Ambassadors - Transparency Task Force

Pascal Hogenboom

Pascal is a former CEO of Aon Hewitt in the Netherlands, Executive Board Member of Aon Group Netherlands, Executive Board Member of the Aon Hewitt EMEA Management Board and Member of the Board of Directors of the European Pension Fund “United Pensions”.

He holds 17+ years of experience in the financial services sector and 8+ years in the Military Service with the Royal Netherlands Marine Corps and the Air Assault Brigade. During this period, he did tours in Bosnia and Kosovo.

The combination of his business and military experience has made him a leader with a proven track record who, under any circumstance, can quickly identify relevant risks and opportunities to lead and manage an organization or project into the next phase successfully.

In addition to many different (international) military courses, Pascal has completed his education on Bsc level in business management and has completed several Senior Executive and Advisory Board courses at Aon and Tilburg University (TIAS).

Pascal is fluent in Dutch, English and German and is a fanatical CrossFit practitioner and regularly runs obstacle runs.

Peter Kolthof

Peter has worked in the pensions industry for most of his career. In two decades he has built extensive knowledge, insight and experience in the areas of asset and risk management, covering the full breadth of the investment organisation (front, mid, back office, support services, manager selection), processes (from strategy to implementation) and asset categories.

Before joining Avida Peter was at Shell Asset Management Company, where his last role was Head of Equities. In that role he was also involved in the consolidation of Shell Pension Funds’ assets. Peter was then CFO/COO of an investment boutique for a few years. Lately, as a consultant to Pension Funds he has focused on the areas of asset and risk management.

Peter is an econometrician and tax lawyer by training, completed by executive education programs at the Harvard Business School and Nyenrode Business School. Today he is a lecturer at Nyenrode Business School.

Tomas Wijffels

Tomas Wijffels MSc. (1971) has worked as policy advisor for seven years at Pensioen Federatie (the Federation of the Dutch Pension funds). His main topics of interest are the recommendations on administrative costs and the current discussion about the future of second pillar pensions in the Netherlands.

Tomas is board member of the Dutch pension tracking service, www.mijnpensioenoverzicht. This tracking service for 1st and 2nd pillar pensions is built and maintained by a foundation of which all Dutch pension funds and insurance companies contribute to.

Before working for the Federation, Tomas was board member of the company pension fund of TNO, the Dutch Institute for Applied Sciences, where he worked as a consultant in the field of cultural heritage.

Also, Tomas is a valued member of TTF’s Team EMEA.

Eric Veldpaus

Eric Veldpaus has been at the epicentre of cost transparency throughout his career. Before his current position at the independent Institutional Benchmarking Institute he was strategist at APG where his focus was on all aspects of cost and cost transparency including relations with auditors and the Dutch Central Bank.

Prior to APG, he held senior positions at ABP, Robeco and PWC. Eric is author of several prominent publications on cost transparency, including the ‘Recommendations on Administrative Costs’ (Aanbevelingen uitvoeringskosten)’ published by the Federation of the Dutch Pension Funds; he is also a lecturer at Nyenrode Business University in the Netherlands. At APG he was member of the Global Advisory Committee of CEM.

In 2013 he founded the independent Institutional Benchmarking Institute together with partners Nyenrode and Novarca to further his ambitions in the field of cost reporting.

Eric holds a CA degree.

Further information about Eric, his work and organisations can be found through these links:

IBI: (http://www.institutionalbenchmarking.org/?lang=en)

Novarca: (https://www.novarca.com/).

Also, as well as being an Ambassador of the Transparency Task Force, Eric is a valued member of the TTF’s Team EMEA, Team GTI and Team PISCES.

Marlon Sahetapy

Marlon is responsible for the development and implementation of Aon’s fiduciary and advisory proposition in the Netherlands.

Marlon has 20 years of experience in institutional investment, business development, risk management and governance, working across different institutional markets and various asset classes, but in particular private markets.

He has worked with a diverse investor base ranging from pension funds and insurers to SWFs, endowments, foundations and development finance institutions. He was a Director, Product Specialist and Global Head of Business Development for the Focus Fund at Hermes Investment Management, where he played a significant role in the developing the stewardship service, the Hermes Equity Ownership Services.

Marlon was an Investment Principal at Aureos Capital, a private equity manager focused on ESG and the emerging markets and at Kempen Capital Management. As an independent consultant he led, worked or advised on various fund raising activities in the private markets, he also worked with Pensions Infrastructure Platform, APG and Commonland.

Marlon has been active at Eumedion, the Dutch Institutional Governance and Sustainability Forum, the ICGN and at the ICPM. And he is a former adviser to the Institutional Investor Roundtable, an investor initiative focused on private equity and infrastructure club deals between large institutional investors.

