members of the advisory board

Nick Sherry is the former Minister for Superannuation and Corporate Law of Australia. 

He is widely recognized as one of the fathers of the ‘Australian Pension Miracle’ and has advised senior policy makers and asset owners on a wide range of pension and pension investment issues across the Asia Pacific area and the European Union.

Nick also chaired the Australian Senate Select Committee on Superannuation in the Hawke and Keating Governments and was later Deputy Chair of Senate Select Committee on Superannuation and Financial Services for 6 years. 

Valeria (Val) Giacomin is a researcher and scholar specializing in entrepreneurship and international business.                   Her research career includes strong focus on Asia and in particular Singapore – tracing Singapore’s development as a global city following the introduction of rubber in Southeast Asia and the emergence of a plantation cluster directed to global export. 

She has received fellowships from Harvard Business School and University of Southern California Marshall, where she currently works at the Llyod Greif Center for Entrepreneurship on entrepreneurial ecosystems.    

Valeria regularly consults on Entrepreneurship and Strategy to start-ups in the UK, Singapore, Italy and the USA.

Dr. Shpak is Co-Head of Fundamental Equity Investing at Xantium Fund, part of Tudor Investment Corporation. Her experience covers both listed and VC investments, with wide-ranging exposure to four essential investment themes: applied AI and digitalization, automation and robotics, evolving consumption patterns and behavior, and energy transition. 

Her approach is rooted in the quintessentially American tradition of creative capital, spanning fundamental equity research, social change and technological innovation. She was elected as one of the 50 Leading Women in Hedge Funds by the Hedge Funds Journal and Ernst & Young (21)

Gene Podsiadlo helped launch some of the leading global equity funds in the United States and was notably Managing Director/Partner of Warburg Pincus & Co. and President of Warburg Pincus Funds prior to the sale of Warburg Pincus Asset Management to Credit Suisse.

Gene has served on the boards of directors of both public and private companies in the U.S. and abroad. 

He is currently a Senior Advisor to Cross Creek Advisors, a later-stage venture capital firm in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Suzanne Bishopric is Managing Partner of Global Sovereign Advisors, providing advisory services to central banks, pension funds and SWFs. 

Until 2015, Ms. Bishopric was the Director of Investments of the United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund (UNJSPF), increasing its value to US$54 Billion. 

She initiated the Fund’s investments in Private Equity, Infrastructure, and Green Bonds. Previously, Ms Bishopric served as Treasurer of the United Nations (UN), managing a $50 Billion multi-currency fixed income portfolio diversified among 195 Member States. 

Georg Inderst is one of the prime international experts on infrastructure investment and finance for developed and emerging countries

His research work is based on his extensive experience as investment adviser to pension funds and institutional investors

Dr. Inderst wrote & coordinated seminal  studies on Infrastructure Investment and Green Finance, working among others, with the OECD and the Asia Development Bank (ADB) — he notably authored the ADB report on Infrastructure, Private Finance & Inst. Investors: Asia from a Global Perspective.

Torben N. Clausen has more than 25 years of business management and investment experience.                  He held C-level roles in the Energy, Shipping, Renewables, Financial, Risk and Investment Management industries.       


He's the founder and CEO of the Copenhagen Entrepreneur Hub, a leading Scandinavian venture platform focusing on Fintech and IT.  

Robert Burke is the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer of Par-Four Investment Mangement.  He has experience in credit analysis, leveraged loan syndication, high yield bond origination and distribution, risk mitigation, structured securitization and distressed restructurings sitting on various creditors committees.  

Prior to launching Par-Four, Mr. Burke spent twenty years working in various roles at investment banks.  From 1996 through 2002, Mr. Burke held the position of Global Head of High Yield, Distressed, and Leveraged Loan Sales at Lehman Brothers.

Dr. Sarmento Barra is one of Latin America's foremost experts in the fields of Labor Relations, Pension & Social Sec. Law, which he has taught and researched as scholar in France and Brazil and practiced as barrister and legal counsel at the State of São Paulo Bar for more than 20 years. 

