Archives: Ambassadors

John Howard joined the BBC as one of the leading voices on Radio 4. He presented documentaries, phone-ins and discussion programmes, winning several awards. He became best known as the consumer’s champion on the daily magazine programme ‘You and Yours’, which he presented for 14 years.

In 1997 he was invited to join the Mortgage Code Compliance Board as an independent director. He subsequently became a member of the Financial Services Consumer Panel, which he chaired for 3 years until 2008.

Between 2006 and 2008 he was a member of the Market Participants Group of CESR, the European committee of securities regulators, and he also joined the Treasury’s Retail Financial Services Group. On stepping down from the Consumer Panel, he joined the Board of the Financial Ombudsman Service and also became a Non Executive Director of the energy Regulator, Ofgem.

In 2010 he was appointed as an Independent Commissioner by the Treasury for the Equitable Life Payments Commission.  He served on the With Profits Committee and the Independent Governance Committee of Scottish Widows. He was a Trustee of the Thalidomide Trust. He is currently Vice Chair and Senior Independent Director of the Family Building Society and a Non Executive Director of the Banking Competition Remedies Company.  He is Chief Executive of the company he founded, Consumer Insights, which provides advice on principles based regulation and fairness in the financial, energy and water sectors.

Peter Uhlenbruch currently leads investor engagement within ShareAction for the Asset Owners Disclosure Project (AODP), which publicly assesses and ranks how the world’s largest institutional investors are strategically responding to climate change.

He is also the lead author of the ‘Winning Climate Strategies’ research report, which comprehensively reviews the leading climate strategies of 22 global asset owners including common features, barriers faced and practical advice for other asset owners.

He has a background in teaching business ethics at a range of Australian universities (including Monash University and RMIT) as well as industry experience in corporate governance research (at Ownership Matters), ESG ratings research (MSCI) and climate governance research (CDP).

Sital has 15 years of investment experience across a broad range of disciplines including ESG and Climate Change Specialist, Chair of Global Thought Leadership Forum, institutional DB and DC business development, building strong investment consultant / client relationships as well as researching fund managers and monitoring their ongoing performance via due diligence.

Sital is responsible for publications, research and thought leadership, trustee training and advising institutional clients on how to genuinely integrate ESG into their overall investment strategy and underlying portfolios.

She speaks at conferences, sits on discussion panels and drives regulation forward through government consultation and draft reviews of new legislation.

In March 2019, she was appointed Steering Group Member to provide technical expertise on the BSI’s Sustainability Investment Management Standards Project to develop PAS 7341.

Sital is an advocate of enhanced transparency of both physical and transition risks associated with climate change. Her ambition is to encourage a collaborative standardised approach leveraging the existing TCFD framework, Cambridge Impact Framework, ClimateWise Physical and Transition Risk Frameworks and SASB’s model from the stock level upwards.

Transparency Task Force Ambassador (February 2019)

Member of the Sustainable Finance Network.

Johan Cras is Head of Institutional Relations at Kempen Capital Management, a specialist asset manager with a sharp focus and clear investment philosophy, currently managing €59.9 billion of client assets (as per 30th June 2018). Kempen Capital Management offers comprehensive fiduciary investment solutions and a number of specific investment strategies.

Prior to joining Kempen as Managing Director for the London team in 2016, Johan was a member of the Executive Committee of Achmea Investment Management, where he was responsible for the fiduciary management business and before that, he held several executive positions at Russell Investments, serving most recently as Chief Executive EMEA in London.

Johan is a member of the Kempen Capital Management Executive Committee.

Press release:

https://www.kempen.com/en/news-and-knowledge/persberichten-2019/johan-cras-appointed-transparency-task-force-ambassador

A qualified accountant, securities professional, computer specialist, and management consultant, educated at Harvard University and Trinity College Dublin, Michael gained his PhD at the London School of Economics where he was also a Visiting Professor.

He began his career as a research scientist, later becoming an accountancy-firm partner and a director of Ministry of Defence research. During a spell in merchant banking in 1994, he co-founded Z/Yen, the City of London’s leading commercial think-tank.  He has led Z/Yen from creating smart ledgers (aka blockchains) through the Financial £aboratory, Taskforce 2000, Long Finance, Global Financial Centres Index, Global Green Finance Index, and Global Intellectual Property Index.

Michael is an Alderman of the City of London for Broad Street, a non-executive director of two listed firms and a regulator, Emeritus Professor at Gresham College, Fellow of Goodenough College, and Past Master of the Worshipful Company of World Traders. His third book, The Price of Fish: A New Approach to Wicked Economics and Better Decisions, won the 2012 Independent Publisher Book Awards Finance, Investment & Economics Gold Prize.

After a successful 18-year career as a Senior Executive at ‘Nationwide Building Society’ managing large projects and internal departments, Joe then enjoyed a second career as an ‘International Management Consultant’ for Logica/CMG working all over the world at Board level in some of the world’s leading Companies solving corporate problems.

His clients included Vodafone, M&S, DHL, Nat West, Prudential, EE, Thomas Cook, Morgan Stanley, The Environment Agency and many others.

In addition to his corporate work Joe is an established professional Writer and Conference Speaker with over 3000 articles published to date in leading magazines as well as the author of a number of books. He is also a fully qualified Life Coach, Hypnotherapist, ‘Reiki Energy Healer’ and Entrepreneur.

