Abigail Dean

Abigail Dean is the Global Head of Strategic Insights for Nuveen Real Assets. In this role she is responsible for the organisation’s global sustainability, proptech and research functions. The Strategic Insights team work closely with colleagues across investment, product development, compliance, risk and investor relations to ensure that our investment strategies in Real Estate, Infrastructure and Natural Capital are underpinned by an understanding of global megatrends and that ESG is integrated into fund and asset management.

Since joining Nuveen in 2016, Abigail has overseen the organization setting a target for the Real Estate business to achieve Net Zero Carbon by 2040. This commitment responds to and supports the ambitious goals for sustainable real estate established at the 21st annual Conference of Parties (COP21) held in Paris in September 2015. Abigail is a member of both the Nuveen Real Estate and the Nuveen Real Assets Executive Leadership Team and has spearheaded the integration of sustainability considerations into the investment process. She is also leading the organisation to develop investment guidelines related to physical and transition climate change risk, as set out in the Taskforce on Climate Related Financial Disclosure Framework.

She previously worked at JLL, where she led on sustainability for the Property and Asset Management team in the U.K. and also held a Director role in JLL’s sustainability consulting team, Upstream.

Abigail is passionate about driving sustainable change in Real Assets Investment and sits on several industry committees including the GRESB Standards Committee. She chairs the INREV ESG committee and is a Better Buildings Partnership Board Member.