IA Edinburgh Members Briefing

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The Investment Association is pleased to invite you to the Edinburgh Members' Briefing, in person, on the 01 November, kindly hosted by PwC.

The Briefing will provide our members in Scotland with an update on key areas of focus for the investment management community. 

This briefing will also provide our Scottish members with an ideal opportunity to meet and discuss the investment management community's vital contribution to the economy and our constant work in harnessing savings, investing in businesses and financing growth across the UK. Topics to be covered include:

• International promotion of the IM industry
• Looking ahead to 2024: Key Themes for the UK Funds Industry
• UK Fund Tokenisation
• IFPR and ICARA implementation challenges
• IA/PwC joint report on asset manager TCFD disclosures against FCA rules
• And more...

Don't delay, register today! 

08:30   Registration & networking with refreshments

09:00   Host’s Welcoming Remarks (PwC)
Fraser Wilson, Partner & Head of Financial Services in Scotland, PwC UK

09:10   Introductory Remarks from the CEO
Chris Cummings, Chief Executive Officer, The Investment Association

09:30   Trade & Investment: International promotion of the IM industry / or Priorities and Business Plan for 2024
Richard Normington,  Senior Policy Adviser - International, The Investment Association 

09:50   Looking ahead to 2024: Key Themes for the UK Funds Industry
Jonathan Lipkin, Director, Policy, Strategy and Innovation, The Investment Association

10:10   T+1 Settlement – Impact overview and market updates
Alex Chow, Investment Operations Policy Lead, The Investment Association

10:30   Refreshments and networking

11:00   UK Fund Tokenisation: A Blueprint for Implementation

• John Allan, Head of Innovation and Operations Unit, Policy, Strategy & Innovation, The Investment Association
• Steve Harker, Global Head of Architecture & Strategy, Legal & General Investment Management

11:20   Keynote from the FCA
Christopher Davis – Head of Asset Management & Funds Market Interventions, FCA

11:40   IFPR and ICARA implementation challenges
Anshita Joshi, Head of Risk and Tax Unit, Stewardship, Risk and Tax, The Investment Association

12:00   IA/PwC joint report on asset manager TCFD disclosures against FCA rules

• Flora Tudhope, Policy Adviser, Sustainability & Responsible Investment, The Investment Associatio
• Lucas Penfold, Senior Manager, PwC
• Hassaan Khan, Senior Manager, PwC
• Rona Nairn, Manager, PwC

12:20   Investment2020
Jenny Barber, Director of Careers and Talent, I2020

12:40   Keynote from the Scottish First Minister, Humza Yousaf

12:55   Closing Remarks
Chris Cummings, Chief Executive Officer, The Investment Association

13:00   End of Briefing

Kindly hosted by PwC UK

Chris Cummings, Chief Executive Officer, The Investment Association
Chris joined the IA in 2016 from TheCityUK, which he set up and ran as CEO for seven years. He sits on the Treasury’s Asset Management Taskforce, the Board of EFAMA (European Fund & Asset Management Association) and is the President of IIFA (International Investment Funds Association). He is also Chairman of Just Finance Foundation. He was previously a member of the FCA’s Regulatory Decisions Committee and the FCO’s Diplomatic Excellence Panel.

Richard Normington, Senior Policy Adviser - International, The Investment Association
Richard set up and manages the IA’s Trade & Investment Committee of senior industry executives, he is a member of HM Treasury’s Financial Services Expert Trade Advisory Group, and works with the UK’s Department for Business & Trade on its international investment agenda, including the Global Investment Futures campaign to promote the UK investment management industry.

Richard joined the IA in 2017 having moved from Westminster to the City in 2008 to lead on infrastructure investment for International Financial Services London and then TheCityUK. His earlier career was dedicated to international policy including six years as the Secretary General of a global political association chaired by Prime Minister John Howard of Australia and heading a UK political party's International Office and its Westminster Foundation for Democracy programme.

