With all the concern surrounding the quality of corporate governance, Deutsche Bank is beefing up its attention to the subject with the hiring of two corporate governance analysts for Deutsche Bank Securities Inc.

Gavin Grant and Simon Wong have joined as a director and a vice president, respectively. Both are based in New York and report to Renato Grandmont, Head of Global Corporate Governance Equity Research.

In February, Deutsche Bank announced the formation of a Global Corporate Governance Equity Research unit to assess and report on the corporate governance practices of the companies they cover, and to work with companies to help them improve their corporate governance practices.

“These two hires reaffirm our commitment to corporate governance research. This is a field that is of increasing importance to investors as they consider their investment strategies with respect to the emerging market asset class,” said James Fitter, Global Head of Emerging Market Equities. “Gavin and Simon bring very important and diverse skill sets to the firm. When combined with Deutsche Bank’s strong emerging markets equity platform, they will help us to better analyze corporate governance throughout the emerging markets.”

Grant joins from Deutsche Asset Management where, most recently, he was a fund manager and Head of Latin American Equities. Wong comes from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development where he served as counsel and principal administrator within the Corporate Affairs Division. At the OECD, he focused on corporate governance issues.

“Our research in Latin America shows that investors reward companies with good corporate governance practices with higher valuation multiples,” said Grandmont. “Thus, as companies and countries work to improve their corporate governance standards, their cost of financing should decline. Our research will provide investors with tangible ways to assess a company’s corporate governance.”