08:00Â Registration & breakfast
08:30Â Welcome and introductions
08:40Â Keynote speaker:Â Chris Cummings, Chief Executive Officer, The Investment Association
09:20 Asset Owner Panel: Buyer’s perspective
• James Monk, Workplace Investment Director, Fidelity International
• George Jecks, Portfolio Manager, WTW
• Mark Austin, Pensions & Insurance Executive & Chair of Trustees Northern Trust Pension Fund
• Moderator: Louise Farrand, Executive Director Defined Contribution Investment
10:10Â Coffee break
10:30Â Asset Manager Panel:Â Semi-Liquid fund choices and considerations
• Martin Dietz, Head of Diversified Strategies, Asset Allocation, L&G Asset Management
• Matt Roberts, Partner & Head of Alternative Solutions, Fulcrum Asset Management
• James Lowe, Director, Private Assets, Schroders Capital
• Moderator: Rachel Thornton, Senior Product Manager, Complex Fund Solutions, Northern Trust
11:20Â Final remarks
11:30Â Close
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.
James Monk
James is a Workplace Investment Director at Fidelity International looking after FutureWise Target Dated Fund Strategy and a number of key strategic IO clients since February 2023. He comes with 14 years DC investment industry experience and is qualified as a Regulated Financial Planner. James’s experience covers investment design, private assets, sustainability, retirement and the workplace provider industry.
As a member of the Bank of England’s Productive Working Finance Group he has been working toward making private assets more accessible and while working at Aon was responsible for governing the Aon DC Product (including the Aon Master Trust), conducting provider selection processes and designing investment strategy for Employers and Trusts.
Â
Louise Farrand
Louise Farrand is a consultant and journalist. She is executive director of the DC Investment Forum, a group of investment managers dedicated to promoting investment excellence via research and events. Louise is also an experienced event chair and programme director of the DC Strategic Summit.
As a freelance journalist writing for numerous magazines which specialise in pensions, investment and HR, Louise remains close to the fast-moving regulatory and political agenda. She also writes for a variety of corporate clients, from asset managers and consultancies to pension schemes.
George Jecks
George is a member of the Portfolio Management Group at WTW, responsible for building and managing multi-asset portfolios for delegated clients. George is a senior member of the committees responsible for portfolio investment content and development of multi-asset solutions for the UK and globally with a particular focus on defined contribution (as portfolio manager for the Equity and Diversified Growth funds managed on behalf of LifeSight, WTW’s Master Trust) and wealth management clients. George was previously a Lead Portfolio Manager at Goldman Sachs Asset Management.
Â
Matthew Roberts, CFA
Matthew is Head of Fulcrum Alternative Solutions, a team established to solve some of the historical challenges associated with investing in Alternative asset classes for pensions schemes (particularly DC), endowments & foundations and wealth managers. He is also Chair of Fulcrum's Responsible Investment Committee. Before joining Fulcrum in 2018 to run Fulcrum Alternative Solutions, Matthew had been a Portfolio Manager for the Towers Watson Partners Fund since 2014 and before that a manager researcher in fixed income, hedge funds and other alternatives since 2005. Matthew holds a BSc in Economics and Finance (2005) from the University of Bristol. He has been a CFA charterholder since 2009.
James Lowe, CFA
James is responsible for Schroders Capital's private asset business development for the UK intermediary market. James joined Schroders in 2015 on the graduate programme, before taking up his current role in 2018. James has a BSc in Economics from the University of Bath and is a CFA charterholder.
Â
Mark Austin
Mark is sector head for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and head of strategy for Northern Trust's Asset Owner division. His background is in the servicing, management, and stewardship of retirement assets, having worked at an asset manager with a significant pension market share and two asset servicing institutions predominately servicing the UK and European defined benefit (DB) and defined contribution (DC) markets.
Â
 Mark is also an executive sponsor on new sales to major or strategically important asset owners and managers, in both the pension sector and the insurance market across EMEA. Mark has been with Northern Trust for 18 years.
Â
Prior to Northern Trust, Mark worked at JP Morgan, covering its pension client base as well as its offshore manager constituency in various capacities, from strategy to sales and relationship management. He is a director of Northern Trust’s Irish Management Company and is Chair of the Northern Trust UK Pension Plan covering both DC and DB pensions. Additionally, he is the recent past chair of the Defined Contribution Investment Forum.
Â
Martin Dietz
Martin is a fund manager and asset allocator in L&G Asset Management's Multi-Asset Funds team and has over 15 years of experience with alternative asset classes and the management of fund-of-funds. At L&G, he is currently responsible for the Private Market Access fund – a semi-liquid global private market fund designed for UK pension investors – as well as a range of DC-focused diversified growth funds.
Prior to joining L&G in September 2012, Martin was a senior investment consultant at Towers Watson where he was a member of its Global Investment Committee and UK Portfolio Construction Group. At TW, his responsibilities included asset class and manager research on liquid and illiquid alternatives. Martin previously worked as a manager at Ernst & Young in its Financial Services Risk Management. He has a PhD (summa cum laude) in economics and finance from the University of St Gallen, graduated from the doctoral programme of the Swiss National Bank at Gerzensee and was a visiting PhD student in economics at UC Berkeley.Â
Rachel Thornton
Rachel leads a team supporting European semi-liquid funds, money market funds, exchange traded funds and tax transparent funds, as well as fund tokenization and digital asset fund products. She is part of the Global Product Management team at Northern Trust and is based in Dublin, Ireland.
Rachel is actively involved in various industry working groups within the asset management industry where she holds roles such as Vice Chair of the Irish Funds Money Market Fund Working Group, and is a European Fund and Asset Management Association (EFAMA) Money Market Fund Taskforce member.
Rachel joined Northern Trust in May 2011 and has over 25 years’ experience in the asset management industry including across fund administration operations, asset manager risk and project management roles.
She has a Bachelor of Commerce Degree from University College Dublin and joined the Dean's list of honors at faculty of commerce for outstanding results.