Edouard Bokuetenge

Xprience is a consulting business of freelancers; in addition to that role, Edouard has, for the last 6 years, been working as a Strategic Consultant for Private Equities, large and well established businesses, several mi-sized businesses and as owner of two small start-ups.

Edouard is a strategic, multicultural leader, having built a successful career as an executive in the fund industry over a period of 21 years since joining Rothschild Bank in 1998. He has extensive international experience in Securities Services, Investment Funds, Consulting both in Corporate, SME’s and Start-ups. Over this period, he worked for a variety of companies in the sector: Rothschild Bank, Euroclear, Royal Bank of Canada and the European Fund Platform Group, covering global responsibilities, being based in Luxembourg, Belgium as well as in UK.

At the Fund Platform Group he operated as Chairman where he started from zero and built over a 7-year period a “leadership voice” in the fund industry, acting as a spokesperson. This role provided ample opportunity to build relationships and to influence and persuade the widest range of stakeholders including political, business, industry bodies and various lobby groups; plus the fund industry’s media.

During his career he has created and launched new products and developed new businesses including his own. He is a continuous student and is passionate about Strategy, Digitalization, Innovation, Data Science and IA.

Throughout Edouard’s career he has taken on numerous leadership roles because of his pragmatic approach and team-spirited attitude. He is diplomatic and sensitive but with goals and accomplishments in mind; always seeking to drive change.

Francesco Briganti

Francesco Briganti is currently the Secretary General of the Cross Border Benefits Alliance-Europe (www.cbba-europe.eu), a new EU advocacy organization promoting the development of cross border and pan-European employee benefits plans vis à vis the European and National decision makers.

Francesco is also the CEO of Employee Benefits and Welfare Institute, a Brussels based public affairs company (www.ebwi.eu), and Chair of the Italian branch of the International Employee Benefits Association (www.IEBA.org.uk).

Francesco is currently a member of the Occupational Pensions Stakeholder Group (OPSG) of European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA: https://eiopa.europa.eu/about-eiopa/organisation/stakeholder-groups/occupational-pensions-sg )

Between 2016 and 2018, he has been the Coordinator of the World Pension Alliance (WPA),

a platform of the main worldwide pensions advocacy organizations (www.worldpensionalliance.org).

Until June 2016 he has been the Director of the European Association of Paritarian Institutions of Social Protection (AEIP: www.aeip.net).

Francesco has been serving as lobbyist in EU affairs related to insurance and employee benefits matters for 13 years, he has been speaking at more than 300 public events around the World, and he often delivers lectures on EU law and EU lobbying affairs at several Universities.

Francesco holds a Ph.D in EU law, focused on the legal creation of a pan-European employee benefits plan.

Paddy Delaney

Paddy is the founder and sole contributor to Informed Decisions Blog & Podcast, which won Ireland’s Best Finance Blog for 2017 and 2018.

Having spent years as a tied advisor he left that role 6 years ago, since then focusing on sharing real and unbiased information with consumers in Ireland, to help them make informed decisions with their money. He works with a small number of clients in a planning capacity and also runs coaching and training workshops for dedicated Advisors and firms who strive to deliver meaningful outcomes for themselves and their clients.

Paddy is driven by a desire to improve the outcomes for consumers through more transparent solutions and non conflicted guidance, and believes that can be done while also promoting and growing the profession of financial planning & advice.

John Nolan

John is a technology entrepreneur and a digital transformation consultant.

He is Chief Commercial Officer at VisibleThread. He advises Fortune 500 clients & Governments how to improve communications, customer engagement & user journeys. This includes using Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing technologies to embed change.

John is a member of the American Marketing Association and is an advocate for plain language.

He is a member and supporter of the Center for Plain Language and Clarity International.

Prof. Andreas Hoepner

Professor Andreas G. F. Hoepner, Ph.D., is a Financial Data Scientist working towards the vision of a conflict-free capitalism. While the vision is unlikely fully achievable, Andreas’ view is that anyone can strive to make a regular contribution to reducing abusive conflicts of interests and thereby enhancing the fairness of our society and its financial system. Formally, Andreas is Full Professor of Operational Risk, Banking & Finance at the Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School and the Lochlann Quinn School of Business of University College Dublin (UCD) and serves on the schools’ management team as Vice Principal for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI).

Prof. Hoepner is also heading the ‘Practical Tools’ research group of the Mistra Financial Systems (MFS) research consortium (5 groups, total funding: SEK 58m ~ about US$ 7m), which supports asset owners with evidence-based tools for investment decision making. Since June 2018, Andreas is serving on the European Union’s Technical Expert Group on Sustainable Finance as one of three independent members (i.e. appointed in personal capacity instead of representing a legal entity), where his role specialises in developing low-carbon benchmarks. Before joining UCD in June 2017, Andreas was Associate Professor of Finance at the ICMA Centre of Henley Business School, where he remains a Visiting Professor of Finance teaching FCA staff on Ethics, Governance & Accountability.

