Archives: Ambassadors

Stephen is responsible for leading Epoch’s business development and consultant relations in the U.K. and Europe.

Prior to joining Epoch in 2015, Stephen spent five years at the Norwegian global equity manager SKAGEN Funds, where he oversaw their U.K. business. Before SKAGEN, Stephen spent five years at T. Rowe Price where he was responsible for their U.K. and Irish businesses as well as EMEA consultant relations. Previously, Stephen was a director in the institutional business development group at Insight Investment, a U.K. asset manager.

Stephen began his career in the industry at Schroder Investment Management. Stephen holds a BA (Honors) in Economics and an MSc in Finance from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, U.K.

Adrian is a highly respected professional in the investment industry with nearly 30 years experience.  He is a Non-Executive Director (NED) to a number of investment funds in different jurisdictions following diverse investment strategies and also runs his own consultancy business, Athena Consulting Ltd,  advising firms on various operational aspects of establishing and running an investment business. Adrian was previously the COO of Charlemagne Capital, a boutique investment manager where he oversaw the operations across multiple offices.

Adrian has lengthy experience of sitting on the board of a UK listed company. In addition he has acted as chairman of investment funds as well as sitting on audit, and risk and governance committees.

He is a vocal advocate for improving corporate governance standards and diversity within the asset management industry. In particular. He believes that the transparency surrounding disclosure of directors background, conflict of interests and their true independence in Offering Memorandums is an area which needs to be addressed urgently. Adrian firmly believes that investors deserve to have all the relevant information and the tone is set from the board down.

Piotr has a combination of academic and business experience.  He specializes in corporate finance, valuation and alternative investments – having taught and worked in England, USA, Scandinavia and Poland. He is passionate about economics and finance, has a Ph. D. in Financial Economics and an MBA from London Business School.

His research interests include alternative investments, corporate finance, mergers & acquisitions, game theory, behavioral & Islamic finance and social media (value drivers and valuation approaches). Piotr is a stakeholder of All-Party-Parliamentary-Group on Islamic Finance.

Piotr is a Senior Lecturer at Hertfordshire Business School. He worked in senior roles in several international firms: Lazard Freres, Deutsche Bank, Intercontinental Hotels and Metsa Tissue Oyj.

Greg is a specialist in applied behavioural finance, decision science, social impact investing, and financial wellbeing.

He started the banking world’s first behavioural finance team at Barclays in 2006, which he led for a decade.

In 2017 he joined Oxford Risk to lead the development of behavioural decision support software to help people make the best possible financial decisions.

Greg holds a PhD in Behavioural Decision Theory from Cambridge; has held academic affiliations at UCL, Imperial College, and Oxford; and is author of Behavioral Investment Management.

Greg is Chair of Sound and Music, the UK’s national charity for new music, and the creator of Open Outcry, a ‘reality opera’ premiered in London in 2012, creating live performance from a functioning trading floor.

A senior securities operations manager, consultant and advisor, with over 35 years of investment banking experience. In the last 13 years specifically, James has worked closely with operations management at many top-tier (and other) organisations, helping them review and improve operating procedures and client management processes. These detailed insights have given him a unique perspective and overview of operational best practice with a keen focus on costs, operating models, location strategy, operational risk and efficiency.

James was an Associate Partner at McLagan until March 2017, in the Performance & Infrastructure team, having previously lead the Z/Yen team. McLagan acquired Z/Yen in 2007 and is a leading provider of market intelligence to the financial services industry. Client support was based on extensive experience in post-execution trade processing, operational efficiency, costs management, client management, client on-boarding and performance.

James joined Z/Yen in March 2003, within the financial services practice. His background prior to this was 20 years in Investment Banking, notably at Morgan Stanley, where he was an Executive Director. James served much of his tenure at Morgan Stanley as Head of EMEA Network Management, establishing and maintaining relationships with the Firm’s Agent Bank Network for Europe, Africa, the Middle East and India.

James had worked within Operations at Morgan Stanley’s Investment Banking (and earlier Global Custody) businesses, with particular focus on Equities and Fixed Income products and played a key role in working with Morgan Stanley’s Agent banks to ensure a successful transition through conversion to the Euro and Y2K.

Prior to Morgan Stanley, James had worked in Operations at James Capel and W. Greenwell stockbrokers (now both part of the HSBC world) and Nikko Securities — where he played a role in developing the back office following their ‘Big-Bang’ membership of the UK Stock Exchange.

Bella has 20 years’ experience in the research and analysis of the UK, European and Asian fund management industries. In 2010, she established Fundscape, a research house specialising in the end-to-end analysis of the UK fund industry. Fundscape is the publisher of the Platform Report, widely regarded as the platform industry’s official data source.

Bella is keen to promote transparency and information for all stakeholders, but especially end-consumers. She is the architect of the Gatekeepers database which assesses the quality of professional fund selection in the UK and also launched https://comparetheplatform.com/ to help consumers find the right investment platform for their needs.

Prior to setting up Fundscape in 2010, she worked for Lipper as Global Head of Research and Publications and was the author of numerous publications and reports including the popular European and Asian Data Digests, the Fund Market Profile report series and the UK Platform guide. Early in her career Bella worked in investment banking and then a London-based consulting firm where she specialised in market entry strategies for retail and institutional asset managers.

Bella has a master’s degree in International Business and is fluent in four languages. She is married with two grown-up children, fussy about grammar and punctuation, loves literature, the theatre, disco dancing and pub quizzes.

Ged has more than 25 years of diverse business experience with one common denominator: the intersection of finance, technology and law. This is the driving force behind Auden’s business model.

He has held senior positions in consumer finance, a tech-VC, private equity and the legal profession.