Speakers & moderators
October, 2013 Print
- Mike Bishop is Chairman of the Advisory Boards for RWC Focus Funds. Mike Bishop has been involved in investment management for over 40 years. After running an in-house pension fund for a listed company he managed funds at Kleinwort Benson Investment Management before joining Gartmore in 1984. He became a Director of the Pension Fund Management subsidiary later that year and joined the main board in 1989. As well as managing equities, he later chaired the Pension Fund Asset Allocation Committee and drove Gartmore’s corporate governance development including involvement in several significant activist cases in the early 1990s. Mike has been an adviser to RWC’s activist funds since 2005, initially to the UK funds and to the European Fund from 2009, and chairs both of their advisory boards’ investment committees.
- Julian Brown, Director, JLT Employee Benefits. Following a varied early career as an RAF pilot, working in a South African gold mine and exploring for diamonds in Canada, Julian joined the investment industry as a mining sector analyst for Flemings, and latterly JP Morgan. In 2001, Julian became the Investments Officer for the Nottinghamshire County Council Local Authority Pension Fund (NCC), and was involved in all aspects of the Pension Fund’s investment and management – with particular responsibility for the private equity portfolio and corporate governance. After four years at NCC, Julian then joined the Civil Service to manage the Government’s Venture Capital programmes before moving over to Capital for Enterprise Limited where, as a Senior Investment Manager, he managed a portfolio of private equity fund investments. Here he was responsible for manager selection, due diligence and portfolio management; and sat on the investment advisory boards of a number of underlying funds. Julian joined JLT in September 2008. Julian is a member of the Manager Research Team, as the lead researcher on alternatives, including private equity/venture capital research. Julian has a PhD from the University of Exeter and is a holder of the IMC.
- Martin Davies is Head of Farmland Investments for Insight Investment. Martin Davies has 23 years of practical farming and agricultural business management experience across all sectors of the industry. As Head of Farming Operations for the Co-operative Group Farms, a vertically integrated business in the UK, he was responsible for cereals, oilseeds, vegetable crops, fruit, dairying and beef across a 30,000 ha portfolio of land. Martin has a Degree in Agriculture & Farm Management from Reading University, is a qualified Agronomist, a member of the Central Association of Agricultural Valuers and a professional member of the Institute of Agricultural Management. He was a 2006 Nuffield Scholar, studying the impact of Bio fuels on crop production in Europe.
- Clark Fenton is Chief Investment Officer for Permal Investment Management Services Limited, responsible for Jubilee asset allocation, performance monitoring and research, and is a member of Permal’s Global Investment Committee. Mr. Fenton joined Fauchier Partners in 2003. Previously, he was a Vice President at Morgan Stanley in New York. He worked on the equity arbitrage desk within equity derivatives, trading special situations with hedge fund clients. Prior to that, he managed the firm’s hedge fund lending risk within the prime brokerage division. Mr. Fenton began his career trading fixed income securities for Montgomery Securities in San Francisco.
- Mike Jensen is currently Chief Investment Officer for Lancashire County Council and Lancashire County Pension Fund,having held a similar role with Cornwall County Council. Mike has held a number of senior, rates proprietary trading, market making and risk management positions at Bank of America, UBS, Merrill Lynch, SG Warburg and Morgan Stanley. He graduated in Physics with Economics from Imperial College London.
- Mike O’Donnell is Director of Finance for Camden London Borough Council. Mike O’Donnell joined Camden Council as Director of Finance in October 2005 from Swindon Borough Council, where he was also Director of Finance. Mike previously worked as Head of Resource Management for Housing and Social Services at the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and held senior finance positions at the London Borough of Richmond and the London Fire Brigade. Mike also chairs the London Financial Advisory Committee, the elected executive committee of the Society of London Treasurers for which he is also the lead for procurement and sustainability. He is a core finance advisor to the LGA and a non-executive board member of the London Pensions Fund Authority
- Tolu Osekita is Group Accountant for LGSS (Pensions Investments). Tolu Osekita is currently responsible for managing the investments of the Northamptonshire and Cambridgeshire pension funds having joined LGSS in 2009 from Nationwide Building Society where he worked for several years supporting the commercial finance division responsible for financing large infrastructure projects in the UK. He started his career with a family firm in a client service role, managing the relationships with large institutional clients like the International Bank for Reconstruction & Development and the African Development Bank. At LGSS, Tolu is responsible for managing the two funds’ £3.5 billion of assets, developing and enhancing the fund’s investment strategies and directing the work of the investment team
- John Harrison is Senior Adviser for AllenbridgeEpic. John Harrison is currently an independent investment adviser to four LGPS funds with combined assets in excess of £8bn. John has over 30 years’ experience in UK institutional investment. He spent most of his career as a fund manager, including 24 years with UBS Global Asset Management where he was UK Chief Investment Officer prior to his retirement in 2010. He immediately became Independent Investment Adviser to the Devon County Council Pension Fund, a role he retains today. He subsequently spent two years as a Partner at Aon Hewitt leaving in January 2013 to broaden his range of independent advisor roles. John joined AllenbridgeEpic in May 2013.
- John Mackie B. Com (Hons), Head of STANLIB’s Pan-Africa Investment Franchise.As Head of STANLIB’s Pan-Africa Investment Franchise, John Mackie has responsibility for all STANLIB’s Africa ex South Africa equity and fixed interest investments. John and his investment team manage over $250m of Pan-Africa equity mandates and including its in-country businesses, STANLIB manages over $2bn of assets in Africa ex South Africa, making it one of the largest African asset managers. STANLIB entered into a long-term strategic partnership with Threadneedle Investments in 2012 as part of which Threadneedle provides STANLIB with asset management services, including the management of over $1 billion in global equity, emerging market equity and balanced portfolios for STANLIB. There is also a bilateral distribution agreement whereby Threadneedle and STANLIB distribute each other’s strategies in their respective markets.