He is also Visiting Professor in Financial Data Science at the University of Hamburg, serves as a board member of the Financial Data Science Association (having been its inaugural chair in 2015-16) and educates investment professional in financial data science as Scientific Co-Director of the Certificate in Financial Data Science of the German Investment Association (DVFA). He is currently serving on the Finance Green Ireland Committee (hosted by the Department of Finance of the Republic of Ireland) and on independent assessment committees for the Investment & Pensions Europe (IPE) Awards (Categories: Climate Change Risk, ESG, Smart Beta), the Investment Innovation Benchmark (www.iib.io), and the RI Awards. He sits on predominantly technical advisory boards for various organizations including Bank J. Safra Sarasin (with former PRI chair Engshuber), www.ClimateDisclosure100.info, the female-led fintech start-up Datamaran, the Deep Data Delivery Standards (www.DeepData.ai), the French Social Investment Forum (FIR), and the Future World Fund (with Lord Stern), Invesco (with emphasis on voting technology), Kempen (with emphasis on boutique SDG investing) and Proxy Insight.

Andreas received his PhD from St. Andrews in June 2010, where he was on faculty from 02/2009 to 09/2013. He is co-founder and chair of two socially motivated enterprises: ReFine Research Project which gives social reporting awards to pension funds and Sociovestix Labs (SVL). Co-founded with Prof. Borth, Dr. Hees and Dr. Rezec as a spin-off from the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence [DFKI]), SVL is committed to fostering innovations in support of the Sustainable Development Principles while adhering to the Asilomar AI Principles and the ReFine Principles for Financial Data Science. Prior to taking up his MISTRA role in March 2016, Prof. Hoepner served over six years as lead academic advisor to the United Nations supported Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) and consulted for organisations such as CFA, IFC or CISL.

Andreas is the sole inventor of a US patent titled ‘Investment Performance Measurement’ (No. US8751357 B1). He also won several awards including a 2015 PRI/Sycomore Best Quantitative Paper and the 2010 PRI Academic Research Award. He publishes interdisciplinary in journals such as Accounting, Auditing & Accountability; Brain & Behavior; Ecological Economics; Environment & Planning C; European Journal of Finance; Journal of Business Ethics; and Journal of Business Finance & Accounting. He is co-editor of the Cambridge Handbook of Institutional Investment and Fiduciary Duty (foreword by Al Gore) and the Routledge Handbook of Responsible Investment. He also co-organised a conference Promoting Sustainable Finance at the European Commission and co-edits special issues in the European Journal of Finance on Econometrics & Financial Data Science.

More generally, Prof. Hoepner’s research earned him, aged 33, an invitation to serve as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2015 for “exceptional contributions to the study of finance, particularly … responsible investment”. Andreas is most proud, however, about his record as Ph.D. and post-doc supervisor with more than ten students having successfully graduated into placements such as Fidelity, ICMA Centre, MSCI, Said Business School of the University of Oxford, or University of Hamburg.

Besides these academic honours, Prof. Hoepner’s research and views have been covered in mainstream international media (TV, Radio & Print) including Financial Times, The New York Times, BBC (World Business Report, Business Live, Radio 4 today programme, Radio 5 Live, South Live), The Irish Times, Guardian, CNN, WEF and Dutch, French, German & Swedish language media. He has also presented his research to dozens of asset managers including more than two thirds of the trillion US$ group (i.e. AGI, Amundi, AXA, BlackRock, BNP, Capital, Deutsche, Fidelity, JP Morgan, LGIM, NTAM, SSGA, UBS, Vanguard) and many other relevant organisations (e.g. AFA, Akuna, AP 1/3/4/7, AQR, Bloomberg [London, NYC, Tokyo & Zurich], BPP, BVK, CDC, Central Bank of Ireland, CSRC, Church of England, Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt, Deep Learning Finance, DVFA FinTech Forum, Elo, European Commission, FCA, FTSE, Google, IFC, IOSCO, Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, MAN AHL, MP, MSCI, NBIM, OTPP, PKA, Unisuper, or USS).

Selected content of Prof. Hoepner has been translated into Chinese, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Russian. An extensive record of Prof. Hoepner’s publications, presentations and outreach activities can be found on his CV, which also discloses the ISINs of his personal investments to practise full transparency around any potential conflicts of interest. When interpreting academic behaviour, Andreas follows the credo: evidence is discovered, theories are promoted.