Impact fund hires due diligence expert

Former Castle Hall consultant Alex Wise has joined a recently launched impact fund as head of operations.

The Wealth of Nations Impact Asset Management, established in December, is launching the Diversified Impact Fund.

Wise will take a leading role in the push to raise $1 billion from institutional investors.

At Castle Hall, he worked on due diligence and ESG matters.

Earlier, Wise was the chief operating officer at Select Asset Management and became head of OneVue's investment management and responsible entity businesses following OneVue's acquisition of Select.

Previously, he acted as general counsel to Atlas Capital and SThree plc in London.

Commenting on his new role, Wise said at Castle Hall he had assessed a lot of managers on their ESG integration and seen both ends of the spectrum.

"Impact investing builds on ESG best practice as a foundation but focuses on the intentionality and measurement of those positive outcomes across a range of metrics," he said.

"I'm excited as the impact revolution is just starting, private capital has a huge role to play in delivering better outcomes and that does not mean investors have to accept lower financial returns or greater risk."

He joined the firm for a sense of purpose.

As an impact fund of funds not only could he contribute to driving enhanced social and environmental outcomes for underserved communities around the world, but at WON-Impact, his contribution will do this at scale.

Currently, WON raises local capital for 15 of the world's top impact asset managers.

"Our funds provide capacity in the world's best, long-tenured impact managers, who are targeting positive outcomes (aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals) and compelling financial outperformance."

WON AMs chief executive Uwe Fuehrer said Wise's deep knowledge of fund governance and operations, alongside his global ESG knowledge, will be invaluable in accelerating the firm's impact investment business.

"As a leader in providing institutional impact investing solutions to the Australian market, the WON group is committed to utilising private capital to support a positive global change from an environmental and social perspective," he said.

Fuehrer said the fund has the backing of a large Australian institutional investor .