Dr. Sarmento Barra is the author of Fundos de Pensão Instituídos na Previdência Privada Brasileira (2008) on Latin America's largest pension sector. He holds a PhD in Labor Law (summa cum laude) from the Sorbonne (Université Paris 1) and is a member of the Academic Network on European Social Charter and Social Rights (ANESCSR).

Dr. Sergakis specializes in corporate governance, corporate and capital markets law. He is Professor of Capital Markets Law and Corporate Governance at the University of Glasgow School of Law.

He is an advisor to MEFOP Spa, Italy's National Pension Development Society, established by the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance.

Dr. Sergakis is also a Member of the Oversight Committee of the Best Practice Principles for Shareholder Voting Research Providers (BPPG) and other European and global think tanks. 

Tom Brigandi, CFA, is Chair of the Board of Directors of the CFA Society New York (CFANY), the association of financial market experts founded by Ben Graham and David L.F. Dodd.

Mr. Brigandi is Lead Analyst in the Global Project and Infrastructure Finance Group at Moody's, where he is responsible for a portfolio of 34 power, toll-road, airport, port, water, wastewater, natural gas pipeline and project finance credits that collectively have over $15 billion of debt outstanding. 

He worked previously at the ~$200bn NYC Pension Fund, where he focused on energy and natural resources.

Hubert Danso is Chair of the Continental Business Network (CBN) of AUDA-NEPAD, the African Union (AU) development agency, and CEO of Africa investor (Ai) Group. 

Mr. Danso was instrumental in establishing the NEPAD-AU 5% Agenda Initiative, putting infrastructure and private equity investment in Africa at the heart of the global policy agenda.

He also serves as the Chairman of the CFA New York Society Global Asset Owners’ Advisory Council and Chairman of the African SWF & Pension Fund Leaders Forum.  

W. Jean Kwon holds the Edwin A.G. Manton Endowed Chair Professorship in International Insurance and Risk Management at the School of Risk Management, St. John’s University, New York.            He is editor of the Asia-Pacific Journal of Risk and Insurance (APRIA).  

He worked as an insurance regulator with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and helped found the World Risk and Insurance Economics Congress (WRIEC), and build the Research Network of the International Insurance Society (IIS).

His research interests include Insurance Market/Country Analysis, Cyber-Risk, Human Capital and Takaful. 

Dimitri J. Andraos is a leading Pan-European bond market & corporate debt expert, with a track record spanning over three decades in the field, both in the City (US and Sterling money market instruments, UK gilts and forex) and Mainland Europe (euro denominated IG bonds, high yield and private debt)

He established and led Swiss Life's global fixed income and credit investment capability and received numerous industry awards including Morningstar, CityWire, Bloomberg and L'Agéfi, among others

His current research and advocacy work, alongside fellow SEF ABM Dr. Guan Seng Khoo, includes "the crossroads where ESG and fixed income intersect"

Dr Joe Zammit-Lucia has had extensive experience in both corporate and policy leadership roles. He is a founder of the RADIX public policy think tank based in London, and the RADIX Centre for Business, Politics & Society in Amsterdam

He has acted as leadership advisor to senior business leaders across four continents and as Special Advisor to the Director General at the Intl Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)

Dr  Zammit-Lucia is co-author of 'The Death of Liberal Democracy?' and 'Backlash: Saving Globalisation from Itself.' His upcoming book on the relationship between business and politics will be published by Bloomsbury in 2022

A former Under-Secretary of State in the Government of Madhya Pradesh, India's 2nd largest state, Dr. Bhatnagar teaches Social Protection (SP) and Public Financial Management (PFM) at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Gujarat, and advises the Bangladeshi government re various aspects of their social and healthcare policies.

Dr. Kavim Bhatnagar has also conducted & coordinated key research programs with/for India's leading public and private pension funds, the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Bank Group (WBG).

He is perhaps most famous for his pioneering work and advocacy re the notion of 'Modern Micro-Pensions' for women and rural workers. 