Jonathan Lipkin, Director - Policy, Strategy and Innovation, The Investment Association
Jonathan is Director of Policy, Strategy and Innovation at The Investment Association (IA) and a member of the IA management team. 
Jonathan’s policy role focuses on how the industry serves its customer markets. This includes areas such as products and competition; fund communications and governance; and the long-term savings and pensions regimes in the UK and internationally. He also works closely on the IA’s broader strategic positioning and leads its programme to support industry innovation.

Jonathan joined the IA in 2005, becoming Director of Public Policy and a member of the IA Executive Committee in 2012. Prior to 2005, he worked for a number of years at Oxford Analytica, an international consultancy. At OA, he led the European political and economic analysis serving a wide range of domestic and overseas clients, both corporate and governmental. 

Jonathan is a Board Member of the Cost Transparency Initiative, Chair of the EFAMA Pensions Group and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Centre for Asset Management Research at Bayes Business School. He writes and speaks regularly both in the UK and abroad on investment management and pensions issues.

Alex Chow – Investment Operations Policy Lead, The Investment Association
Alex leads policy at the Investment Association on investment operations, notably on post-trade and trade and transaction reporting. The workstreams in these areas include engagement and advocacy with regulators and working with membership discussion forums and market stakeholders to establish industry wide best practice and guidance for the IA’s 250 members.

Alex has 11 years’ experience in the industry having previously worked at BNY Mellon and Goldman Sachs.

John Allan, Head of Innovation and Operations Unit, The Investment Association
John is responsible for the Innovation and Operations Unit which aims to build the industry’s innovation capacity through IA policy development on technological change, DLT, crypto and AI, as well as promoting fund modernisation and supporting firms on operational policy including resiliency. John is also a fixed member of the FCA’s Innovation Advisory Group bringing the regulator’s attention to key issues impacting the investment sector and fintech.

Steve Harker, Global Head of Architecture & Strategy, Legal & General Investment Management
Steve is Global Head of Architecture and Strategy at Legal & General Investment Management. He has extensive experience across all aspects of the Investment Management value chain and has held lead design roles across a number of industry mergers and acquisitions. Steve joined the IA working groups this year and has helped to lead a number of the discussions related to tokenization of Funds and Assets. Steve has over 20 years of experience within the industry having previously worked in similar roles at Aegon Asset Management, Abrdn and Scottish Widows Investment Partnership.

Christopher Davis – Head of Asset Management & Funds Market Interventions, FCA
Chris is Head of the Asset Management & Funds Market Interventions Department at the FCA, having been in role since October 2022. The department is part of the FCA’s buy-side directorate, which sits within the Supervision, Policy & Competition Division at the FCA.

The department develops and applies supervision strategies that ensure the FCA plays a role in preventing and reducing harm to consumers and financial markets as well as promoting competition. It is responsible for the supervision of circa 2700 asset management firms, ranging from small, independent asset managers up to sophisticated financial services groups with a large impact on the retail, institutional and wholesale markets. It also has responsibility for the authorisation and supervision of circa 30k investment funds. Chris led the development and the delivery of the strategy for the asset management portfolio, including the publication of our strategy in February 2023. He is also responsible for the delivery of the strategy for the alternatives, custody and fund services portfolios.

Chris led the buy-side response to the gilt market volatility in September and October 2022, working closely with regulators and stakeholders in the UK and across Europe to ensure increased resilience in the Liability Driven Investment sector. He also directly inputs into the policy development of long-term resilience standards for LDI. Chris also sits on various on working groups within the FCA and currently co-chairs the Wholesale Data Working Group which aims to advance the understanding and use of wholesale for the benefit of supervisors and policy makers.

Before his current role, Chris led the supervision of bank owned asset managers and custody banks at the FCA and was accountable for leading a portfolio of custody and fund services business models and developing the first publicly articulated FCA regulatory strategy for custody & fund services sector. Prior to joining the FCA in 2018, he advised investment firms as a member of KPMG's consulting practice, delivering significant Board and ExCo sponsored projects in consulting. He also worked with the FCA on numerous occasions as part of Skilled Person’s teams to review the business and conduct of wholesale firms. He has also gained direct experience within the industry having worked for leading global asset managers several times on secondment in various roles.

