The IA Culture & Inclusion Conference 2024

Group discount: use the promotional code GROUP for 20% discount on bookings of five or more people.

Join us at the IA’s Culture & Inclusion Conference on Thursday 21 November, kindly hosted by M&G Investments, to explore the challenges and opportunities facing HR and compliance professionals during this transformative period for the investment industry. This year we are pleased to collaborate with Principal Partner Covington & Burling.

Amid ongoing cost pressures, uncertain regulatory impacts, and the rapid emergence of new technologies, the imperative to "do more with less" has become increasingly pressing.

This event will examine how these challenges are reshaping the industry, with key areas of discussion including:

• The government’s recently announced Employment Law reforms, covering implications for investment managers and strategies for effective preparation
• Building a framework for managing non-financial misconduct and reputational risk
• Cultivating a culture of inclusion and organisational wellbeing in challenging economic times
• Harnessing the power of Generative AI to transform recruitment and candidate assessment
• The latest insights from the IA’s 2024 Culture, Talent and Inclusion Report: A demographic snapshot of the industry, conducted in collaboration with the Thinking Ahead Institute
• Navigating the remuneration landscape: Updates on the EU Pay Transparency Directive and its implications for businesses.
• Strategies for improving data collection quality for reporting processes

Don't miss this opportunity to gain critical insights and strategies for navigating this complex landscape and to stay ahead in a transformative period for our industry.

Please contact events@theia.org for event sponsorship opportunity enquiries.

If you are experiencing any problems with registering to our events, please message: events@theia.org

The programme is subject to change 

12:00 Registration & Refreshments

13:00 Welcome and opening remarks

Louise Shield, Group Corporate Affairs and Brand Director, M&G Investments

13:05 The latest insights from the 2024 industry-wide EDI Data Survey

The conference will kick off with Karis Stander, IA Director of Culture, Talent & Inclusion, presenting the key findings from the second year of the IA’s Culture, Talent & Inclusion: Industrywide Demographic Data Report. Conducted in partnership with the Thinking Ahead Institute, this survey represents the most comprehensive dataset on the demographic makeup of the UK investment management

Karis Stander, Director of Culture, Talent & Inclusion at the Investment Association and Managing Director of Investment20/20

13:20 Strategies for improving the quality of your data collection for reporting processes

Effective people data collection is crucial for understanding your firm's composition and tracking progress against initiatives. This session takes an in-depth look at measures to improve the accuracy and reliability of your workforce diversity data.

• Katy Bennett, Director, PwC
• Anika Mashru, Senior Manager, PwC

13:40 Inclusive Culture and Resilience in a Changing Economic Landscape

In a time of rapid change and economic challenges, reinforcing the critical role of people as the driving force behind a successful industry is essential. This session will explore strategies for maintaining a strong people-first agenda, offering a fresh approach to fostering and measuring an inclusive culture across the organisation. 

Duncan Coombe, Head of Human Capital, Ninety One

14:10 Navigating the remuneration landscape

Remuneration plays a crucial role in enhancing London’s competitiveness and reinforcing its status as a leading international financial centre, and it can be a tool to attract and retain talent both at home and abroad. With increasing regulatory scrutiny in this area, companies must ensure effective implementation and compliance. In this session we will explore:

• Using remuneration to encourage the right behaviours
• Driving remuneration policy through effective corporate governance
• Updates on the EU Pay Transparency Directive

Shrena Fraser Johnson, Culture, Talent and Inclusion Specialist, The Investment Association
Vishal Khosla, Partner, EY

14:40 Networking Refreshment Break

15:10 Panel discussion: Harnessing the power of AI - Transforming recruitment and candidate assessment

A hot topic right now is the growing power of AI and its potential advantages. Our expert panel of speakers will discuss the integration of AI tools for candidate selection and assessment, how organisations are adapting to these changes, and the benefits, such as increased efficiency, reduced process bias and data-driven insights. The discussion will also address the associated risks that require human oversight and continuous monitoring to ensure we can fully harness the advantages of AI-driven hiring.

