Laetitia Tankwe, adviser to the president of Ircantec’s board of trustees, has become the first representative of a French asset owner to be elected to the current board of directors of the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI).

She beat Renato Proença Lopes, equity director at Brazilian pension fund Previ, by three votes to one of four asset owner positions in the 2018 election, for which voting closed last Friday.

Tankwe has been an adviser to Ircantec president Jean-Pierre Costes since June 2018. Ircantec runs €11bn of pension assets for public sector workers.

Asset owner PRI signatories also re-elected two incumbent directors: Angela Emslie, independent chair of the board at Australia’s HESTA superannuation fund, and Xander den Uyl, trustee at ABP in the Netherlands.

There is also a new investment manager director on the PRI board, after incumbent Sandra Carlisle, senior responsible investment specialist at HSBC Global Asset Management, was defeated by Wendy Cromwell, director of sustainable investment, senior managing director and portfolio manager at Wellington Management. Carlisle was seeking a further term on the board.

Runa Alam, co-founding partner and CEO of Development Partners International, also ran for the investment manager position, and was second to Cromwell. Investment manager signatories vote for investment manager candidates, and had one vote each.