- Fiona Miller is Senior Manager Technical Finance for Cumbria County Council.Fiona Miller has over 20 years’ experience of financial budgeting and statutory accounting;organisational restructuring: implementation of change management programmes and financial systems developments within both the private and public sector. Fiona currently heads up the Strategic Budgeting;Capital Programme;Pensions and Treasury functions for Cumbria Council. With only four years’ experience of the LGPS she is a relative new comer to pensions. However, in that time Fiona has been responsible for managing the restructuring of the scheme’s asset portfolio, two triennial valuations, transitioning the pension administration into a new shared service arrangement and developing cash flow and investment strategies that, due to national austerity measures, have had to begin to address a rapid change in the membership profile of LGPS.
- John Raisin is Independent Advisor to London Borough of Haringey & London Borough of Waltham Forest Pension Funds.In his role as Independent Advisor John Raisin is concerned with governance, investment and pension scheme administration & benefit issues. John joined the London Borough of Barnet in 1982 and obtained his first senior appointment as an Assistant Director with Tayside Regional Council in Scotland in 1991. He later became Assistant Director and then Chief Finance Officer at Northamptonshire County Council. John’s final local government appointment was as Director of Finance with the London Borough of Waltham Forest. John received a BA in Ancient and Medieval History from the University of Sheffield, is CIPFA qualified and holds the Investment Management Certificate.
- Jo Ray is Group Manager for Pensions and Treasury for Lincolnshire County Council.Jo Ray has been in her current role since March 2008 and is responsible for the day-to-day management of the pension fund, the treasury management function and oversees the outsourced pension administration. Previously, Jo was the Assistant Investment Manager, and has been working in the investment team since 1999. Prior to that she worked in the Accounting and the Financial Systems teams at the Council, and has spent a total of 22 years at Lincolnshire County Council. Jo gained the Investment Management Certificate in 2001.
- Karen Shackleton is Managing Director at Allenbridge Investment Solutions.Karen Shackleton is a Partner and Managing Director of Allenbridge Investment Solutions and is the Head of the Advisory Business. Karen has over 25 years’ professional investment experience. She started her career at County Natwest Investment Management, specialising in quantitative fixed income and derivatives fund management for pension funds. She is the independent investment adviser for the London Borough of Islington and London Borough of Hounslow pension schemes. Since 2010 Karen has been the head of the advisory business (AllenbridgeEpic) and in 2012 she became Managing Director of Allenbridge Investment Solutions.
- Jignesh Sheth, Senior Investment Consultant at JLT Employee Benefits. Jig Seth joined the Investment Consulting team at JLT in August 2006 after graduating from the London School of Economics. In addition to providing the full range of investment consulting services to his own client base, Jig also acts as supporting consultant on some of our biggest clients. Jig is a product specialist within the manager research team, looking at the range of “alternative” investments available, having previously led the Liability Driven Investment Team. He is also heavily involved in a number of our local authority relationships. Jig is a member of the Market Forecast Committee, responsible for setting the long term assumptions used across JLT’s investment and actuarial teams and is also responsible for maintaining and developing JLT’s proprietary stochastic asset model.
- Patrik Schöwitz is Vice-President at Global Multi Asset Group, J.P. Morgan Asset Management.Patrik Schöwitz, vice president, is a strategist in the Asset Management Solutions – Global Multi-Asset Group (“AMS – GMAG”) responsible for communicating the group’s economic and asset allocation strategy. Based in London, he has been an employee since 2012. Previously, Patrik worked as an equity strategist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch focussing on European markets. Prior to that, he was an equity strategist at HSBC, covering Global, European and US markets. Patrik obtained a BComm in Business Studies and Economics from the University of Edinburgh and is a CFA charterholder.
- Matthew Trebilcock is Deputy Head of Treasury & Pensions for Cornwall Council.Matthew joined Cornwall Council in February 2006 initially working on the administration function, but moved across to head the investment section in January 2012. He commenced his career working for DMGT Pensions for over 10 years then moving to Royal & Sun Alliance as a Project Manager to work on the SAL Pension Scheme before joining Cornwall Council. Matthew is a Member of the Pension Management Institute and the Chartered Insurance Institute.
- Nick Vickers is Head of Financial Services for Kent County Council (KCC),and a Man of Kent who after Maidstone Grammar School obtained an economics degree from the London School of Economics. Nick joined KCC in 1983 and obtained the CIPFA qualification in 1987. Since then Nick has undertaken a wide range of different posts in the finance function including, since 1997, the responsibility for the dayto-day management of the £3 billion Kent County Council Superannuation Fund. As well as his KCC responsibilities Nick is also Chief Financial Officer of Swale Borough Council on a part-time secondment arrangement.
- Paul Woods is Director of Resources at Newcastle City Council, Treasurer to the Tyne and Wear Integrated Transport Authority, and a non–executive Director of NEXUS. He also acts as advisor to the Association of North East Councils on issues relating to local government finance. He is involved in national work including the Settlement Working Group and is a technical advisor to the LGA on financial issues. Paul was recognised as the North East Finance Director of the Year 2010 in the Nigel Wight awards. He received the national Accountancy Age award of Public Sector Finance Director of the Year 2010 and was featured as 23rd of the 50 most influential people in Local Government by the Local Government Chronicle in 2011.
