Ahmed Tahlaoui, CFA

Ahmed Talhaoui, CFA, Managing Director, is the Head of the Blackrock Systematic Group (BSYS) for EMEA and APAC. He is a member of the Global and European Operating Committees and the EMEA Investment Committee and was previously head of Middle East and Africa and head of Product Strategy for Fixed Income, EMEA.  Prior to rejoining Blackrock in 2014, Mr. Talhaoui was Head of Investments at the Pension Fund of the United Arab Emirates, in Abu Dhabi. In this role, he had responsibility for the investment of the Fund’s assets, including the assessment and selection of external managers of traditional and hedge fund assets, and day-to-day responsibility for managing the Fund’s proprietary fixed income and liquidity portfolios.     

He was previously Head of Portfolio Solutions with Barclays Global Investors (BGI), which merged with Blackrock in 2009.In that role, Mr. Talhaoui was responsible for the management and oversight of all EMEA Index, iShares and model based active fixed income funds. Prior to joining BGI, Mr Talhaoui started as a front office developer at JP Morgan in 1997 and was Head of Fixed Income Quantitative Portfolio Management at Credit Suisse Asset Management. Mr. Talhaoui earned a Masters in Engineering in Applied Mathematics from Ecole Nationale d'informatique et mathematiques (ENSIMAG), France in 1997. 

Anna-Helena Mihov

Anna-Helena Mihov is a senior quantitative researcher at DWS in London. She has been conducting quantitative research for the enhancement of systemic strategies for over six years. Her work extends to the application of AI across the investment division. She received her Bachelor's Degree in Mathematics and Economics from the Humboldt University of Berlin and her Masters in Financial Analysis from the London Business School. In addition, she is currently a part-time PhD candidate at University College London in the Department of Computer Science with a specialisation in Augmented Financial Intelligence. Her research focuses on the application of AI models and natural language processing techniques for the analysis of financial markets. 

Annu Nieminen

Annu Nieminen is the founder & CEO of The Upright Project, a Helsinki-based data company building a new way to measure the true impacts of companies and funds on the surrounding world. Upright has developed a proprietary data model that quantifies the net impact of economic activities by analysing causal relationships between products and their impacts, drawing insights from over 300 million scientific publications. Upright's approach is trusted by leading asset managers and owners, including Nordea, Pictet, and APG, as well as private equity leaders like EQT, LGT Capital Partners, and Summa Equity. 
 
Recognised as a pioneer in impact measurement, Nieminen has been named an Innovator Under 35 by MIT Technology Review and honoured as Entrepreneur of the Year 2023 at the Nordic Women in Tech Awards. Before founding Upright, she leveraged her engineering background as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company and later served as CEO of Kasvuryhmä, a Finnish scale-up initiative.

Cornelia Andersson

Cornelia is Chief Product Officer at With Intelligence, a leading provider of data and intelligence on alternative assets and private markets. Cornelia is an experienced business leader in data and analytics, focused on creating data-based solutions in global financial markets solving customer challenges. Previously, Cornelia was at the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG), where she was a member of the leadership team for the Data & Analytics division, a market data and analytics provider with £4.5bn annual revenue. At LSEG, Cornelia led the Investment Banking and Sustainable Finance businesses, managing product portfolios including data platforms, workflow solutions, analytics and reporting solutions. 

Cornelia spent 13 years with Blackstone, the world’s largest alternative asset manager, leading the firm’s market data, research and intelligence functions. As such, Cornelia has a wealth of industry experience and first hand understanding of customer needs and workflows in private markets.  

Additionally, Cornelia is currently a board member of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals and Position Green, a Nordic sustainability reporting and consulting business. She holds a MBA from Imperial College, a Master’s degree from Lund University and is a chartered information professional (MCLIP) as well as financial information associate (FIA). Cornelia is a regular public speaker and contributes to the industry globally, e.g. as a judge for the Singapore Fintech Festival, Asia’s leading fintech industry event. 

