After acquiring sustainability researcher Innovest last year, RiskMetrics has let go the regional managing director of the business and brought two of its three analysts into its Melbourne office.

Bill Hartnett, who was managing director of Innovest in Australiasia for five years, left RiskMetrics Sustainability Solutions in December 2009 after being made redundant, it is understood.

But former Innovest analysts Drew Fryer and Peter Ulenbruch would have both relocated from Sydney to Melbourne by the end of the week “so they can start to leverage off our governance contacts and knowledge base,” Dean Paatsch, director of RiskMetrics Australia, said.

Paatsch expected the collaboration between the sustainability and governance analysts on ideas and access to companies would strengthen the company’s new research product.

“We’re really going to focus on delivery, and have started to do that by co-locating two of the analysts with the governance team.”

Harnett said he would now pursue work “in the application of sustainability research into risk frameworks” and extending sustainability research coverage into “high risk” areas, such as emerging markets.

During his time at Innovest, he gained 70 per cent of the sustainability research market in Australia and Korea, he said.

In other news, the Responsible Investment Academy of Australasia (RIAA) is searching for a general manager of its educational arm, the Responsible Investment Academy.

The academy, which has partnered with the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment, would provide training for a global audience through an online portal, RIAA stated.