleyan continue to make progress against its ongoing ESG strategy, centred around its impact as a business, sustainable investing, and community and citizenship.

Wesleyan recently divested from companies that failed to meet its new set of sustainable investment principles, introduced a Sustainability Committee to strengthen governance and oversight of initiatives and has continued to work towards its commitment of becoming carbon neutral in its operations by the end of 2023.

It was named as ‘Responsible Investor of the Year’ by the Insurance Asset Risk Awards 2022 and won awards for both ‘Championing Social Mobility’ and ‘Championing Gender Diversity’ at FT Adviser’s Diversity in Finance Awards 2021. Furthermore, Wesleyan rose more than 100 places in the Stonewall Equality Index between 2021 and 2022.

Meanwhile, through the Wesleyan Foundation, the business has so far awarded more than £3.5m to good causes across the UK, reaching more than 100,000 people through initiatives that promote health, education and social development.

Nathan Wallis, Chief of Staff at Wesleyan said: "Dan, Jazz and Jacob all bring different and incredibly valuable ESG experience to Wesleyan as we continue to build a more sustainable and responsible business for the future.

"As a mutual, we have a long history of doing the right thing for our customers and communities and we’re proud of the progress we’ve made so far. But we’re always striving to improve what we are doing and there is still so much more that we need to do. Dan, Jazz and Jacob will each have a critical part to play in our ongoing journey and we welcome them to Wesleyan."

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