Dr. David Neaum

Dr. David Neaum is the Sustainable Finance Education Manager at Aviva Investors where he works within the Sustainable Finance Centre for Excellence on Aviva Investor’s macro stewardship programme of engagement and advocacy. David has worked in sustainable finance, impact investing, consultancy, and academia, most recently with the aim of supporting changes to the financial system to promote a just transition to a net-zero and nature positive economy, mitigate systemic financial risks, and create long-term value.  

Emily Prince

As part of the Data and Analytics Leadership team at LSEG, Emily leads the Analytics business and is the CEO of Yield Book. In this role Emily spearheads the transformation of trusted data into actionable and AI-powered insights across LSEG. With a background of over 15 years in quantitative financial analytics at leading institutions such as Lehman Brothers, Barclays and BlackRock, Emily has extensive experience developing analytics solutions for customers. Emily also holds board positions with Turquoise and Finbourne.

Giulio Renzi-Ricci

Giulio Renzi-Ricci is Head of Asset Allocation for Europe in the Investment Strategy Group at Vanguard.  

Giulio specializes in quantitative multi-asset portfolio construction, single fund solutions, and econometric forecasting; and oversees the asset allocation of Vanguard’s multi-asset products and model portfolios across Europe.  

His research has covered topics on active-passive blending, dynamic portfolio optimization, and machine learning applications to asset allocation. His research has been published in The Journal of Investment Management, The Journal of Portfolio Management and The Journal of Investment Strategies, among others.  

Prior to joining Vanguard, Giulio worked at National Economic Research Associates (NERA), providing expert analysis on financial derivatives and investment strategies. He also held a quantitative analyst position in the fixed income structuring desk at Banca IMI in Milan. Giulio has a B.Sc. in economics from Bocconi University and a M.Sc. in finance and economics from the University of Warwick. 

Hania Schmidt

Hania is a managing director in Quantitative Investment Strategies (QIS) within Goldman Sachs Asset Management, serving as global co-head of Client Portfolio Management. In her role, she the team driving client and product strategy. QIS offers a broad spectrum of quantitatively managed strategies, focusing on alpha generation within and across asset classes, efficient delivery of factor exposures, providing investors access to alternative investments with attractive liquidity profiles and creating structured payoffs.

Prior to her current role, Hania led the Client Portfolio Management teams in EMEA and India. She also previously spent two years in Hong Kong as a QIS client portfolio manager for clients based in Asia Pacific. Hania joined Goldman Sachs in 2010 as an analyst in QIS and was named managing director in 2023. Hania earned a BA in Economics and Finance from the University of Exeter in 2010. She is a CFA charterholder.

Jignesh Ramji

Jignesh has over twenty years of experience as a Human Capital Leader specialising in Organisation Transformation and Change, Talent Management and Leadership Development. He has wide scale international experience having lived and worked in the UK, the Netherlands, Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong whilst leading Global and Regional teams. Jig has been Chief People Officer and Chief Talent Officer at the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG), Bloomberg and Aviva. He is also serving as a non-executive Director and trustee with Roffey Park and the Financial Services Skills Commission.

He has also served as a board member at the International Coaching Federation in the UK and the LSEG foundation. Within his career, Jig has worked with some of the largest global multinationals including Fujitsu, Macquarie, Deloitte and Bloomberg on significant transformation and change programs. Jig is a Chartered Fellow of the CIPD, an accredited Executive Coach, a certified Hogan practitioner and a certified EIP3 emotional intelligence practitioner. 

Maria Teresa Zappia

Maria Teresa has covered a number of positions in BlueOrchard since 2008 including head of the investment team and chief investment officer. At present, Maria Teresa leads the blended finance and impact management team and is responsible for BlueOrchard’s blended finance mandates (PPPs) and overall impact management and measurement practice.   

Maria Teresa also leads the Sustainability and Impact team at Schroders Capital, the private assets business of Schroders (USD 100 bn). Here, Maria Teresa contributed to a number of investment solutions across asset classes focusing on implementing net-zero portfolios and mandate offerings for institutional investors seeking sustainable and impact investing opportunities.   