Dr. Mendis is a Sri Lankan-American  macroeconomist & financier, specializing in emerging markets fixed income, monetary and central banking policy.

Chandima Mendis is an alumnus of the University of Oxford (D.Phil. Economics) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), where he researched "external shocks and banking crises in small open economies" and "modern exchange rate regimes", essential notions for ASEAN member-sates.

He was notably Head of Emerging Markets at AXA Investment (AXA IM), one of the world's leading generalist asset management companies, before joining Bridgewest Group, a Californian investment company active in private equity and deep-tech venture capital across Asia and Australasia. 

Dr Guan Seng Khoo is a Singaporean-Canadian authority in the fields of Public Pension/SWF Investment (PPSI), Governance, Risk Management & Compliance (GRC) and Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) across the Asia-Pacific Continuum.

An alum of hedge fund giant ManGroup, where he was the   Principal Scientist, pioneering the use of advanced algorithmic Ai-based investment frameworks, he also held senior managerial positions at Singapore's Temasek Holdings and the Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AiMCo), two of the world's leading sovereign wealth investment institutions.

He currently serves on the board of directors of several deep-tech IT & Ai companies across China, the ASEAN area, the US and Canada. 

Dr. Khoo also founded Asia's first post-graduate financial engineering program at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University (NTU) — in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon.

Mr. Troll is a Sino-German construction, infrastructure investment, urban development and renewable energy expert.

He has advised the CEOs/CFOs of several Chinese state-owned banks (trade finance, asset management, investment banking) and industrial enterprises (SOEs) in the construction and energy sectors — focusing on projects/investments related to "The New Silk Road", in strategic areas incl. Central Asia, Eastern Europe/the Baltics and the Arabian Gulf.

He currently advises the Construction Industry Sub-Committee of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT), a Beijing-based body, also known as the China Chamber of International Commerce (CCOIC)

Martin Troll is an alumnus of the University of Bamberg in Germany (International Finance), Australia's Monash University (Economics & Asian Studies) and Beijing's University of International Business & Economics (UIBE), he speaks and works in Mandarin-Chinese, German and English. 

Lauren Burnhill is an experienced practitioner of inclusive, sustainable and responsible finance, focusing on the intersection of environmental and social development.

 After world-changing successes in “Access to Finance” — financing programs for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises “MSME” — Lauren pioneered the concept of “Access to Life” finance to describe blending public & private investment in Emerging Markets & Developing Economies (EMDEs) – notably in Western Latin America: Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru ('Pacific Pumas').

Lauren holds an MBA in Finance and Strategic Planning from Wharton;  she speaks and works in English, French, Spanish & Portuguese.

Dr. Mohammed Tariq is an Anglo-Pakistani financial economics & quantitative finance expert.

Dr. Tariq is the former Treasurer & CIO of  the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), a leading supranational lender and DFI active across Asia/ASEAN and the Greater MENA area.

He was also the Chief Examiner (CE) for the UK's Securities Industry Regulator (preced. the Financial Conduct Authority and Prudential Regulation Authority) for all examinations relating to Bonds/Fixed Income Securities and Fund Management subjects. 

He is an authoritative expert in the fields of Global Fixed Income & Sukuk issuance and, more generally, modern Islamic jurisprudence applied to real assets owned/sold by governments and institutional investors — rapidly growing financial markets he has helped establish and develop across ASEAN and GCC jurisdictions. 

Dr. Tariq has also contributed to the development of advanced quantitative techniques for fixed income securities used in bonds trading as well as fund management and insurance. 

M. Nicolas J. Firzli is Director of the World Pensions Council (WPC), the international association of pension funds and think-tank
 

Mr. Firzli is co-chair of the World Pensions Forum (WPF), founder & Chief Executive of the Singapore Economic Forum (SEF) and Advisory Councillor to the World Bank Group Global Infrastructure Facility (GIF)
 

He has (co)authored notions such as “The Pension Wealth of Nations”, “Modern Trusteeship and Fiduciary Capitalism”, “Infrastructure as an Asset Class” and “The SDG–Driven Firm of the Future”.