Trustees Executors (TE) director, Franceska Banga, has resigned after less than a year in the role.
Banga’s departure – which, pending any replacement, cuts the TE board down to three – comes amidst a string of high-level staff exits at the Wellington-headquartered firm.
As reported last week TE lost three senior executives in the space of a month following a spate of resignations over the last year or so including head of governance, Mel Hewitson, and head of business development, David Mansfield.
During the same period, it is understood TE has seen a number of other staff exits – mostly on the governance side of the business.
Rob Russell, TE head, told Investment News NZ last week that the firm was continuing to recruit for a number of positions in a “tight market” for governance staff.
Russell remains on the TE board along with Andrew Scott-Howman (the nominated shareholder for the group’s controlling entity, Sterling Grace) and Switzerland-based, David Neidhart, who was in NZ recently for an extended visit.
Banga, who finished a 15-year stint as head of the government-owned NZ Venture Investment Fund in 2016, was appointed TE director in July last year.
She remains on the board of several other entities including Auckland-based wholesale boutique fund manager, Constellation Capital, and recently-minted NZ company, Continuity Capital.
The NZ firm, incorporated last November, is a subsidiary of Australian-headquartered global private markets asset management business Continuity Capital, which has offices in Canberra and Hong Kong.
As well as Banga, Continuity Capital NZ includes Fidato Advisory founder, Ed Schuck, as director along representatives of the Australian firm, Bill Humphreys and Barbara Wilson.
Continuity features well-known Australian private equity investor, Les Fallick, as chair.
Also last week, Mercer bumped up its environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) resources with three new hires across the US, UK and Australia.
Timothy Stamp joined the Mercer responsible investment team in Australia with duties covering ESG integration for clients across the Pacific region, including NZ.
Previously, Stamp worked for three years a senior consultant with KPMG’s human rights and social impact arm, Banarra.
Mercer also named Max Messervy and Tomi Nummela as new responsible investment recruits in the US and UK, respectively. Prior to joining Mercer Messervy spent four years with Boston-based sustainability advocacy group, Ceres.
Finnish native, Nummela, came to Mercer after a four-year stint as head of investment Practice development for the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investments (PRI).
In a statement, Helga Birgden, Mercer global business leader responsible investment, said: “We look forward to leveraging their collective industry knowledge and experience to provide exceptional support for our clients who are looking to address ESG risks and opportunities, including climate change, on both a regional and global scale.”