Moderator: Jenny Barber, Director of Careers and Talent, Investment20/20

• Robert Newry, CEO and Co-Founder, Arctic Shores
• Mehmet Yilmaz, Recruiter, Monzo Bank
• James King, Senior Policy Adviser, The Investment Association
• Tom Baker, Head of Talent, Resourcing & Early Careers, M&G plc

16:00 Beyond compliance: Building a framework for managing non-financial misconduct and reputational risk

As the FCA intensifies its scrutiny on non-financial misconduct (NFM), firms must implement robust and transparent processes for detecting, addressing and reporting NFM, all while ensuring a balance between confidentiality and fair treatment of employees. The FCA’s focus on ethical conduct highlights its commitment to high standards of integrity, supported by rigorous supervision and the ever-present possibility of enforcement action. While other regulators may not (as yet) be as focused on NFM, the associated potential reputational risks of NFM may nevertheless point to an enterprise-wide NFM framework.

This session will explore how firms can seize the opportunity to move beyond mere regulatory compliance and build a comprehensive reputational risk management framework that spans jurisdictions. By doing so, firms can safeguard their reputation, adapt to evolving standards and stay ahead of future regulatory developments.

David Berman, Partner, Covington & Burling

16:30 Panel discussion: Employment Rights Bill: Opportunities, Challenges and What Comes Next

Our Final panel discussion of the day will focus on the proposed changes introduced in the new Employment Rights Bill.

At over 150 pages and encompassing 28 employment measures, this ambitious Bill represents a notable shift from current practices. However, while the scope is extensive, many details remain undecided - left to future consultations and secondary legislation. The Government plans to start consultations in 2025, with most changes not expected to take effect until 2026, creating a critical window for businesses to influence these reforms.

Our expert industry panel will outline the key considerations of the Bill, examine its implications for investment managers, and provide practical insights on how to prepare for this transformation in employment law.

Don’t miss this opportunity to stay ahead of the changes and learn how to navigate this evolving landscape.

Moderator: Karis Stander, Director of Culture, Talent & Inclusion at the Investment Association and Managing Director of Investment20/20

• Chris Bracebridge, Partner, Covington & Burling
• Rachel Weallans, Global Head of HRBPs & Head of EMEA HR, Janus Henderson Investors
• Isabel Lovett, Human Capital, Ninety One

17:25 Closing Remarks

Karis Stander, Director of Culture, Talent & Inclusion at the Investment Association and Managing Director of Investment20/20

17:30 Drinks and networking

In order of appearance: 

Louise Shield, Group Corporate Affairs and Brand Director, M&G Investments
Louise has over twenty years corporate affairs experience, starting her career in No10 as a speech writer before taking up various communications roles in Whitehall. She has led teams in a number of bluechip organisations including Lloyds of London, Royal Sun Alliance and most recently Santander, where she was Director of Corporate Communications and Responsible Banking. She is currently the Group Corporate Affairs and Brand Director at M&G.

Karis Stander, IA Director, Culture, Talent & Inclusion, and Managing Director, Investment20/20
Karis leads the Culture, Talent and Inclusion team at the Investment Association (IA), the trade body for UK investment. Her team supports members to drive a forward looking, responsible and inclusive investment industry that attracts, develops and retains talented people from all backgrounds. Karis has responsibility for shaping policy, the implementation of industry-wide programmes, and advising members on good practice. As the MD of Investment20/20, the IA’s multi-award winning talent solution, she and her team have enabled over 2,500 young people from a diversity of backgrounds to start their careers in investment management by taking an industry-wide approach to reaching young people from a range of backgrounds and giving them access to a large network of investment management companies. Karis has been recognised by Financial News as one of the 100 Most Influential Women in Finance for 2023.

Katy Bennett, Director, PwC UK
Katy Bennett is a Director in PwC's UK Workforce ESG business, where she co-leads PwC’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion business, advising companies on a range of HR, inclusion and diversity, ESG and pay transparency and equity issues, with a particular expertise in DE&I.

