Edinburgh Members’ Briefing

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The Investment Association is pleased to invite you to the Edinburgh Members' Briefing returning in-person on the 20 April kindly hosted by EY in Edinburgh.

The Briefing will provide our members in Scotland with an update on key areas of focus for the investment management community. Topics to be discussed include:

• The current international regulatory and political landscape and how its impacting member firms
• Innovation and digitisation in investment management
• Update on stewardship
• Update on Sustainability and Responsible Investment 

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.

Due to limited capacity we only approve two people per organisation at this in person event.

09:00 Registration

09:30 Introductory Remarks from the IA and 2022 Strategic Outlook
Chris Cummings, Chief Executive, The Investment Association

10:00 International Outlook
Jack Knight, Deputy CEO, The Investment Association

• International regulatory update
• Russian Sanctions Regime
• Impact of the international political landscape on investment management

10:30 View from the Regulator
Maggie Craig, Head of Devolved Nations, FCA

11:00 Networking Break

11:15 Innovation and Digitisation in Investment Management
Mary MacPherson, Design and Engineering, EY

11:45 Update of Good Stewardship Guidance
Andrew Ninian, Director-Stewardship & Corporate Governance, The Investment Association

• Responding to Climate change
• Audit quality
• Stakeholder engagement and
• Diversity

12:15 Update on Sustainability and Responsible Investment
Miranda Seath, Head of Market Insight, The Investment Association

12:45 Closing Remarks
Chris Cummings, Chief Executive, The Investment Association

12:50 End of Briefing

Maggie Craig, Head of Devolved Nations, FCA
Maggie Craig is the FCA’s Head of Devolved Nations. This role was created in 2021 when Maggie’s position as Head of Scotland was expanded to cover Northern Ireland and Wales. Her role focuses on representing the FCA in the devolved nations, actively engaging with the financial services community in its broadest sense, as well as representing the devolved nations within the FCA. Maggie also has responsibility for the FCA Scotland office at Quayside House in Edinburgh.
Previously, Maggie was Head of Insurance and Pension Policy, in Strategy and Competition at the FCA and led the FCA Policy work on the substantial pensions change agenda, including pension freedoms, the exit charge cap and the LISA. She also led on the Insurance Distribution Directive, GI renewals and other general insurance initiatives. She is active in the FCA’s Diversity and Inclusion agenda, with particular focus on mental health issues.
Immediately prior to the FCA, Maggie was at the ABI as Director of Life and Savings, then Acting Director General and finally Director of Conduct Regulation. Before that Maggie spent her career in the Scottish Financial Services industry including Standard Life and Aegon.Alongside her day job at the FCA, Maggie is an honorary professor at Heriot Watt University delivering lectures on financial services regulation. She is an external examiner for the Financial Services and Regulation Skills module of the Diploma at The University of Edinburgh Law School and sits on the advisory panel for The University of Edinburgh’s Finance Technology and Policy MSc. She also chairs the Scottish Financial Education Forum run by the Money and Pensions Service in Scotland and is a Trustee on the Board of Children 1st, Scotland’s national children’s charity

Chris Cummings, Chief Executive Officer, The Investment Association
Chris Cummings is the Chief Executive of The Investment Association, a post he has held since September 2016. The Investment Association is the trade body that represents UK-based investment managers.
He is a member of HM Treasury’s Asset Management Taskforce, and was a founding member of its Financial Services Trade & Investment Board. He serves on the Chancellor’s Financial Services Industry Advisory Group and Department for International Trade’s Financial Services Trade Advisory Group. He is a Board member on EFAMA, the European trade association for investment management and is a member of the Regulation Committee of IIFA, the international association for investment management. He is also a Trustee of Just Finance Foundation.
He was previously a member of the Financial Conduct Authority’s Regulatory Decisions Committee, a Settlement Decision Maker for the Payment Services Regulator. He served on the Foreign & Commonwealth’s Diplomatic Excellence Panel.
Before joining The Investment Association he was the founding CEO of TheCityUK, held senior posts in banking, insurance and consulting with major global firms. He is a regular columnist, commentator and speaker on issues of international competitiveness and regulation in financial services.

Jack Knight, Deputy CEO, The Investment Assocation
As Deputy CEO, Jack helps Chris to lead the IA Executive Committee. He is responsible for international trade & investment policy and activity, as well as the organisation’s finance, HR, IT and membership functions, including the IA Enterprises events, training and Engine business lines.

Andrew Ninian, Director, Stewardship and Corporate Governance, The Investment Association
Andrew is responsible for representing The Investment Association members interests as institutional investors on corporate governance and engagement matters. He has oversight of The Investment Association's Institutional Voting Information Service (IVIS), corporate governance policy development and company consultations or collective engagement with the companies in which Investment Association members invest. Andrew joined The Investment Association in June 2014, through merger of the Investment Affairs division of the ABI with the IMA. He joined the ABI in 2005 as a Corporate Governance Analyst and was promoted to Head of IVIS in October 2011 and Head of Corporate Governance in January 2012. Before joining the ABI, Andrew was a Socially Responsible Investment analyst at HSBC, having joined HSBC's graduate scheme in 2001 after reading Economics at the University of Bath.

Miranda Seath, Head of Market Insight, The Investment Association
Miranda joined the IA in May 2019 as Head of Market Insight and oversees the Research, Statistics and Sectors teams. As part of her role, she works with the Research and Statistics team to provide analysis of data and trends in UK investment management to IA Members and external stakeholders. She is also actively involved in IA Sectors, the fund classification scheme designed to help investors navigate the retail fund universe.
Miranda was Research Director successively at Platforum and NextWealth, both of which are research and consulting firms focused on analysing the distribution of retail investments. Her areas of expertise included: UK fund distribution, the advice and discretionary investment management markets, UK investment platforms and the post-retirement market. She has been a regular press commentator and speaker on retail investment distribution trends.

Mary MacPherson, Design and Engineering, EY
Mary MacPherson is an Edinburgh based Director in Design and Engineering, with EY Seren. Over the last 20 years Mary has worked in Retail Banking, Insurance and Wealth & Asset Management with some of the biggest FS brands in the UK. Mary is an experienced leader in Digital transformation bringing together Design, Data, Technology & Agile delivery capabilities to create new opportunities for businesses and better outcomes for customers. Working with EY, she is the Scotland lead for EY Seren, while helping FS clients across the UK solve for today’s problems by future casting and creating sustainable solutions that can evolve as customers, clients, business and external needs and contexts change.