Mr Bailey gained a degree in Chemical Engineering before qualifying as an accountant with Wolverhampton City Council where he was appointed Director of Finance in 1988. In reorganisations since, he become responsible for a range of other City services. In April 2005 he was appointed as Director for Resources and Support Services. Since 1988, the positions have all held responsibility for the £8 billion West Midlands Metropolitan Authorities Pension Fund (UK), a public sector workers pension scheme covering the urban West Midlands with membership in excess of 210,000. The Fund’s administration is carried out in-house, together with a significant element of investment management, which is combined with the use of a number of specialist external Fund Managers. From April 2008 he will become Director of Pensions full time for the West Midlands Pension Fund and relinquish all his other responsibilities. The West Midland Fund provides support services for the West Midland PTA Pension Fund and advises on the management of their investments. The Fund is closed and of the order of £350M. A number of company non-executive directorships are held including Wolverhampton Science Park and PIRC Limited together with being the honorary treasurer to LAPFF (Local Authorities Pension Fund Forum).He has been a member of a number of national working groups on pensions and was for many years on the audit committee of two US private equity funds. Mr Bailey is a member of CIPFA.

Byron Baldwin is a member of the End Investor Business Development Team at Eurex. Byron has twenty five years experience in derivatives working with Hedge Funds, Central Banks, Asset Managers and Corporations. He has written a number of articles on the use of derivatives in asset management – he recently wrote an article for Pensions Week, ‘Is Portable Alpha Investing the answer for Pension Funds? and’ 'Derivatives: a tool for efficient fund management' and 'Complete Your Picture in Fixed Income Investment Management' for Eurex and has lectured in the evenings on derivatives at the London Metropolitan University. Byron read Monetary Economics at the London School of Economics for his B.Sc. (Econ.) degree and Finance for his M.Sc. degree at the University of Leicester Management Centre.

Valérie Baudson has been Managing Director, Exchange Traded Funds, of Crédit Agricole Structured Asset Management since December 2007. She joined Crédit Agricole Cheuvreux, the European stockbroker of the Group in 1999 as Project Manager for the Senior Management team (1999-2000) and then as Corporate Secretary and Member of the Management Committee (2001-2004). In 2004, she was appointed Marketing Director and a Member of the European Management Committee (2004-2007). She started her career at Banque Indosuez where she managed international audit missions (1995-1999). Valérie Baudson graduated from HEC (France) in 1995 where she majored in Finance.

Giovanni is Managing Partner at FGS Capital LLP, where he is the CEO and is responsible for portfolio management. Previously he was Associate Director of hedge funds at First Quadrant Ltd, where he set up and was the portfolio manager of its Pan European long/short equity market neutral portfolios, and was responsible for UK-based hedge fund business. He has extensive experience of managing equity market neutral portfolios since 1995, when he joined the firm. Prior to that he was a tenured Research Fellow with the Economics Department of the University of Bologna in Italy, and he has held appointments with BARRA International and Eastern Group Plc. He was an Associate Director of the Real Options Group, looking at research and applications of Real Options to corporate finance and investments. He is an active member of AIMA (Alternative Investment Management Association) and a Board and Research Committee member of INQUIRE UK and INQUIRE Europe. He is a Board member of the International Association of Financial Engineers (IAFE). He is the European Chair of the Steering Group of the Investor Risk Committee (IRC) of IAFE working on guidelines for disclosure and transparency for hedge funds. Giovanni is a CFA Charterholder.

Diana Choyleva joined the World Service at Lombard Street Research in 2000 after graduating with a Master's degree in Economics at the University of Warwick. She was promoted to Head of the UK Service in February 2005. Diana's work covers global issues, with a particular focus on the UK and Chinese economies. In February 2006 she published her first book "The Bill from the China Shop", co-authored with Charles Dumas. She has also specialized in research on Japan and Russia and her work on estimating potential output and output gaps is the basis for producing LSR's proprietary global leading indicators. Diana's research has been extensively quoted in the international press and she gives regular TV and radio interviews.

Natalie Dempster is the Manager of Investment Research at the World Gold Council, an organisation formed and funded by the world’s leading gold mining companies with the aim of stimulating and maximising the demand for gold. Natalie came from investment banking where she worked as an economist at both the Royal Bank of Scotland and Chase Manhattan Bank. She also worked as a foreign-exchange trader at Chase Manhattan Bank. Natalie holds a BSc in Economics from Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London and an MBA from City University Business School (CASS), London.