From 2014-2018 Joe worked closely with eminent philosopher, scientist and writer Ervin Laszlo and was the Managing Director of the ‘Laszlo Institute of New Paradigm Research’ (L-INPR) in Tuscany, Italy – a conference centre and think-tank which brings together world experts in the fields of holistic and alternative health, consciousness, spirituality, sustainability and world issues.

Joe is the author of the best-selling life-coaching book ‘100 Tips for Total Life Fulfilment’ with more books to be published in 2019 including ‘EarthPulse’ which analyses and attempts to solve the world’s most critical problems including climate change, pollution, poverty, corporate corruption, deforestation and human rights. In 2016 Joe was invited to take on the role of ‘Global President’ of ‘Eternea’ the US based organisation founded by the 6th man-on-the-moon, Astronaut Edgar Mitchell. Eternea is an organisation focused on research into Consciousness, Immortality and World Issues.

Joe is also the newly appointed UK Director of the “World Sustainability Development Forum” (WSDF) which is focused on meeting the targets of the ‘Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDG’s) and the ‘Paris Agreement’ on climate change, and works closely with WSDF Global President, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, former Chairman of the IPCC (Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change).

Wendy Addison began her career as a professional ballet dancer, qualifying as an Chartered Accountant in the 1980s after being laid off with an injury. Climbing the corporate ladder, Wendy became the only female executive in her team, operating at board level as the International Group Treasurer for a publicly listed company.

Standing up for the values that support her principles Wendy attempted to report malfeasance, committed by the joint CEOs, internally but was met with purposeful obfuscation. Demonstrating courage and a willingness to endure the danger of being exposed, Wendy took a moral stand against bribery and corruption and blew the whistle externally.

Wendy’s story is a human story of courage and endurance, of hope and justice. It covers many valuable teaching moments, including the psychological conflict of Speaking Up, the challenge for leaders to Listen Up, the importance of intra group dynamics and the long term emotional pain of shame and regret for those who feel disempowered to act.

Since securing justice in an 11-year war of attrition, Wendy has maximised her experience through studying the Social psychology and Neuroscience of Decision making at Stanford University in addition to being accredited to train for Courageous Conversations, a course developed over twenty-five years at Stanford by Professor Emeritus Philip Zimbardo and Dr Lynne Henderson Ph.D.

Wendy founded SpeakOut SpeakUp Ltd, a consultancy and training company in 2012 and provides training, lectures and talks to move people towards Courageous Conversations before they head for the exit marked ‘Whistleblowing’

Wendy is at the cutting edge of behavioural change, currently in collaboration with the University of East London‘s Virtual Reality Lab to develop Virtual Reality immersions for Courageous Conversations.

Additionally, Wendy is a lecturer at Surrey University and Warwick Business School, is a contributing member of the UNCAC Coalition, the Corruption Research Group of the Surrey University and sits on the advisory board of the Whistleblowing Research Unit which runs the International Whistleblowing Research Network at Middlesex University in the United Kingdom. Wendy has recently written a white paper for and on behalf of the OECD, called Openness in Organisations. She will be presenting this paper to governmental heads, in Paris in 2019.

Wendy’s clients and engagements have spanned the globe and range from speaking at TED Tokyo, providing training for the Council of Europe to addressing the needs and goals of companies such as BP, Nationwide, Mubadala in the UAE and Massy in Trinidad.

Bob has over 30 years in strategic corporate pensions consulting at board level, having worked for leading actuarial firms, brokers and insurance companies, and established a number of different ventures. Managing Director and co-owner of ARC Benefits Limited, a specialist in pensions Management & Governance systems.

A long standing member of the East Midlands PLSA committee and a Fellowship Network Ambassador for the Pensions Management Institute, A Fellow of the Chartered Insurance Institute, and holder of the IIMR Certificate on Investment management.

Co-authored a book on Pensions Management, “108½ Tips to Tame your ‘Pensions Beastie’”, and contributed a section to an IoD handbook on workplace pensions.

Has provided input and Ideas in developing DWP and Pensions Protection Fund policy. Acted as the British Chambers of Commerce Pensions Policy advisor at the time Auto Enrolment legislation was developed, and instrumental in establishing the Association of Professional Pension Trustees.

Bob is a member of the Transparency Task Force’s Market Integrity Team, and a Transparency Trophy winner.

Andrew is an independent and expert analyst, commentator and writer on the financial industry. He works on a wide range of research-related projects, helping clients to understand and communicate the impact of economics, technology, demographics, behaviour and regulation on financial firms and the sector as a whole.

Andrew’s clients include world-leading companies in banking, asset management, research and consulting. He has worked for a range of national and international bodies, and been instructed as an expert witness.  Andrew works mainly in the UK and Europe, but also has extensive experience in Asia and the US.  He often speaks at industry events and is always ready to give his opinion!

With quixotic timing, Andrew founded Insight Financial Research in early 2008 and has been busy ever since. That followed a dozen years in professional services, first as a forensic accountant at Arthur Andersen and then in PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Valuation & Strategy practice.

Andrew is a strong believer in the social value of finance, but – like many – feels that the industry has largely forgotten its purpose. He is a member of the TTF’s Financial Stability Team, contributed to the Team’s 2018 white paper on avoiding future crises, and was an expert participant in the RSA’s Citizens Economic Council project.