Over the last few years, Katy has developed PwC’s approach to helping clients tackle the specific challenges that they encounter as part of the journey to improve diversity and equity within their workforce. This includes working with firms across multiple industries to identify and address their diversity challenges and define and meet their goals. She is also the key author and leader of PwC’s research on pay transparency and pay gap reporting and diversity data collection.

Katy specifically specialises in the use of people analytics to diagnose, tackle and monitor diversity within organisations. She is an expert in using data and qualitative information to develop diversity strategies underpinned by practical and measurable action plans that drive measurable change. As part of this, Katy also has considerable experience in helping firms identify and develop diversity targets, KPIs and inclusion indices. This includes advice in relation wider ESG scorecards and reporting.

Outside of her consulting role, Katy is passionate about supporting diversity and has spoken at numerous events and networks on inclusivity, including providing press and public comments. She is a trustee to an educational academy trust providing primary and early years education in South London and has also authored number of pieces of PwC research on diversity, equity and inclusion.

Anika Mashru, Senior Manager, PwC UK
Anika is a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) consultant at PwC. She has over 12 years' experience advising boards and management on their people strategy. Focus areas include diversity data collection, diversity target setting, and the relationship between DEI and pay.

Duncan Coombe, Head of Human Capital, Ninety One
Duncan heads up Human Capital at Ninety One. In this role, he is responsible for all people-related matters in the firm including individual, team, leader and organisation development.

Duncan joined the firm  in 1997, originally heading the Advisor channel in South Africa and then developing the UK advisor business. He left in 2002 to study full time, however he retained close ties to the business and re-joined in 2007. He moved into his current role in September 2018.

Duncan holds a Doctorate in Organisational Behaviour from the Weatherhead School of Management, an MBA from IMD, a LLB (Dean’s Merit List) and a Bachelor of Social Science (majors in Psychology and Economics) from the University of Cape Town. His academic research focuses on leadership and the psychology of leadership.

Shrena Fraser Johnson, Culture, Talent and Inclusion Specialist, The Investment Association
Shrena Fraser Johnson is the Culture, Talent and Inclusion Specialist at the Investment Association, the trade body that represents UK investment managers. She has a BA in political science from the University at Albany, NY and a law degree from Howard University School of Law in Washington, DC. She practiced law for four years before transitioning into content development for finance conferences. Shrena is passionate and focused on culture and inclusion and chairs the IA’s Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Group.

Vishal Khosla, Partner, EY
Vishal Khosla is a partner in EY’s Financial Services PAS team and leads our Reward Advisory practice, with 30+ years of experience in the Reward and People space;
Vishal has a vast amount of experience in leading projects across the entire reward agenda in major global institutions, including many of the IA’s members;
After qualifying as a chartered accountant in 1993, Vishal held a number of senior tax and HR roles with Citigroup followed by roles as Head of Group Reward for Deutsche Bank and Head of Group Compensation at the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS);
Vishal joined EY in February 2013 from RBS. For more than a decade, Vishal has brought his hands-on ‘in house’ experience to benefit EY’s clients across the FS industry;
Vishal is passionate about the pivotal role reward plays in designing Employee Value Propositions that are aligned with maximising stakeholder value;
Vishal advises a number of clients on the UK’s Gender Pay Gap Reporting regulations, and is currently working with a number of firms to assess the impact of the upcoming EU Pay Transparency Directive on their UK operations. the Future of Work and how reward should be used as a key driver to drive business performance.

Jenny Barber, Director of Careers and Talent, Investment20/20
An experienced talent and careers professional, Jenny’s passion for diversity, with specific focus on social mobility, has been a central theme of her career. Having led on programmes for employers, education providers and charities, Jenny has developed a strong knowledge base on social mobility, in addition to professional practice gained through delivery roles direct with young people.

As Director of Careers and Talent at Investment20/20, the Investment Association’s talent solution, Jenny advises investment managers on their entry level talent agenda, with a focus on diversity and inclusion. Responsible for Investment20/20’s careers and talent strategy, her work drives young people from diverse backgrounds to consider a career in investment management, and the programmes she leads provides the infrastructure for them to take the step to join the sector.

