Dr. Michael Viehs

Lecturing classes on Sustainable Finance and Responsible Investment for graduate students. This also involves the supervision, marking, and examination of dissertations.

Member of the Academic Network Advisory Committee of the Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI). The main purpose of the Academic Network Advisory Committee is to advise the PRI on relevant research activities and to bridge the practice-academia gap in regards to responsible investment research.

Honorary (pro bono) visiting position at the University of Oxford. Involved in teaching executive MBA classes on sustainable finance and shareholder engagement and the marking of student essays on environmental finance and responsibility. Conducting academic research on corporate finance, shareholder engagement, responsible investment and corporate governance. Involved in the supervision of DPhil students on sustainable finance.

Researcher (pro bono) on corporate finance, corporate governance, ESG, CSR, responsible investment, and shareholder engagement (stewardship). Involved in growing the Centre's research network and responsible for its social media presence (until August 2015).

Michael is the Head of ESG integration for all investment strategies at the International Business of Federated Hermes in London. As part of that role, he is making sure that the investment teams and the stewardship team have incisive ESG and sustainability information at hand to make better investment and engagement decisions for all of Hermes’ clients. Furthermore, he is responsible for the ESG research activities, proving the value-add from incorporating ESG information in investment decision.

Responsible for the ESG integration across all of Hermes' public market equity and credit funds. Lead on board- and executive level shareholder engagament with DAX30 companies on ESG and strategy issues.

Conducting board and executive-level corporate engagements on environmental, social, governance (ESG), and strategic issues. Sector lead: Automotive. Other sectors: utilities, oil and gas, and pharmaceuticals. Country lead: Germany; responsible for the execution of intelligent proxy voting in Germany and the development of a consistent and stringent voting policy as well as corporate governance principles for the German market. Responsible for conducting responsible investment research.

Responsible for corporate engagements on environmental, social, governance (ESG), and strategic issues and for producing research on responsible investing. Sector lead: Automotives. Furthermore, responsible for the execution of intelligent proxy voting in Germany and the development of a consistent and stringent voting policy for the German market. Also involved in ESG integration activities between Hermes EOS and Hermes Investment Management.

Responsible for the execution and completion of research projects on sustainable finance with the financial industry. Coordination and management of a team of research fellows along the development of a broader research agenda for the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment. Amongst the outputs of this work was a paper on Sustainable Food for Morgan Stanley's Institute on Sustainable Finance, and a research piece on the Income Protection Gap for Zurich Insurance.

Responsible for the execution and development of the graduate class "Institutional Investors" for c. 120 students. Setting up the course syllabus, successful administration of the course and the development the written exam. Furthermore, coordination and management of a small group of teaching assistants. Topics that were covered in the course were strategic asset allocation, tactical asset allocation, behavioural biases in investing and sustainable finance.

Teaching Assistant at the Department of Finance of Maastricht University School of Business and Economics. Responsible for teaching tutorial groups, grading case studies and presentations, designing and grading final exams. Courses taught: Investment Analysis and Portfolio Management, Finance & Accounting, Institutional Investors, Financial Management and Policy, Corporate Governance & Restructuring, Fixed-Income Management, Corporate Finance.

Corporate Finance, Corporate Governance, Shareholder Engagement, Shareholder Activism, Sustainable Investing, Corporate Social Responsibility

Finance

Corporate Finance