UK: Legal & General Capital (LGC) has appointed Karen Bashford as its chief operating officer, from July 2023.
She will lead LGC’s operations as it expands internationally and “transitions its business from an alternative asset origination platform to a leading multi-boutique manager, deploying third-party capital across its investment specialisms of housing, venture capital, specialist commercial real estate, clean energy, digital infrastructure and GP investing”.
Bashford was most recently head of enterprise change at Schroders. Her role included onboarding large assets tranches such as £7 billion of real estate business. She has also overseen the delivery of major infrastructure, regulatory, and efficiency programmes looking at operating models end to end.
Prior to her nine year career at Schroders, Karen was global change and operations portfolio manager at BAML and held a previous role with UK and European government initiatives to deliver environmental change programmes.
“Legal & General Capital has built a strong, scalable platform, whilst meeting its purpose to invest society’s capital for society’s benefit. I am delighted to be joining the business at this crucial time, building on its success to further an environment that promotes growth, efficiency, innovation and agility,” said Bashford.
“Karen will be a fantastic addition to Legal & General Capital’s leadership team, with strong sector and technical ability to support the next stage of our business transformation and clear alignment with Legal & General Capital’s mission. Karen will continue to support Legal & General Capital in its strong purpose and values that drive our global direct investments, helping to attract third party investment to crowd in capital to these high-returning impact investments which can secure lasting value for society, added Laura Mason, CEO of Legal & General Capital.
In 2022, Legal & General Capital helped fund more than 17,000 new homes across a range of tenures.