Prior to establishing Clontarf Capital in 2006, Aoifinn was a specialist consultant at Cambridge Associates Limited (London and Boston), where she specialized in the alternatives area, with a particular focus on hedge funds. Clontarf Capital is an advisory firm specializing solely in alternative assets, including hedge funds, private equity commodities and real estate (www.clontarfcapital.com). While at Cambridge Associates she led the European hedge fund research effort, and also assisted a range of family office and institutional clients with their alternative asset allocations. This work included providing overall advice relating to individual strategies and managers, assisting with fund of fund and direct manager selection and acting as lead advisor for six separate accounts with assets totaling $550 million. Prior to joining Cambridge Associates in 2002, Aoifinn worked in the investment banking division of Goldman Sachs International in London. From 1995 – 1999 she worked as a corporate attorney at Debevoise & Plimpton in their New York and Hong Kong offices, where she specialized in providing advice to private equity sponsors and funds of funds, along with more general corporate assignments. Aoifinn has a first class degree in law from Trinity College Dublin, a BCL (Oxon) and an MBA (Dean’s list) from INSEAD. She is a member of the New York Bar.

Charles Stanley is one of the UK’s leading independently owned, full service stockbroking, corporate finance and institutional advisory groups John Fletcher is the IFA expert at Charles Stanley using iShares offerings. ETFs are very important to him though only if the total cost ratio is low and this must also be reflected in the price history in order for him to be comfortable that the price will remain low. The future of ETFs John believes in further inhibitions in the market that will allow him to short a position. Those ETFs that offer derivative level returns, but without the derivatives risk by investing across a basket of stocks are going to become more attractive to the end investor he feels. The biggest challenges for the ETFs industry right now he states to be pricing levels, as well as a lack of education. With greater awareness of ETFs he feels more retail investors would be keen to take advantage of their use.

For three consecutive years, Morgan Stanley has been ranked first for Exchange Traded Fund Research in Europe, Asia, Africa and North America in a global survey conducted by both International Fund Investment and ExchangeTradedFunds.com. In 2007, Deborah won an award for the Greatest Overall Contribution to the development of the Global ETF industry in 2006. In 2006, the organisations honoured Deborah for meritorious service to the ETF Industry. The award recognized her as one of the early strategists to cover exchange traded products, specifically for her work on OPALS and ETFs. In addition, the Greenwich Associates survey of institutional investors in Europe in 2002 - 2006, ranked Morgan Stanley first for ETF strategy. Deborah was ranked in the 2007 Financial News Top 100 Women in Finance, a distinguished list of the most influential women in European Finance. Deborah has been assisting clients with the implementation of Delta 1 solutions for over 10 years. She is on the International Advisory Committee (IAC) of the Cairo and Alexandria Stock Exchanges (CASE) in Egypt and on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Indexes. The group publishes quarterly reports on global ETF industry, ETF short interest, ETF options and futures and the ETF Global Tracking Monitor. It produces reports on specific trade ideas: performs customised analysis for clients critiquing and comparing the various costs of implementing asset allocation strategies using Delta 1 products: publishes quarterly guidebooks on global ETFs, index futures and options, swaps and certificates, OPALS, TOPAS and Shariah Index Funds.

Tim is the President and leader of Mercer's Investment Consulting business. Tim also advises a small number of UK funds on a range of investment matters, with particular emphasis on board investment strategy. Tim has 30 years experience within the pensions and investment consulting industry. He is an influential figure in the institutional investment market and is a well-known speaker at investment conferences. Tim has an honours degree in mathematics from Birmingham University and is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries.

Deborah Gilshan is Corporate Governance Counsel at Railpen Investments, the investment management arm of the Railways Pension Trustee Company, the trustee of railway industry pension funds in the UK. With assets under management of around £20 billion, Railpen is the UK’s 5th largest occupational pension fund, and Deborah is responsible for the implementation of Railpen's global corporate governance voting and shareholder engagement policies. Prior to joining Railpen in November 2007, Deborah managed corporate governance and engagement at Co-operative Insurance Society, having started her governance career there in December 2000. Deborah is an Associate of the UK’s Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators (ICSA), and holds the Institute’s Professional Award in Corporate Governance, as well as being an Advisor to them on corporate governance matters from an investor perspective. Whilst qualifying as a Chartered Secretary, Deborah was awarded the Institute’s prizes for her papers in corporate governance, financial accounting and corporate administration. She read Mathematics and English at the University of Manchester.

