Stewardship Manager
About the job
Brewin Dolphin is one of the UK`s leading independent providers of discretionary wealth management. We offer award-winning personalised wealth management services that meet the varied needs of over 100,000 account holders, including individuals, charities, and pension funds.
We specialise in helping clients protect and grow their wealth by creating financial plans and investment portfolios that meet personal and professional ambitions and aspirations. Our services range from bespoke, discretionary investment management to retirement planning and tax-efficient investing.
Stewardship is a core foundation of our responsible investment approach. We define stewardship as “the responsible allocation, management and oversight of capital to create long-term value for clients and beneficiaries leading to sustainable benefits for the economy, the environment and society” .
About This Opportunity
This new leadership role reflects the growing importance of stewardship in Brewin Dolphin and reflects our commitment to ensuring that stewardship continues to be a key part of our approach. The role will be responsible for shaping the vision for stewardship and delivering supporting activities. The role will drive the development and delivery of Brewin Dolphin’s stewardship and engagement strategy, including policies and guidelines.
The Role Has a Dual Focus
Developing and updating the strategy, policies, guidelines, and processes which are the foundation of our approach to stewardship.
Delivering active ownership by prioritising, managing, and enabling engagement and voting activities, meeting our reporting obligations, and ensuring that we have strong internal and external communications on our approach.
Responsibilities Include
Lead investment stewardship activities: guiding direct fund and direct corporate engagement, advising on and participating in collaborative engagement activities, managing our proxy voting process, advising peers and divisional leadership on key stewardship issues, with the overall goal of improving policies, practices, and outcomes.
Be a recognized subject matter authority in investment stewardship: maintain a high level of expertise by participating in industry events, industry working groups, corporate initiatives, collaborative partnerships, and researching current events. Lead advancement of relevant stewardship issues, such as investment, governance, and ESG topics
Maintain strong working relationships and presenting high impact analyses, findings, and recommendations to key internal and external partners, including senior staff and collaborative engagement partners. We expect the individual and role to be a key a member of the Stewardship Committee.
Develop and present proxy voting recommendations aligned with Brewin Dolphin’s proxy voting guidelines by utilising third-party research, company disclosures, and insights from conversations with active equity and portfolio managers
Oversee consistent and informed proxy voting activities, ensuring timeliness and completeness of the execution of our proxy votes
Ensure there is detailed analysis on votes for key holdings, including reviews of 3rd party research and recommendations to ensure we vote in alignment with our firm`s sustainability strategy. Ensure we have a clear voting policy, a transparent voting decision making process, and that we communicate decision rationales where needed.
Maintain and produce accurate voting summaries and stewardship reports, respond to internal and external queries on governance and proxy voting
Work with analysts to oversee, advise on, and when required lead direct engagement conversations with portfolio companies and funds to communicate our views and expectations on stewardship issues to meet our evolving responsible investor and sustainability goals.
Develop and maintain internal documents on governance and engagement processes to be part of an overall stewardship information pack
Collaborate with key internal colleagues (investment managers, research analysts, Sustainability team and the Responsible Investment team) to deliver tangible results
Manage day-to-day relationship with outsourced service providers
Mentor, coach and educate other team members, lead firm-wide teach-ins and panel discussions
Contribute to internal training, ensures that new policies and/or procedures are communicated in a clear, concise manner.
Skills/Qualifications/Experience .
Excellent communication and influencing skills, with a proven ability to write clearly for internal and external audiences, and a track record of successfully influencing decision makers.
Strong commercial awareness and understanding of the responsible and sustainable investment landscape and issues.
Good understanding of the potential and limitations for stewardship in the wealth management space
Excellent stakeholder management skills – able to work collaboratively with multiple internal and external stakeholders
Evidence of having set up, integrated, and overseen new processes, and having led relevant supporting activities (for example, awareness-raising, training, monitoring systems)
Strong research and writing skills, ability to engage with companies at board and executive level and an understanding of global regulatory trends related to corporate governance/ESG
Relevant financial services, stewardship, investor relations, governance, policy and ESG expertise
Knowledge of UK policy environment issues of corporate governance, stewardship and shareholder rights and responsibilities, with evidence of knowledge of wider ESG issues
Relevant qualification is desirable (Advanced Certificate in Corporate Governance, IMC, CFA charter or equivalent)
We would envisage that candidates would have relevant experience in the investment or financial services sectors.
Genuine – Shows empathy and understanding for the needs of clients and colleagues. Team worker demonstrating trust, respect, and integrity
Expert – Applies skills and knowledge to achieve objectives and makes the complex simple. Brings together the right people and grows expertise to get the best results for clients. Seeks continuous improvement
Ambitious - Works hard to be at their best. Embraces change for the better. Strives to do the best for clients and colleagues
Brewin Dolphin is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to recruiting and developing a diverse workforce, inclusive of race, religion, age, gender, sexual orientation, and disability. If you have requirements in relation to accessibility or mobility during the recruitment process, please let us know and we will do our best to make suitable adjustments.
