Santander Wealth Management & Insurance (WM&I) division has appointed Laura Blanco as head of ESG strategy.

In her new role, Blanco will lead the dedicated ESG unit, which was set up last year by the Spanish banking group to accelerate its environmental, human rights and corporate governance efforts.

She was most recently director of Knowledge and Outreach for Impact Investing at Spain’s national advisory board in London.

Prior to that, Blanco worked at a number of wealth and asset management firms including Credit Suisse, Lusight Research, Haitong Securities, Baring Asset Management and Nakatomi Capital.

She started her career as an equities analyst at UBS.

Santander has also named Ana Rivero as sustainable investment director at WM&I.

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Rivero was previously part of the Santander Asset Management (SAM) unit, where she served several key roles, including head of Product and Market Intelligence and head of ESG.

The bank has also appointed Augusto Caro as global head of ESG at its asset management unit. 

Caro, who joins Santander from Grupo Caixabank, previously held a number of senior roles in the Investment team at Bankia AM.

He will report to Santander Asset Management global CIO José Mazoy.

The appointments come as WM&I targets to raise €100bn in sustainable funds by 2025. The unit currently has raised €27bn across private banking and its fund manager.

The move is part of Santander’s strategy to raise or facilitate €120bn in green finance by 2025 and €220bn by 2030.

It also aims to achieve net zero carbon emissions across the group by 2050.

Santander WM&I head Víctor Matarranz said: “We are firmly committed to supporting the ecological transition and helping build a more sustainable world. These appointments will help strengthen our leadership in ESG in Europe and Latin America.”