John is a well known commentator and advisor on Hedge Fund investing. He is currently CEO and founder of the IGS Group Ltd. which specialises in providing advice on product design and Portfolio Construction, market positioning and distribution for Hedge Funds, Fund of Funds and Service Providers. IGS clients include product structurers and distributors, the global investment banks, fund of fund asset management companies and ….. John was previously head of the European arm of HFR Asset Management building the AUM of the firm up to more than $4bn. John positioned HFR as a leading provider of Hedge Fund of Fund vehicles and was instrumental in launching the HFRX series of investable Hedge Fund Indices. Prior to his work with HFR, John worked with Barclays Capital setting up their Fund derivative business and was also involved in their derivatives Structured Solutions work with European Financial Institutions.

Roger Gray joined Hermes as Chief Investment Officer in September 2006, after four years as an independent institutional adviser to investment funds and asset management businesses. From 1997, he had been CEO/CIO of UBS Asset Management Switzerland and then Global Head of Asset Allocation/Currency for UBS Brinson. He started his career in asset management in 1983 with Rothschild Asset Management, where he was latterly the Chief Investment Officer and head of institutional business. He studied Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Oxford University and Economics as a post-graduate at Harvard University, where he was a teaching fellow in international finance and in commodity and securities markets.

For over 30 years Robin Griffiths has published commentary on all world stock markets, bonds, currencies and commodities, and presented his ideas regularly to a global client base. Robin joined Rathbones in 2004, after many years at HSBC Investment Bank (formerly James Capel). He retired from Rathbones in November 2007. He is a committee member and former chairman of the International Federation of Technical Analysts, and former chairman, now fellow, of the British Society of Technical Analysts.

Jacob is a supporter of the concept of ETFs being used to create alpha. His 16 years of experience within the financial markets has provided him with a wealth of experience that he will be bringing to the event. Jacob is a regular guest on financial news programs (BBC, Bloomberg US, UK, Germany and CH), CNBC Asia, CNBC Europe) and has been a member (adjunct professor) of Webster University's international faculty (School of Business and Technology) since 1999 (Vienna 1999, London 2002) teaching and researching finance and capital markets

Bong Ha has been working with Samsung since 2001 overseeing the risk management and OTC products at both Samsung Insurance and Samsung Investment Trust Management. Since 2003 Bong Ha has been head of the Portfolio Management and ETF team looking after mostly the Kodex ETFs ( AUM USD 1.75)

Mark Hyde Harrison Chief Executive of the Barclays UK Retirement Fund. The Barclays UK Retirement Fund is one of the UK’s largest pension funds with assets of over £18 billion and over 240,000 members. Within the fund are 9 separate benefit sections giving members either defined benefit, defined contribution or hybrid benefits. Mark’s first job was as a contract miner working underground in the Gold Mines of South Africa. Mark joined Barclays in 1988, and after further international experience in the USA and Canada he returned to the UK as the manager of Sir Peter Middleton’s office when Sir Peter was Chairman of BZW. He was appointed to the board of Barclays Funds Ltd in 1999 and then went on to become UK Sales Director for Barclays’ life, pension and investment products following an alliance with Legal & General. In 2002 Mark became the Chief Investment Officer of the Pension Fund and in 2006 became its Chief Executive. Mark is an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Bankers, winner of the Beckett Memorial Prize for highest score in the Associate exams 1990. He is a graduate of the University of Nottingham with a degree in Mining Engineering and is a member of the National Association of Pension Funds Investment Council.

Velida solely looks after the pension fund investments for the County Council of Gavleborg. Her experience in ETFs has been sporadic with limited use of broad European ETFs as well as an ETF tracking the Dow Jones Commodity Index. Velida sees ETFs liquidity, low costs, and an ability to keep exposure to hard to reach markets as favourable to other investment vehicles on the market. A challenge Velida has identified is effectively sourcing a manager who has wider experience of ETFs and believes the process of profiling her search is highly important to this exercise. She would like to know more about the simple basics of ETFs and is concerned with the impact of large amounts of investors surging into the ETFs market will haveon any ETF she is already invested in. Her panel presence is an excellent opportunity to understand the searching process of a mid sized European pension scheme and understand how solutions to common problems can be found.

Stephen Jen is a Managing Director at Morgan Stanley and serves as the Global Head of Currency Research for the firm. He is based in London. Prior to joining the firm in October 1996, Stephen spent four years as an economist with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington, D.C. In addition, Stephen was actively involved in the design of the IMF’s framework to provide debt relief to highly indebted countries. Stephen has also worked for the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve and the World Bank, and has been a lecturer at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Georgetown University School of Business. Stephen holds a PhD in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with concentrations in International Economics and Monetary Economics. He also earned a BSc in Electrical Engineering (summa cum laude) from the University of California at Irvine.