Anshita Joshi, Head of Risk and Tax Unit, The Investment Association
Anshita Joshi is the Head of Risk and Tax at the Investment Association, where she leads the development and execution of the IA's agenda on UK, EU, and international risk and tax policy matters impacting the investment management industry. Anshita is an industry professional with over 18 years of experience in the investment management sector. Prior to joining the IA, she was a senior manager in PwC's asset management team.

Flora Tudhope, Policy Adviser – Sustainability & Responsible Investment at the Investment Association
Flora is the IA’s policy adviser in sustainability and responsible investment. Her work involves acting as a conduit between asset managers and policymakers to advocate for the interests of the industry, as well as working closely with asset managers on the implementation of key pieces of sustainability regulation. Flora works across a broad range of sustainability files including TCFD, SDR, and impact investment. She has previously held roles as a Corporate Governance Analyst within the IA’s Institutional Voting Information Service (IVIS) and as a policy adviser in the IA’s Investment & Capital Markets team.

Lucas Penfold, Senior Manager, PwC
Lucas is a Senior Manager in PwC’s Sustainability Team. He helps financial services clients navigate and respond to the emerging regulatory environment.

Lucas has deep subject matter expertise on regulation related to sustainable finance and ESG. He has recently been working with clients in the asset management and private equity sectors on their response to the EU Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation, the EU Taxonomy Regulation, TCFD, UK SDR, and wider related initiatives.
Prior to joining PwC in 2018, Lucas worked in the Markets Policy department at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) on a range of regulatory issues including the development and implementation of the MiFID II investor protection framework. During his time at the FCA, Lucas represented the UK in EU and global policymaking committees, including ESMA's Investor Protection & Intermediaries Standing Committee Working Group.

Hassaan Khan, Senior Manager, PwC
Hassaan is a Senior Manager focussing on Sustainability in PwC’s Financial Services Risk team in the UK. He has expertise in helping financial services sector organisations, especially banks address their sustainability and climate risk challenges, with a focus on net zero transition planning and reporting.

Hassaan has led the drafting on industry guidance on transition planning as well as having led on several large programmes of work at UK banks and asset managers with transition planning strategies, identifying and deploying decarbonisation levers as well TCFD disclosures (entity and product level).
He has led the gap analysis against PRA SS3/19 for a large UK insurer and provided key remediation activities to address identified gaps.

Hassaan has also developed a bespoke ESG target operating model for a specialist UK bank, defining roles and responsibilities across the three lines of defence model at the bank and is currently developing their translation plan as per the TPT Framework.

Rona Nairn, Manager, PwC
Rona joined PwC as cross-sectoral ESG regulatory insights specialist in October 2022.
Since joining PwC, Rona has helped clients navigate and respond to emerging ESG reporting regulations, including the UK Sustainability Disclosure Requirements (SDR) regime, UK requirements based on the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) Recommendations, and the FCA's proposed anti-greenwashing and labelling rules for asset managers and other FCA-regulated firms. Rona has also been helping clients understand how the work of bodies such as the UK Transition Plan Taskforce and the International Sustainability Standards Board will be reflected in regulation.

Before joining PwC, Rona worked at HM Treasury where she led on the design and delivery of several key sustainability and financial services regulations, including UK implementation of the TCFD Recommendations, the UK Sustainability Disclosure Requirements regime, sustainable labels for investment products and transition planning disclosure policy.

Jenny Barber, Director of Careers and Talent, Investment20/20
Jenny leads Investment20/20’s careers and talent strategy. As an experienced talent professional with a keen interest in social mobility, she develops Investment20/20’s student engagement programmes that reach and inspire a diverse community of young people. Her strategy helps tomorrow’s workforce navigate their way into the industry and connects members with a broader talent base. Jenny joined Investment20/20 in 2019 having led careers programmes for a national education charity, developed education outreach programmes for financial services and worked in schools, colleges and universities.