As of January 2023, Maria Teresa is responsible for the Impact team at Schroders. Leveraging BlueOrchard's 25-year expertise in impact investing, she has developed with her team a proprietary impact management and measurement framework for the so-called Impact-driven strategies, i.e. a new global impact investing product offering across Schroders’ private and listed assets.  

Maria Teresa has over 25 years of experience in emerging and frontier markets, has authored and co-authored a number of publications, and is a guest speaker at several universities. Maria Teresa is an Advisory Board member of the Operating Principles for Impact Management (a best-in-class impact investing framework for asset managers and asset owners), a Board member of Swiss Sustainable Finance, and joined the Impact Investing Institute Advisory Council in 2022.   

Prior to BlueOrchard, Maria Teresa was a banker at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in the financial institutions team where she led SME financing to local commercial banks in Central Asia, the Balkans, and in Central Europe. Maria Teresa also worked in the Asian Development Bank transport infrastructure team across Central Asia, South Asia and South-East Asia. Maria Teresa was a fellow at the Overseas Development Institute in Africa and started her career at the OECD Development Centre in Paris. She has an MPhil in Development Studies from IDS (University of Sussex, UK) and MA in Economics from the University of Firenze (Italy). 

Dr. Nic Pillow

Nic has over two decades of experience in creating value for start-up, fast-growth and multinational B2B technology companies. He is a director of Blackfinch Spring VCT plc, a Venture Capital Trust which he helped launch after joining Blackfinch Investments in 2019. He has supported over 100 investments into high-tech Seed and Series A stage companies, and he has been an observer on the boards of numerous portfolio companies.

Previously, Nic co-founded his own startup, Rhizome Live, a Software-as-a-Service business in the Education Tech sector. He has also led a global team at Nokia, exercising portfolio control over 15 software products that grew in annual revenue from £50 to £250 million. Nic holds a first-class degree in Engineering & Computing and a Ph.D. in Computer Vision, both from the University of Oxford. 

Rupert Reed

Rupert Reed is Managing Director of Godliman Partners. He has twenty-five years' experience in Asset Management Executive Search, initially at Tyzack & Partners, before founding Godliman in 2003.

Godliman offers Asset Management Executive Search and Talent Solutions, recruiting senior executives and teams across the Investment Management sector, for over 20 years. 

Rupert spent his early career with the HSBC Group in Hong Kong and Korea, before joining the UK Diplomatic Service (FCO), where he served in London and the Former Republic of Yugoslavia as First Secretary with responsibility for Political & Economic issues. 

He graduated from the University of St Andrews with an MA (Hons) in Logic & Metaphysics. 

Sonja Laud

Sonja Laud, CFA is Global Chief Investment Officer (CIO) of the Asset Management division of Legal & General and a member of the Executive Team. She leads the firm’s entire Investment, Responsible Investment and Trading teams for public markets.

Sonja joined Legal & General in 2019 from Fidelity International where she was Head of Equity. Prior to that she worked at Barings where she launched and managed global multi-asset portfolios. Prior to that, she worked for Schroders where she managed, for eight years, several successful global, European and UK equity funds, with a focus on high-dividend stocks. Sonja started her career at DWS in Frankfurt, where she was an award-winning global equities portfolio manager. 

Sonja has completed a Global Executive MBA program at TRIUM (LSE, NYUStern, HEC) and has MSc, EMIM from ESCP Europe. She is a CFA Charterholder. She is a regular media commentator, appearing across broadcast including the BBC, Sky News, Bloomberg and CNBC. 

Stephanie Kelly

Stephanie joined Redwheel in 2022. As Head of Greenwheel she leads the sustainability ecosystem that powers Redwheel’s Enhanced Integration, Transition and Sustainable funds. 

She began her career within the investment industry in 2014 and prior to joining Redwheel, Stephanie was the Deputy Head of the abrdn Research Institute, where she led on macro ESG and political risk research. 

She holds a BA(Hons) in Economics and Politics and an MSc in International Relations from Trinity College Dublin.