Antonys thoughts on ETFs: ‘I think the challenge for ETFs is to absolutely ensure correct pricing and valuation which has proved not necessarily to be the case for some issues. The challenge is that with the number of new ETFs being introduced there is an exceptionally large and growing pool to choose from across different geography sectors, right down to individual areas of the market such as specific commodities. I believe there are around 1,250 ETFs currently being traded globally so one challenge may be differentiation and I think in this respect issues regarding transparency and pricing will be critical.’ After working for National Westminster Bank for six years, in 1986, Antony established a private financial service practice. For 10 years he worked as a Director of Hill Samuel Asset Management and between 1999 and 2003 he was an Executive Director at the private Swiss bank, Lombard Odier Darier Hentsch. Antony joined IMS in 2003, and became Chief Executive Officer in 2007.

Michael Kinney is European Head of Implemented Consulting at Mercer, and his remit is to ensure focused and consistent delivery of implemented consulting and fiduciary management services across Mercer’s European client base. Michael joined Mercer in October 2007 from Bramdean where he held the role of head of research in the firm’s multi-manager business. At Bramdean, he covered both traditional and alternative assets and was a key contributor to the design, construction and implementation of Bramdean’s listed alternatives offering. Prior to that he spent 3½ years at Northern Trust Global Advisors, where he was responsible for international strategy formulation, fund construction and manager research. He has also worked at Callan Associates in the USA and Bacon & Woodrow in the UK with experience in both the research and asset-liability modelling teams. He is a CFA Charterholder, a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries and was educated at Oxford University, where he obtained an honours degree in Mathematics.

Rick is a Senior Managing Director of State Street Global Advisors UK and Head of Global Active Equities. In this role, he focuses on strategic direction, oversight and risk management. Prior to his current role, Rick was the European Chief Investment Officer with responsibility for all investment activity undertaken in the London, Paris, Munich and Zurich investment centers. Rick is a Board member of SSgA Limited, and also serves on the European Executive Committee and the SSgA Investment Committee. He also managed the structured equities team in London. Before joining SSgA in 2000, he held a wide variety of posts in quantitative fund management and research at Gartmore Investment Management including periods as Head of Quantitative Research and Head of Structured Equities. Rick has a Bsc(Hons) in Operational Research from Lancaster University and MSc in Econometrics at London Guildhall University. He is Chairman of the Board of Inquire(UK) a non-profit making body devoted to the research and promotion of quantitative techniques in investment management, and is active on several FTSE committees including the Policy committee and sits on the Asset Management Committee of the Investment Management Association. He is a regular writer and broadcaster on investment issues and speaks frequently at industry conferences.

Rob Lake joined ABP Investments in February 2007 as Senior Portfolio Manager, Environment, Social and Governance Issues. ABP is the ca. €215 billion pension fund for Dutch public sector employees. Rob is responsible for integrating environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors into ABP’s investment process. From 2000 to 2006 he was Head of Corporate Engagement at Henderson Global Investors, again working on the incorporation of ESG factors into investment decision-making. From 1990 to 2000 he was a policy analyst for various environmental and international development NGOs. He has been a member of numerous advisory committees to companies and government on the relevance of social and environmental issues to business and investment practice.

Michael Lewis is Managing Director and Global Head of Commodities Research at Deutsche Bank AG. Michael's group analyses the macro fundamental forces driving commodity markets with the ultimate aim of delivering directional, curve and volatility trading strategies with particular focus on the global energy, power, agricultural, precious and industrial metals sectors. Before joining Commodities Research in 2003, Michael was the Deputy Head of FX Research where he had worked for the previous 7 years. Michael holds a BSc in Economics from the University of Bristol and an MSc in Economics from the London School of Economics.

Alastair opinion of ETFs is that they are ‘useful for strategic implementation at low cost where passive implementation favoured, or pursuing tactical asset or sector allocation calls. His main use is to get fast exposure to equities and fixed income assets for market exposure purposes, though he increasingly sees ETFs as a long term investment tool. Alaistair believes that ETFs have the potential to outperform active managers in markets that are particularly difficult for active managers to trade in.