Experienced in working with a range of stakeholders, Jenny knows how to bring people together for a common purpose – to develop our next generation of diverse talent.

Prior to joining Investment20/20, she was Director of Programmes at Career Ready, a national education charity, where she led national change on programme design and delivery across the charity. Other previous roles included leading education and skills at the Financial Services Partnership, and leading careers and employability in schools, colleges and universities.

Jenny is a recipient of The Worshipful Company of Educators Master Award for her work on apprenticeships and youth talent, and the Investment Week Women in Investments Awards for Mentor of the Year for her work supporting young people from diverse background into jobs in investment management.

Mehmet Yilmaz, Recruiter, Monzo Bank
Mehmet Yilmaz has been with Monzo for 3 years, where he recently led the creation of guidance for candidates on how to best use AI during the hiring process. While Monzo’s stance on AI usage, both for candidates and the recruitment team, is adoptive, Mehmet and his team maintain a strong human-centered approach to hiring.

James King, Senior Policy Adviser, The Investment Association
James King is the Senior Policy Adviser at the Investment Association responsible for operational resilience, cyber resilience and technology.

Tom Baker, Head of Talent, Resourcing & Early Careers, M&G plc
Tom joined M&G plc in 2021 and leads on the delivery on all aspects of Talent Acquisition globally; the curation and delivery of entry level programmes across the Graduate, Intern and Apprenticeship segments and evolving the Talent offering especially relating to leadership succession and internal mobility as a current focus.

Tom has held international and global leadership roles in Talent, Talent Acquisition and Early careers in some of the largest multi-nationals such as RBS/NatWest, Goldman Sachs International, Barclays plc, Imperial Brands plc, Credit Suisse (in New York) and Lloyds Banking group. In recent years prior to joining M&G plc ,Tom has led on significant Transformational programmes of changes in the broader HR in and outside of Financial Services and previously co-built, designed, ran, and sold one of the first cloud based ATS platforms in Europe which underpins his deep interest and experience in technology innovation.

Tom holds a BEng (Hons) degree in Civil Engineering, London.

Robert Newry, CEO & Co Founder, Arctic Shores
Robert is CEO and Co-Founder of Arctic Shores, whose mission is to uncover potential and help companies see more in people when they recruit. In the 10 years since Arctic Shores was founded, the company has worked with 300+ organisations across 45 countries - clients include Siemens, PwC, Airbus, Molson Coors, AXA, and Norton Rose. Robert is a passionate advocate for social equality and has been campaigning to 'scrap the cv' in order to open up areas of talent overlooked and excluded from traditional recruitment approaches.

Since 2022, Robert and the Arctic Shores team have been releasing highly regarded research, podcasts, and guides on the impact of GenAI on recruitment as well as skills-based hiring. These can be found under the 'TA Disruptors Podcast" banner.

He studied Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Oxford University and completed his MBA at Imperial, where he was a double prize winner. He has a multinational background with a German mother, an Italian aunt, a Swiss Godmother, an American brother-in-law and his children were born in China!

David Berman, Partner, Covington & Burling
David Berman leads Covington’s financial services practice in EMEA. He advises a range of financial institutions on key regulatory compliance and investigations matters, and frequently counsels boards and senior management teams on significant regulatory issues. He specializes in tactical and strategic issue prevention, containment, and resolution, and has an outstanding track-record of achieving optimal outcomes for clients.

David has extensive experience across a wide spectrum of litigation, investigations, compliance, and transactional issues, including market conduct, whistle blows, culture and conduct, risk management, systems and controls, internal investigations, individual accountability, governance, conflicts of interest, inducements, regulatory aspects of transactions, remediation and redress exercises, and conduct of business regulation generally, as well as acting as a “skilled person” under Section 166 FSMA 2000.

His representative clients include: institutional investment managers, integrated investment banks, central banks, hedge funds, private equity houses, stockbroking firms, credit funds, consumer credit firms, clearing banks and corporates.

