Ambassadors - Transparency Task Force

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.

Greg Chew

Founder at QPQ, building the next generation Digital Financial Network enabled by proprietary smart legal contracts.

Alternative Finance & FinTech veteran – founder of QPQ Limited. Extensive commercial experience in commodities – mining, energy, agribusiness – with particular expertise in trade and production finance.

Professionally qualified in asset management, investment banking and law as a non-practicing barrister.

Christopher Ovenden

Christopher Ovenden is the CEO of Omnium Investment Platform and has 24 years experience across blue chip financial services companies.

Chris has gained international experience in Luxembourg, London, Sydney and Dublin working with Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan Chase, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Merrill Lynch and Pershing/BNY Mellon.

Prior to joining Omnium Investment Platform Chris spent 9 years working for Pershing and BNY Mellon in Ireland, heading business development and relationship management for Irish based wealth managers and stockbrokers.

Chris graduated from the University of East Anglia LLB Hons in Law with German, and from the Universität Trier Magister Iuris (M.iur) – cum laude in German and European law.

Chris also has a Diploma in Applied Project Management from UCC, is an IPMA certified project manager and also a QFA.

Prabhu Guptara

Prabhu helps Boards of companies worldwide with strategic, structural, operational and market-related issues.

Born and educated in India, he was based for three years in Scotland, for 16 years in England, and for 21 years in Switzerland. He served on the International Board of Advisors of London Business School; and was till recently on the Management Board of the Institute of Management, St Gallen University, Switzerland.

He has been Visiting Professor or has lectured by invitation at universities in India, Singapore, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Argentina, the USA, UK and several other countries in Europe and the CIS.

For 15 years, he had the unique job of working with people throughout the world to identify new ideas that might bring value to one of the largest banks in the world. This included running Think Tanks on a wide variety of market and global issues, and managing the Distinguished Speaker Series.

He is Executive Director of Relational Analytics Ltd (Cambridge, UK), Honorary Chairman of the Career Innovation Company (Oxford, UK), and is or has been a Freeman of the City of London, and of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists, and Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development; Fellow of the Institute of Directors, of the Royal Commonwealth Society, and of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of the Arts Commerce and Manufactures. He was a Member of the International Advisory Panel for the Tomorrow’s Global Company Report by Tomorrow’s Company, UK. Earlier roles include a Governor of the Polytechnic of Central London (now the University of Westminster), Member of the Council of the British Institute of Management, of the International Federation of Training & Development Organisations (IFTDO), of the Association for Management Education and Development (UK), of the South East Regional Council of the Confederation of British Industry.

Widely featured in the press and media, and an invited speaker at Business Schools, Universities, Rotary and other professional clubs, he is a moderator for international business conferences, a consultant to company Boards, and an independent non-executive Director.

He was the Founder Moderator of stars (Stein-am-Rhein Symposium) as well as of the Zermatt Summit, was invited to Chair the Global Peter Drucker Forum in 2016, and has been a member of the Jury of numerous literary, and cultural competitions in the UK and the Commonwealth, and is included in Debrett’s People of Today http://www.debretts.com .

Simon Parfitt

Simon Parfitt is the Director of Wealth Management with Pyrmont Wealth Management, a fee-based financial planning firm based in Hong Kong.

Pyrmont are dual licensed by the Hong Kong Confederation of Insurance Brokers and the HK Securities and Futures Commission with whom they hold Type 4 (Advising on Securities) and Type 9 (Asset Management) licenses.

Simon has over 10 years of experience helping Private Clients with Life Centred Financial Planning and he is an advocate of fee-based financial planning, behavioural finance and evidence based investment management.

Simon is a regular media contributor and panellist on Financial Planning matters in Hong Kong.

Rick Adkinson

Rick is the Managing Director and Responsible Officer of Private Capital Limited (PCL), a Hong Kong based fiduciary Wealth Management and Financial Planning firm.

Incorporated in 1998 Private Capital is licensed by the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) to provide Type 4 (Advising on Securities) and Type 9 (Asset Management) regulated activities in Hong Kong.

Rick was Chief Executive from 1998 to April 2019 of the Group Medical Insurance and Protection Planning arm of Private Capital, regulated by the Hong Kong Confederation of Insurance Brokers. Rick is a member of the Hong Kong Securities Institute (HKSI) and was a board member appointed by the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC).

In the UK, Rick is member of both the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) and the Chartered Institute of Securities and Investment (CISI) and holds the CISI Financial Planning and Advice Diploma (QCF Level 4).

Xavier Porterfield

Xavier Porterfield is Head of Research at NewChangeFX an independent data and analytics firm that provides the world’s first regulated and independent real-time Foreign Exchange mid-rate benchmarks.

Xavier’s research work at NewChange FX focuses on market micro structure and benchmarks, providing price transparency and Transaction Cost Analysis services to FX market participants. Xavier has over 20 years experience in FX Markets, working in a variety of research advisory and sales roles, most notably for 11 years with FX Concepts, a New York based currency investment and research firm which closed in 2013. When Xavier joined FX Concepts (in 1998) the institutional FX market was still dominated by FX dealer banks that retained exclusive rights to market rates. Non bank (buyside) firms had no access to identify the market clearing price either to check the fairness of the prices being quoted them, or the ability to trade on interdealer rates.

Technology and credit innovation have gone a long way to diminish the disadvantes that FX consumers face when coming to the FX market, but there is still a long way to go to establish a fair and effiicient FX market.

Xavier became involved with Transparency Task Force at an early stage as the mission of TTF – promoting transparency and fairness in Financial Markets aligns perfectly with Xavier’s personal and business values. Xavier is a CFA charter holder and is a member of CFA France’s advocacy committee as the product specialist for FX.

Raphael Douady

Raphael Douady is a French mathematician and economist specializing in data science, financial mathematics and chaos theory at the University of Paris I-Panthéon-Sorbonne.

He formerly held the Frey Chair of quantitative finance at Stony Brook University and was academic director of the French Laboratory of Excellence on Financial Regulation.

He earned his PhD in Hamiltonian dynamics and has more than 20 years of experience in the financial industry. He has particular interest in researching portfolio risks, for which he has developed especially suited powerful nonlinear statistical and data science models, as well as macroeconomics and systemic risk.

Raphael founded fin tech firms Riskdata (risk management for the buyside) and Datacore (quantitative portfolio of ETFs) and is Chief Science Officer of Matrics (AI for the buy-side). Douady is a member of the Praxis Club, a New York-based think tank advising the French government on its economic policy and sits on the board and the investment committee of Friends of IHES, a foundation supporting the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques (the French brother of Princeton IAS).

He is an alumni of Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris and was awarded a gold medal at the International Mathematical Olympiads.