Mr Martin is Executive Director of Research and Strategy for IXIS AEW Europe, responsible for the company’s Research and Strategy functions. Mr Martin joined Curzon Global Partners at its founding in 1999. Since then he has been principally responsible for developing investment strategy and international research with a focus on pan European real estate. Working closely with teams in London, Paris and the US, he coordinates European investment strategy and has been responsible for all aspects of portfolio strategy. In this role he is also a standing investment committee member for all European accounts and his team supports the acquisitions and asset management functions for all transactions. Additionally working with his colleagues in the US, he supports the firm’s global securities business with a focus on Europe and Asia. Prior to joining Curzon Global Partners he was a Director in the Investment and Financial Services Division of DTZ and headed the company’s Fund Management and Investment Strategy Group. In this role he was responsible for advising DTZ’s Fund Management Clients on the design, creation and execution of their real estate investment strategies. Prior to joining DTZ in 1996, Mr Martin served as a real estate portfolio strategist for CB Hillier Parker and worked as an analyst specialising in economics and forecasting at both Cambridge University (Property Research Unit) and at Kingston University (Real Estate Faculty) in London. Mr Martin sat on the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors/IPF Working Party on the Calculation of Investment Worth, is a former committee member of the Society of Property Researchers. He has also lectured at Kingston University where he obtained his B.Sc., University College London and at Reading University. Tel: +44 207 016 4800 Fax: +44 207 016 4700 Email: research@curzonglobal.com

Tim joined Invesco in 2002 as a sales executive within Specialist Funds and became Head of Investing Institutions in 2004. Tim's career began in 1993 at Panmure Gordon, an investment bank specialising in Investment Trust Companies. As a salesman within the Investment Trust sector Tim went on to work at institutions such as Deutsche Bank and Merrill Lynch before moving to Invesco where he now leads the sales and distribution team involved in the promotion and development of Invesco PowerShare's range of Exchange Traded Funds. Tim holds a BA(Hons) degree in Financial Services from Bournemouth University.

David has 20 years experience in proprietary trading and analysing financial markets. In 1984, he joined a global seismic exploration company and was posted to the jungles of Papua New Guinea. During this period, David lived and worked with local tribes in the Sepik Basin and started to formulate his theories on collective emotional behavioural patterns. In 1986, David joined JP Morgan, where he traded the major bond, interest rate, bullion, foreign exchange and equity index markets. Part of his responsibilities included acting as strategic advisor to the Head of Trading using his price and behavioural-based analysis techniques. In 1991, David founded and managed JP Morgan’s highly successful European Market Analysis Group, which had widespread responsibility across various markets, including developed and emerging markets. In 1993, David’s unique skills led him to establish Apollo Analysis Ltd to advise several bulge-bracket banks on taking directional risk in global and emerging markets. David joined Emergent as a Principal and CIO in 1997. He lectures widely on financial markets and appears regularly on CNBC television to discuss his opinions. In addition, David is a keen military historian, which is an important component in formulating his global macro view over the next decade. His book will be published shortly. David has an Honours degree in Geophysics from Exeter University.

Henry Nevstad is a Partner and Director of Solutions for Wealth Capital Management. Henry has worked in the capital markets for over 12 years, and has a broad experience in trading and structuring derivatives across all major asset classes. After graduating in 1995 as a Diplomkaufmann (MSc) in Finance and International Management from the University of Mannheim, Henry began his career at the syndicate desk at Merrill Lynch in London focussing on structured notes. In 1997 he moved to Deutsche Bank to join the newly created Global Credit Derivatives group, where he was a central figure in achieving Deutsche Bank’s leading position in the structured notes and the Euro Medium Term Note market. In 2000 he moved to Dresdner Kleinwort to run their global structured notes and private placement business. In addition to building a global structured notes business focussed on delivering bespoke investment products across all major asset classes for both institutional and retail clients, he also developed Dresdner Kleinwort’s credit option and credit index trading businesses, including the launch of the first European corporate bond ETF, before eventually becoming Head of Credit Flow Products. In this role Henry was globally responsible for Credit Trading and Syndicate, managing 60 credit traders and syndicate managers and indirectly responsible for more than 150 additional professionals across sales, research and origination. Henry has received wide market recognition and numerous awards for achievements, transactions and innovations he has been involved in throughout his career. Henry was until recently a board member of International Index Company, which until its acquisition in 2007 by Markit Group was the owner of the intellectual rights behind the iTraxx and iBoxx credit indices, and he advised Eurex on their 2007 launch of the first credit index future contract.

