Tue 03 Oct 2023 - Board members’ investment-capital decisions are broadly influenced by what they hear and understand of the forecasts and assessments of climate risk models. The models widely used today are “linear” risk models, thus predicting smooth changes in the future. However, in the “non-linear” real world, a host of potentially highly disruptive “tipping points” could knock the best of today’s investments way off course. This presents an even greater challenge for NEDs who already face increasingly challenging governance aspects.
Please join us for this thought-provoking hybrid event, presenting different perspectives from key stakeholders involved in this challenge, to explore and collaboratively discuss:
This event is a collaboration between the IFoA’s NED Member Interest Group and Financial Systems Thinking Innovation Centre, aiming to promote further insights for both the NED community and Finstic, potentially leading to a better approach to the issues discussed.
Sarah Bates has over 40 years’ experience in investment, pensions, and savings. She has chaired organisations ranging from a FTSE 100 company (St James’s Place) to a small youth charity in Islington. She is currently Chair of the USS internal investment management company, the Senior Independent Director of Alliance Trust PLC, and a member of the investment committee of the BBC Pension Fund.
She is an ambassador for Chapter Zero, a co-founder of the Diversity Project, a senior advisor to Lansons PR, a mentor for Chair Mentors International, a fellow of CFA UK, and an honorary fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge.
Mark is a non-executive director of Network Rail and chairs its Audit and Risk Committee. He is also an NED of Ofwat and a member of its Major Projects Committee. He has spent much of his career in the rail sector and has particular experience in major projects, restructurings, and corporate finance.
Mark’s initial career was at S.G. Warburg/UBS in banking, corporate, and project finance. He then became Finance Director and later Chief Executive of London & Continental Railways, developer of the High Speed 1 railway and owner of the U.K. arm of Eurostar. High Speed 1 was delivered on time and within budget.
As CEO of LCR, Mark led the sale of HS1 for £2.1bn and was a board member of Eurostar. Mark’s interim assignments have included Commercial Director of HS2, and CFO and board director of the Submarine Delivery Agency at the Ministry of Defence.
He has also advised the Sizewell C nuclear power station project on its financing using the regulated asset base model.
Bruce Beck works on handling uncertainty in models at the science-policy-society interfaces. He also works on cities, the urban metabolism, and the circular economy. He began volunteering for the IFoA in 2013 as a member of the Model Risk Working Party.
Over the past decade Bruce has worked with David Ingram and Michael Thompson on developing the
principles of model governance and rational adaptability in ERM. His book ‘Environmental Foresight and Models’ — the outcome of the International Task Force in Forecasting Environmental Change — was published in 2002.
Mirko Cardinale is Head of Investment Strategy at USSIM where he is responsible for the design of USS’ strategic asset allocation processes.
Prior to his role at USSIM, Mirko was Head of Asset Allocation-EMEA at Russell Investments where he was responsible for designing model portfolios and reviewing the asset allocation of EMEA funds. Before his appointment at Russell, Mirko was Head of Strategic Asset Allocation and Multi-Asset Fund Manager at Aviva Investors, where he oversaw the asset allocation positioning of UK life and pension funds as well as managing the DC default fund for the Aviva Staff Pension Scheme.
Prior to his role at Aviva Investors, Mirko was also a senior investment consultant at Watson Wyatt (now Towers Watson), where he built an offshore research team in Uruguay, and a Research Manager at Financial Times Business.
Mirko holds a PhD in Finance from Imperial College, London, with a thesis on the interrelationships between pension funding and capital markets. He also holds an MSc in Economics from Universitat Pompeu i Fabra, Barcelona, and a BSc in Economics from Università Bocconi, Milan.
Mirko’s mother tongue is Italian and he is also fluent in Spanish, Portuguese, and French.
David Lamb has over 40 years’ industry experience. After starting out at Friends Provident in 1979, most of his working career has been in investment markets.
The majority of his executive career was at St James’s Place, where he worked for 29 years, having joined at start up, helping to take it from business plan to being a FTSE company and the UK’s largest wealth management business.
His executive career covered a breadth of investment and operational areas including product development, investment management, IT, operations, marketing, technical support to financial advisers, and client administration. As the business expanded, he worked with teams in Singapore, Hong Kong, Sweden, Dublin, and the UK. For 12 years he served on the FTSE Board as Managing Director and chaired the Investment Committee.
Since retiring from full-time work, David has taken up a number of non-executive roles. He is currently at Chair Polar Capital, an AIM listed asset management firm in London. He has recently been appointed as Chair of Ireland’s oldest insurance company, based in Dublin. He was a governor at the University of the West of England for 10 years, chairing the board there for the last 3 years, before stepping down at the end of July 2023.
As a career non-executive, he is passionate that boards need to add value and demonstrate leadership. Governance and culture are key areas where he believes boards can and should make a difference.
These days David is a full-time grandparent. He is a keen runner and tries to complete three 10-kilometre runs each week. He likes to travel whenever he gets the opportunity, and has been able to attend more rock concerts since retiring.
Dr Nicola Ranger is Director of the Global Finance and Economy Group of the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford and a Senior Research Fellow. She also directs the Oxford Martin Systemic Resilience Initiative, the UK Integrating Finance and Biodiversity Programme and the Resilient Planet Finance Lab. Nicola brings 20 years' expertise in risk, analytics, economics, finance and fiscal policy as a practitioner and researcher across industry, government, IFIs and academia. She works with governments, Central Banks, regulators, financial institutions and international organisations to help align policy and finance with resilience and sustainability goals. She has formerly held senior positions at the World Bank, HM Treasury/Cabinet Office, the UK Department for International Development, the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office and the London School of Economics and Political Science and is a member of several high-level expert groups, including the European Commission’s HLEG on Sustainable Investment in LMICs and the UK’s Green Taxonomy Advisory Group (GTAG).
Sandy is the Past-Chair of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries Sustainability Board and Vice-Chair of the International Actuarial Association’s Climate Change and Sustainability Committee. He is the lead author of a series of collaborative research reports which bring together science and risk, seeking to improve policymaker level risk management. The latest report, ‘Planetary Solvency – finding our balance with nature’, explores how actuarial techniques can help society manage climate change and other risks.
This builds on the findings from ‘Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail’, which highlighted concerns around carbon budgets being unrealistic and ‘The Emperor’s New Climate Scenarios’ – which highlighted the limitations of commonly used climate scenarios.
Sandy’s personal mission is to help reconnect finance and the economy to nature and the biosphere to deliver a future worth living in.
He works with investors and advises a number of regulatory and policymaker groups on these topics.
Online and in London: Staple Inn, Holborn, London, WC1V 7QH