The Church Commissioners for England has appointed four new Trustees to its board – Remi Olu-Pitan, Kif Hancock, Dame Kate Barker, and Jenny Buck. All are also members of the Assets Committee, which has oversight of the endowment fund managed by the Church Commissioners.
Remi, who was previously a co-opted member of the Assets Committee’s Securities Group since July 2020, has also been elected Deputy Chair of the Assets Committee for twelve months, supporting Alan Smith, First Church Estates Commissioner and Chair of the Assets Committee.
“I am delighted to welcome Remi, Kif, Kate, and Jenny to the Board of Trustees,” said Alan Smith. “They have a wealth of real-world experience, both of investing and of the Church, and will bring fresh perspectives to our meetings.”
The Board of the Church Commissioners consists of 27 members, including lay people, clergy and bishops, some of whom are elected by the Church’s General Synod, and others who are appointed by the Crown or Archbishops following competitive recruitment processes.
Remi Olu-Pitan is the Head of Multi Asset Growth and Income strategies at Schroders, where she is responsible for outcome-orientated investments for a variety of global clients. Remi holds a BSc in Business Finance from Durham University, a MSc in Statistics from the London School of Economics, and is a CFA Charterholder.
Kif Hancock is Partner and Chief Investment Officer International at Brown Advisory. He leads Brown’s multi-strategy international investment offering for clients, and specialises in third-party manager selection and asset allocation.
Dame Kate Barker has enjoyed a successful career in business and policymaking, and was a member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee from 2001 to 2010. She chaired government reviews of housing policy in the mid-2000s, and in 2014 published ‘Housing: Where’s the Plan?’ She is currently the chair of trustees at the Universities Superannuation Scheme.
Jenny Buck is the Chief Investment Officer at Tesco Pension Investment Limited, where she manages more than £12bn of assets across equities, fixed income, and private markets, including direct real estate, private equity, private credit, hedge funds, and infrastructure investments.
These changes will equip the Assets Committee and Board to continue to respond to the challenges of a rapidly changing world, as well as bringing further diversity to the Board, as the Church Commissioners seeks to maintain and grow its support for the mission and ministry of the Church of England. As a matter of policy, the Church Commissioners calls on companies in which it invests to improve their diversity, and recognises that it needs to lead by example.
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