Michael Viehs is Assistant Manager within the Equity Ownership Services (EOS) team of Hermes Investment Management in London. In this position he is responsible for corporate engagements on environmental, social, governance (ESG), and strategic issues and for producing research on responsible investing. In his role at Hermes EOS, he is the sector lead for automotives and also responsible for developing a consistent and stringent proxy voting policy and corporate governance principles for the German market. Michael is also a Honorary Research Associate at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment. Before his appointment at Hermes EOS, Michael was Research Director at University of Oxford's Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment.

His work on responsible investment, corporate governance, and stewardship has been published in Corporate Governance: An International Review and Annals of Social Responsibility. Amongst others, he is co-author of the widely recognised study “From the Stockholder to the Stakeholder - How Sustainability Can Drive Financial Outperformance” and contributed a chapter on active ownership to the recently published book “Re-Imagining Capitalism” (Oxford University Press) edited by Dominic Barton, Dezsö Horvath, and Matthias Kipping. Michael presented his work at several top-notch academic and industry conferences on corporate finance, corporate governance, and responsible investing around the world.

Michael holds a B.Sc., M.Sc. and Ph.D. from Maastricht University, School of Business and Economics.