TTF Ireland Ambassadors

Ian has over 30 years experience in global financial services with a focus on product development and business development within the life assurance sector.

This career included senior management roles within Aviva, Mercer and Zurich Insurance – and a number of board appointments for insurance companies in Ireland and Luxembourg. Ian is now focused on helping organisations that are looking to build businesses or products within the financial sector which can address real customer needs in a fair and transparent manner.

Ian is a qualified actuary and holds an MBA from the Edinburgh Business School.

Dean McClelland is the Founder and CEO of Tontine Trust for which he is our September 2019 Transparency Award Winner.

Tontine Trust is a Fintech that aims to be a global disruptor in the pensions industry. Initially they will introduce tontine-style low fee lifetime income plans in the US after which they intend to launch in Europe what will become the world’s first fully transparent pension scheme.

After studying Economics, Accountancy, Law& Computer Science at Griffith College in Dublin, Ireland Dean’s career has spanned equity sales trading, investment banking, and real estate investments, working in London, Frankfurt, UAE & Asia. As a serial fintech entrepreneur, Dean has demonstrated his ability to start new ventures, swiftly build teams and achieve financial success, embrace new technology to scale businesses, and adapt to market and business challenges to restructure company business models.

In 2017, Dean was asked to find a suitable lifetime income pension solution for family & friends. Having become frustrated at the lack of a simple affordable solutions, he committed himself to developing the most world’s most trustable lifetime income pension solution which could offer fair lifetime incomes to retirees without charging high fees.

For further information see: https://tontine.com

TV Interview: Bringing Transparent Tontines Back from the Dead, Real Vision, 17 February 2020, Duration: 49 minutes

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 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.

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.

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 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.