Jim is Head of Global Economic Research for Goldman Sachs, and has been in this position since September 2001. In this role, Jim oversees all the firm’s economic research and the output of its team all around the world. Jim received his Ph.D. in 1982 from the University of Surrey after graduating in Economics from Sheffield University in 1978. After a brief spell with Bank of America and International Treasury Management, a division of Marine Midland Bank, in 1988 Jim joined Swiss Bank Corporation(SBC). In 1991, he became Head of Research, globally for SBC. Jim joined Goldman Sachs in October 1995 as a Partner, Co-Head of Global Economics and Chief Currency Economist. Jim is the creator of the acronym BRICs and together with his colleagues he has published much research about BRICs which has become synonymous with the emergence of Brazil, Russia India and China as the growth opportunities of the future. Jim is a member of the board of the Royal Economic Society in the UK, of the European think tank Bruegel, and Itinera, a Belgium think tank. He is a member of the UK-India Round Table. Jim is one of the founding trustees as well as currently Chairman of the London based charity SHINE. Jim is also Chairman of Goldman Sachs European Charity Committee and a Trustee of PiggyBankKids. He also served as a non-executive director of Manchester United before it returned to private ownership in 2005.

Sébastien Page, CFA, is senior managing director and head of the Portfolio and Risk Management Group at State Street Global Markets. Previously, Mr. Page worked at CDP Capital on asset allocation. In 2000, he won first prize in the Montreal CFA Society–August Hagedorn Contest for his research article on value at risk; in 2002, he won the Quebec Financial Industry honorable mention in the Young Professional of the Year category; and in 2003, he won the Bernstein Fabozzi/Jacobs Levy Award for Best Article in the Journal of Portfolio Management. He has also published articles in the Journal of Asset Management, the Journal of Investing, and the Canadian Investment Review. Mr. Page is a frequent speaker at various academic and practitioner conferences. He holds an MSc in finance from Sherbrooke University in Canada.

Howard is Head of Environmental Finance and Pension Fund Management for the Environment Agency. His Environmental Finance work includes leading the Agency’s work to develop and promote better environmental accounting & reporting by business and the finance sector. His Pensions Fund Management work includes leading the Agency’s £1.6bn pension fund governance, investment strategy, accounting and reporting, benefits administration, and communications. In the last 3 years the Agency’s pension fund has won 10 awards for implementing a financially and environmentally responsible investment strategy that has delivered better financial returns at lower risk than its previous strategy.

With 17 years of capital markets experience, Tim is responsible for asset allocation and investment selection at wealth managers PFP Group. Tim has been shortlisted for five successive years in the Private Asset Managers Awards programme and was a winner in 2005 in the category of Defensive Investment Performance. He was also shortlisted in the inaugural Spear's Wealth Management Awards 2007 in the category of Asset Manager of the Year. Tim has recently written for publications including The Financial Times, Investors Chronicle and The Spectator, and is a regular columnist for Money Week magazine. He maintains an investment weblog at http://thepriceofeverything.typepad.com

Bob Rädecker overseas the use of ETF’s as a tool mainly used for strategic purposes to reach emerging markets or particular stock market sectors. Liquidity and cost Bobs states to be the most pressing concerns facing the ETFs market today. His session will be an opportunity to see how an institutional fund has come up with solutions. In 1998 Mr Rädecker joined PGGM, where he was responsible for implementing and managing PGGM’s credit portfolios. After a period of acting Head of Fixed Income, in March 2006 he became Head of Beta Portfolios; responsible for managing PGGM’s Euro 63 billion multi asset class beta exposure in equities, fixed income, inflation linked, commodities and high income.

Geoff Reader joined Bedfordshire County Council in 1987. He has held a number of accountancy roles at the Council before being appointed to his current Pension Fund role in 2001. His current job title is Head of Pensions and Treasury Management, which covers the Pension Fund accounts and its Investments and also the County Council's treasury management activities Geoff qualified as a CIPFA accountant with the LB Bromley. Geoff has a Bsc(Econ) from Leicester University.

Colin is Head of Asset Allocation in the Investment Consulting practice at Hewitt Associates. He heads up Hewitt's asset allocation service, taking a lead role in the development of Hewitt's investment views. Colin has previously been Head of Strategy at Threadneedle Investments and Head of Asset Allocation at Merrill Lynch Investment Managers. He is a Fellow of the Faculty of Actuaries.

Kerrin is heads Cardano’s UK team and has overall responsibility for growing the business in the UK. Kerrin has over 15 years’ experience in institutional investment and has been the lead adviser to trustees of UK and multi-national pension schemes, with assets of over £50bn. Widely recognised as one of the most innovative advisers in the industry, Kerrin has helped his clients become early adopters of many investment concepts that are today commonplace. These include the use of swaps to manage liability risks, unconstrained equities and alternative assets. Kerrin is an actuary having qualified in 1995. He graduated from the University of Manchester with a degree in Economics. He joined Bacon & Woodrow’s investment practice in 1992 and became a partner of the firm in 2000.

