Morningstar Indexes appoints first Head of ESG Strategy

Thomas (Tom) Kuh will help further accelerate sustainable investment initiatives for rapidly growing global index provider.

Morningstar Indexes, part of Morningstar, Inc. (Nasdaq: MORN), today announced the appointment of Thomas Kuh, PhD, as global Head of ESG Strategy.

In creating this role, Morningstar Indexes is looking to advance its global ESG strategy to accelerate growth in this market while harnessing the broad ESG strengths of Morningstar.

An experienced leader with over 30 years in sustainable investing, Thomas Kuh is a considered pioneer in ESG indexing. Earlier in his career, Thomas was at KLD Research & Analytics, as Managing Director of Indexes. He was Head of Indexes at RiskMetrics Group prior to its acquisition by MSCI. He then spent several years as Executive Director of ESG Indexes at MSCI Inc. where he led and grew the ESG index business. Most recently, Thomas was President of Benchmark ESG Consulting LLC, and Head of Index at Truvalue Labs. He is an Advisory Board Member at the Journal of Impact & ESG Investing.

Kuh will report to Morningstar Indexes Global Head of Research & Product, Rolf Agather.

“We’re deeply committed to expanding our global index, market data and analytics capabilities to help our clients address their sustainable investment needs, and have made great progress in recent years,” said Agather. “Thomas will help take our ESG initiatives to the next level, working across Indexes as well as connecting our capabilities to the rest of Morningstar,” he added.

Morningstar offers a full range of equity, fixed income and multi-asset ESG indexes to help investors address a wide range of sustainable investment needs and priorities. From values alignment to sustainable impact to risk management, Morningstar’s ESG Indexes tap into the research, insights and analytical strengths of Morningstar. In recent years, Morningstar has introduced a number of innovative new ESG index approaches which have been adopted by a broad range of institutional, retail and financial advisor clients.

These innovations include the Sustainability Moat Focus Indexes which provide access to the best ideas of Morningstar Equity Research while mitigating ESG risk exposure, the EU Climate Indexes which draw on the leading ESG Risk Ratings of Sustainalytics, a Morningstar company, to help clients transition their portfolios to meet EU climate transition and Paris-aligned benchmark requirements, and the Sustainability Dividend Yield Focus Indexes which help investors pursue ESG-friendly income investment strategies.

“We’re at a critical point in sustainable investing where investors are deluged with information and seeking credible, transparent insights and tools. Morningstar Indexes has tapped into the power of Morningstar to grow its ESG capabilities in recent years, yet we have only scratched the surface in terms of what we can accomplish,” said Kuh. “I look forward to drawing on my experience to further fuel our ESG growth, raise our visibility in this very important market and leverage Morningstar’s strengths to serve our clients.”

About Morningstar Indexes

Morningstar Indexes was built to keep up with the evolving needs of investors—and to be a leading-edge advocate for them. Our rich heritage as a transparent, investor-focused leader in data and research uniquely equips us to support individuals, institutions, wealth managers and advisors in navigating investment opportunities across all major asset classes, styles and strategies. From assessing risk and return with traditional benchmarks to helping investors effectively incorporate ESG objectives into their investment process, our range of index solutions spans an investment landscape as diverse as investors themselves. We help investors answer today’s increasingly complex questions so that they can more easily reach tomorrow’s goals.