Chairman and CEO
In May, Michelle Seitz appeared on Bloomberg Television as the network’s first in-studio guest since the pandemic began. There, before heading downtown to the New York Stock Exchange to ring the closing bell in honor of Russell Investments’ 85th anniversary, the chairman and CEO laid out her global take on ESG investing.
“Much like 20 years ago when companies began to integrate the internet into everything they do, companies today need to integrate” environmental, social and governance factors, Seitz said. “Everything that is a societal risk, a governance risk or a climate risk is an investment risk. ... ESG is not an asset class. It is integrated into everything we do.”
Seitz moved to Seattle to join Russell in 2017 after 22 years with Chicago-based William Blair and brought along her passion for using ESG as a tool to manage balanced portfolios and promote inclusive capitalism. Under her leadership, Russell scored an A /A+ rating from the United Nations-supported Principles for Responsible Investment in 2020.
The economic fallout from COVID-19 only hardened Seitz’s resolve in this area. In 2021, Russell committed to managing only carbon neutral portfolios by 2050. Going a step further, Seitz committed to getting Russell’s global business operations to carbon neutral by the end of this decade.
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Russell Investments had $2.8 trillion of assets under advisement and $323.7 billion of assets under management at the end of 2020. In a key strategic move for the company this year, Seitz structured and negotiated a partnership with the private markets specialist Hamilton Lane in a bid to provide “one-stop access to extensive private and public markets capabilities,” according to the firm.
In the deal, the global private markets investment firm took a $90 million stake in Russell. In turn, Russell’s outsourced chief investment officer clients gained access to Hamilton’s investment strategies, research and technology.
“This now becomes a market-leading capability around the world for the most sophisticated clients as well as democratizing access to private markets for both middle market institutional clients as well as, excitingly, for wealth clients,” Seitz said when she announced the deal to Russell employees in March.