Penny Shepherd MBE, Chief Executive, UK Social Investment Forum Penny Shepherd is Chief Executive of the UK Social Investment Forum (UKSIF), the membership network for sustainable and responsible financial services. She is also a board member of the European Social Investment Forum (Eurosif), which she co-founded in 2001. From 2002-2007, she was a member of the Mayor of London’s Sustainable Development Commission. Penny is regarded as a leading commentator and influencer on sustainable and responsible financial services. Her leadership was recognised in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List in June 2000 with an MBE for “services to sustainable economic development and socially responsible investment”. She first joined UKSIF in 1997 as Executive Director and returned in 2005 after serving as the first Chief Executive of the London Sustainability Exchange, the cross-sectoral organisation created to help make London the most sustainable world city. Prior to that, she was responsible for new business development at Business in the Community, the corporate social responsibility charity. Penny started her career in IT and business consultancy at IBM. UKSIF promotes responsible investment and other forms of finance that support sustainable economic development, enhance quality of life and safeguard the environment. It also seeks to ensure that individual and institutional investors can reflect their values in their investments. The Forum was launched in 1991 to bring together the different strands of sustainable and responsible financial services within the UK and to act as a focus and voice for the industry. UKSIF’s membership includes asset managers, investment banks, major clearing banks, pension funds, investment consultants, financial advisers, socially responsible investment (SRI) research providers and non-governmental organisations.

Peter Sullivan is Managing Director and Global Head of Equity Research for the Global Markets Group of State Street Bank and Trust Company. State Street is the world’s foremost provider of financial services to institutional investors, handling close to 15% of the world’s securities under custody. Prior to joining State Street in 2001, Peter worked as an equity strategist at Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch where he was regularly ranked in the top three in Institutional Investor magazine’s survey of strategists. He previously worked as an international economist for ANZ bank and the UK government. Peter is a graduate of the University of Bristol and obtained a masters degree at the University of Warwick.

Paul Sweeting graduated from the University of Bristol in 1992 with a degree in Economics, and then joined Barnett Waddingham as an actuarial student working in pensions consultancy, subsequently gaining his actuarial qualification with them. Paul has since held a number of roles in both consultancy and fund management, joining Fidelity Investments in 2004 and becoming Research Director of the Fidelity Retirement Institute in 2007. As well as producing original research for the Fidelity Retirement Institute on an range of retail and institutional issues, Paul is involved in the design of investment products for the retail and institutional retirement markets. He is a regular contributor to the pensions and investment press, and has written and presented a number of papers on investment and pension topics. Paul is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries, a CFA Charterholder and an honorary visiting fellow at Cass Business School, London.

Dr Hardeep Tamana has worked in the Financial Services sector since 1994 in various Banking roles and later developed a conventional stockbroking career. Hardeep pursues a value investment style but is not averse to adapting market tactics to suit the overall market conditions, especially where this is deemed likely to enhance returns. In 2002, Hardeep founded the UK's first Islamic Stockbroking Service - later Fyshe Crestar. In his current role, Hardeep has transformed the direction of Fyshe Horton Finney Ltd from a respected regional stockbroker to one with an international financial services agenda. Hardeep is a regular contributor to Bloomberg TV as well as other UK press & media.

Danièle Tohmé-Adet – Head of Business Development, ETF and Indexed Funds BNP Paribas AM Co-Head of the EasyETF platform Danièle joined the EasyETF business development team in 2005. She has 19 years of experience in financial products. She has been with BNP Paribas since 1997. Before joining the EasyETF team, she helped develop the currency overlay management business (begun in 2001) for BNPParibas AM and Overlay Asset Management. In 1997 she created the sales desk for foreign exchange and FX derivative products for BNP Paribas’ fixed income division servicing central bank and supranational clients. Before joining BNP Paribas, Danièle held various positions as senior manager of Financial Futures on both regulated (MATIF, CBOT, CME, Philadelphia) and OTC markets for major US Investment Houses such as Drexel BL, Paine Webber and Smith Barney. Danièle holds a Masters in Business Administration and Marketing from University of Paris-Dauphine.

Paul Trickett joined Watson Wyatt in January 1998, having spent some 20 years with British Coal, latterly as Chief Executive of the coal industry pension schemes. He is Head of the UK and European investment practice and his main role is to manage and grow the business. Paul also provides investment consulting services to a range of top clients on investment issues including fund strategy, manager structures and the selection of investment managers. Paul has a particular understanding of the issues facing large pension funds as well as of the financial services sector. He is also known for his work on the development of best practice pertaining to pension fund governance. Paul graduated from Manchester University in 1979 with a degree in Politics and Modern History. He completed an MBA at Henley Management College in 1992 and attended the International Executive Programme at IMD, Lausanne in 1993.

