Railpen veteran, Frank Curtiss, who was most recently been its head of corporate governance, has retired. The pension fund has been at the forefront of active institutional investment and was one of the first to vote actively on its equity holdings in the UK and published a voting and corporate governance policy in 1992.

Curtiss joined Railpen in 1990 having qualified as a chartered secretary in 1986 and subsequently as an accountant in 1991. He had several roles over the years at Railpen, including working on private equity then taking taking on responsibility for custody of assets, risk management and internal audit. He took on the full-time role of  head of corporate governance on 2005. Under his leadership the pension fund has extended its active voting to overseas markets, such as the US, Japan, Europe, Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore.

More recently the corporate governance framework developed by Curtiss has been extended to include sustainable ownership principles. Railpen was an early adopter of the UN Principles for Responsible Investment in 2010 and the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) in 2000. Curtiss's work activities has now been taken over by Deborah Gilshan, Head of Sustainable Ownership, and her team.

Curtiss has also worked closely with industry bodies and served on the board of the International Corporate Governance Network from 2009 to 2015, and chaired its Integrated Business Reporting Committee from 2004 to 2010.

Ciarán Barr, Investment Director at Railpen, said,  “Frank has made an outstanding contribution to the development of Railpen’s investment team over the years, not least in his expertise and work on corporate governance."

Curtiss said, “I’m glad to see that the house I helped build over the last 25 years has such strong foundations and will go from strength to strength as my successors at Railpen take forward sustainable ownership”.