About Maria
“At IFM I’ve stepped into a role that combines all three of the areas that I’ve been most passionate about throughout my working life – pensions, private markets and sustainability. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and can’t believe that I’m actually paid to do this job,” said Maria Nazarova-Doyle.
Maria Nazarova-Doyle joined IFM in September 2023 as Global Head of Sustainable Investments, a new role to support our focus as a business, on sustainable investment.
“It’s just coming up to my first six months and I can honestly say that IFM’s culture is outstanding. I’ve had a lot of support and feel very welcomed by people across various countries and time zones. The friendliness, humour and assistance I’ve received around understanding the organisation makes IFM such a lovely place to work,” outlined Maria.
Maria started her career in private equity and fell in love with private markets.
“In particular, what appealed to me was the intellectual challenge of analysing acquisition targets and coming up with turnaround solutions to improve profitability. While this was certainly exciting as an economics graduate, I knew I wanted at job that had more of a positive impact on the wider society,” said Maria.
As a result, Maria moved into pension funds, taking a role as an investment consultant focussing on defined contribution advice.
“I felt that I could put my financial skills to a very positive use – making sure hard-working people have enough money to retire comfortably. It’s no secret that people don’t think much about their retirement or set aside enough savings for later life, so it often falls on pension fund investment strategies to try and bridge the retirement gap,” said Maria.
During her career as an investment consultant, it became very clear to her that it was impossible to give long-term strategic investment advice without considering sustainability.
“I became a champion for the sustainability cause and really discovered the value that private market investments can offer – using capital towards solutions to the systemic issues we’re all facing; to help transform social and economic infrastructure for a better, more sustainable future,” she outlines.
With intent to focus her career on sustainability Maria took a role as Head of Responsible Investment and Stewardship at UK pensions giant and insurance company Scottish Widows (part of Lloyds Banking Group).
“This gave me an amazing opportunity to build a responsible investment and stewardship strategy from a blank sheet of paper for an organisation with over 200 years of history and over £200bn of assets under management.
"Which has led me to this point in my career. My new role here at IFM combines all three of the areas that I’ve been most passionate about throughout my working life – pensions, private markets and sustainability. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and can’t believe that I’m actually paid to do this job,” she outlined.
A key enabler for our Sustainable Investment approach at IFM is the work the Sustainable Investment team has contributed on the Sustainable Business Report. This year’s report highlights our long-term approach, both to the investments that we manage along with our own business operations and people.
“Sustainability means growing the organisation in a way that meets the needs of the present, without compromising the needs of the future and I feel this is really showcased in our latest Sustainable Business Report. I thoroughly enjoyed working on this report and am extremely proud of the work our team has contributed to it,” said Maria.
Maria sees our growth as very exciting with the potential for us to own more assets and improve the health and safety, working conditions and diversity, while helping decarbonise them and position them well for the future.
“I see the role of my team as quite integral to helping achieve positive outcomes to support our growth, working across IFM to unite us in our strategic focus of sustainability and to support us to deliver on our purpose, to invest, protect and grow the long-term retirement savings of working people,” she outlined.
Outside of work Maria says she can’t imagine her life without yoga.
“I start every day with a home yoga session which helps me wake up, get moving and focus my mind on things I want to achieve each day,” said Maria.