Michael Turner manages FRM’s risk managers and quantitative analysts, and is responsible for assessing investment risks in FRM portfolios and developing quantitative models to improve FRM’s investment process. Previously, Michael was a Director at Aspect Capital Limited, London and a Quantitative Research Analyst at Schroder Salomon Smith Barney. He holds a BA (Hons) Mathematics from the University of Oxford and a PhD in theoretical Physics from the University of Southampton. Michael joined FRM in February 2007 and is based in London.

'Having trained as a barrister, Justin took up corporate finance, working in both Africa and Singapore. He then went into marketing with a focus on corporate cash management facilities. This led him to help found Broker Services in 1986, which went on to become Barclays Stockbrokers, where he was Marketing Director. In early 2001, he co-founded Seven Investment Management, an investment management business that innovated the UK investment market with the introduction of the first Sterling Investment Wrap Account which now manages and administers in excess of £1.6 billion on behalf of professional financial wealth managers and intermediaries. Justin has a keen interest in developing the investment market to break down as many of the traditional barriers as possible for both private investors and smaller companies. He writes regularly for national magazines and newspapers, and is a frequent commentator on television and radio, both in the UK and abroad.'

As CIO and Member of the Executive Management Committee of AP3 Erik has the responsibility of the overall risk and portfolio structure of their € 22bn fund. He heads the Risk Management department which comprises two teams: the Risk allocation team which works in areas like ALM, portfolio modelling, manager structure and risk budgeting, and the Risk Control team in charge of middle office functions like pricing and ex post analysis of performance and risk. Prior to AP3 Erik worked for Svenska Handelsbanken between 1995 - 2000 in various research positions. Between 1997 – 1998 Erik was a Senior Quantitative Analyst at SHB in London working mainly with fixed income derivates. In 1998 Erik took up the position of Head of Financial Research at SHB in Stockholm heading a group of quantitative analysts in the fixed income/fixed income derivatives area Erik gained his PhD in Mathematics from Stockholm University in 1989 in the field of Algebra.

As Chief Strategist, Jaap is responsible for strategic asset allocation, portfolio construction and the innovation of the investment mix with PGGM Investments. After graduating in 1987 from Rotterdam Erasmus University, where he studied Finance, Mr Van Dam joined Algemene Bank Nederland (Later ABN AMRO Bank). In 1990 he moved to Bank Mees & Hope (later MeesPierson) holding various positions including Head of Funds Research. From 1999 until 2004 he was responsible for Portfolio Construction, Manager Selection and Risk Budgeting with VermogensGroep as Head of Research and CIO. Mr Van Dam started at PGGM Investments in 2005 as Head of Inhouse Equities.

Hugh was Paris Correspondent and Fund Management Editor at Financial News. Formerly he was Deputy Editor of Investment & Pensions Europe (IPE) magazine and Editor of IPE Real Estate. He won the respected Aon Consulting award for European Pensions and Investment Journalist of the Year in 2006. Hugh was also a political and economic advisor to Irene Khan, secretary general of Amnesty International.

Jonathan J. Wilmot is a Managing Director of Credit Suisse and Chief Global Strategist in the Investment Banking division, based in London. His work focuses on major secular and cyclical themes in the world economy and their implications for global capital flows and asset prices. Mr. Wilmot travels extensively in the U.S., Europe and the Far East, and works closely with the Bank's Global Economics and Strategy teams, Proprietary Trading and Sales Coverage Groups. He is a member of the Bank's Global Economics and Strategy Group. Mr. Wilmot joined Credit Suisse First Boston in 1985 from Bank of America where he worked as an international economist. Previously, Mr. Wilmot was an economist at Merrill Lynch for two years. Mr. Wilmot holds an M.A. in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford University.

Stephan Wrobel is a founding partner and CEO of Diapason Commodities Management, a Lausanne and London based asset management firm set up in 2003 to create, promote and distribute investment products designed around the Rogers International Commodities Index and the commodity asset class. Today, Diapason oversees $3bn in passive and active funds and in structured products. Previously, Wrobel traded commodities at Société Générale in London using arbitrage strategies. He then joined BNP Paribas to develop and implement macro and arbitrage strategies for hedge fund clients, and this was followed by a similar role at Lehman Brothers in London. Before joining Diapason, Wrobel was with the Strategic Investment Group at Cargill. Stephan Wrobel graduated from the Paris Graduate School of Management with a major in finance, followed by a macro economic programme at the London Business School. He is a regular lecturer at the Bordeaux, Reims and Paris Business Schools.