David is recommended by Chambers UK and Legal 500 UK as a leading practitioner for financial services regulatory matters. He is often consulted as a subject-matter expert by industry bodies and regulators and is a frequent speaker at financial sector conferences and events.

Chris Bracebridge, Partner, Covington & Burling
Chris Bracebridge specialises in advising multinational employers on international employment and global mobility matters, including complex transactional issues and senior employee retention and termination arrangements. He co-heads a Global Workforce Solutions team providing the employment, benefits, tax and immigration advice required in these complex situations. A keen advocate for increasing the diversity of the legal profession, Chris also leads the London office’s diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.

Chris’ UK domestic practice comprises contentious, commercial and advisory employment experience. He advises on the HR aspects of company and business acquisitions and disposals, and outsourcing transactions, represents major employers in dismissal, discrimination, and whistle-blowing cases, and advises corporate clients on the full range of day-to-day employment issues (in particular, listed company executive departures), as well as data privacy and pensions matters.

Chris regularly trains and presents to clients and external organizations and writes articles for both the legal press and client publications. He has spoken at events and conferences in the UK, U.S., and Europe on a range of issues such as global mobility, executive departures, redundancy, gender pay gap reporting, data protection and transfers of undertakings.

Rachel Weallans, Global Head of HRBPs & Head of HR (EMEA), Janus Henderson Investors
Rachel Weallans is Global Head of Human Resources Business Partners and Head of HR, EMEA at Janus Henderson Investors, a role she has held since 2020. She is responsible for delivering human resources activities across the employee lifecycle, including employee relations, compensation reviews, organisational design as well as leading a number of HR lead initiatives. She also has responsibility for the Talent Development and Talent Acquisition teams. Rachel joined the firm as an HRBP in 2014 supporting investment management Prior to this, she held several human resources roles, including HRBP at Mercuria Energy Trading from 2012 and at Barclays Capital from 2007.

Rachel received a first class BA degree (Hons) in history from University of Sheffield and holds a master’s in human resources management from London Metropolitan University, graduating with distinction. She has 17 years of human resources experience.

Isabel Lovett, Human Capital, Ninety One
Isabel heads up a Human Capital team, covering global Business Partners, Benefits and L&D, with teams in the UK and South Africa. Isabel is also responsible for employment legal matters globally and is involved in regulatory projects and matters which impact Ninety One and its people.

Isabel joined the firm in 2018, having worked in the Human Capital and Employment Legal teams of BlueBay Asset Management and Société Générale. Isabel qualified as an employment lawyer at Allen & Overy in 2011, and has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Oxford University.

Principal Partner: 

Covington & Burling LLP (Covington) is a pre-eminent international law firm with more than 1,300 attorneys and advisors and offices in Beijing, Boston, Brussels, Dubai, Frankfurt, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, New York, Palo Alto, San Francisco, Washington, Shanghai, and Seoul. We are known for the high quality of our work, in-depth knowledge of key industries, sophistication in complex corporate, regulatory, advisory, and contentious matters, deep loyalty to clients, and commitment to the highest professional and ethical standards.

In an increasingly regulated world, we have an exceptional ability to navigate clients through their most complex business problems, deals, and disputes. Our distinctively collaborative culture allows us to be truly one team globally, drawing on the diverse experience of lawyers and advisors across the firm by seamlessly sharing insight and expertise.

Kindly hosted by:

We have a global network of investment teams that connects world-class research capabilities, and the diverse experience and views of experts across multiple asset classes. We think freely, share ideas and new perspectives to inform better decision-making, fuel innovation and identify investment opportunities for our clients. We call this Intelligence Connected.

We're part of M&G plc, an international savings and investment business, with the shared purpose to give everyone real confidence to put their money to work. We offer access to a broad range of capabilities that span both public and private assets, including fixed income, equities, multi-asset, real estate, private credit, infrastructure and private equity.

Globally we manage over £313bn (as at 31 December 2023) on behalf of individual and professional investors including banks, pension funds, insurers, sovereign wealth funds, family offices, charities and advisors.

For sponsorship and exhibitor enquiries, please contact Events@theia.org