Keynote
John Kay
John Kay is an economist whose career has spanned the academic world, business and finance, and public affairs. He has held chairs at the London Business School, the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics and is a Fellow of St John’s College, Oxford, where he began his academic career in 1970. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
John is a director of several public companies and a contributing editor of the Financial Times. He chaired the Review of UK Equity Markets and Long-Term Decision-Making which reported to the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills in July 2012. He is the author of many books, including The Truth about Markets (2003), The Long and the Short of It:(2009, new revised edition 2016) and Obliquity (2010). His latest book, Other People’s Money – towards a financial system for the needs of the economy rather than financial market participants – was published by Profile Books and (in North America) by PublicAffairs in September 2015, and was a book of the year for Bloomberg, The Economist and the Financial Times, winner of the Saltire Literary Prize for non-fiction, and was short-listed for the Orwell Prize for political writing.
Speaker
Anne-Marie Jourdan
Anne-Marie spent a large part of her career in asset management companies, first at BNP Paribas Asset Management, then as Head of Legal Department at AGF Asset Management (now Allianz Global Investors). She was recruited in 2005 at the Fonds de Reserve pour les Retraites (FRR), the French Reserve Fund. As Chief Legal Officer, member of the Executive Board, she is in charge of the legal aspects of the selection of external managers, of the corporate governance and the proxy voting, and the institutional communication (internet website, press releases, annual report). She is also a member of the Responsible Investment Committee of FRR’s Supervisory Board. She is a member of ICGN’s board of Governors since 2014 and board liaison of the Shareholders Responsibility Committee (SHREC).
Speaker
Andreas Zubrod
Dr. Andreas Zubrod joined the Executive Board of Union Asset Management Holding AG, Frankfurt am Main, on 1 June 2014. He is responsible for Legal & Compliance, Accounting, Tax & Finance and Investment Analysis & Control, as well as the Group Controlling department.
Dr. Zubrod has worked for the Union Investment Group since 2002. From 2011 until the middle of 2014 he was head of Legal & Public Affairs. Before that he held positions as head of department in the office of the executive board, and group head of the retail customer segment administration.
Dr. Zubrod became a certified tax lawyer in 2007. He was admitted to the bar in Germany in 2001, while working at the law firm Shearman & Sterling.
Dr. Zubrod holds a doctorate in law.
Chairman
Paul Koster
Since August 2014 Paul Koster is Managing Director at the Dutch Investors’ Association VEB. As of July 2015, he also serves as Chairman of the European Investors’ Association (European Investors).
He was Chief Executive of the Dubai Financial Services Authority from December 2008 until September 2012. Mr. Koster was Senior Advisor to the Governor of the Dubai International Financial Centre till 31 December 2013.
From May 2009 till June 2017 Mr. Koster served on the Advisory Board of the Emirates Securities and Commodities Authority (SCA), the UAE’s federal securities regulator. From July 2009 through June 2012 he was a member of the Consultative Advisory Group of the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) and the International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants (IESBA). Currently, he is a representative on the global Advisory Group to the Investor and Other Stakeholders Working Group (IOSWG) of the International Forum of Independent Audit Regulators (IFIAR).
In his earlier career Mr. Koster was Commissioner and Member of the Executive Board of the Autoriteit Financiële Markten (AFM), the national integrated conduct of business financial services regulator for the Netherlands. He served as Executive Vice President (Chief of Corporate Internal Audit) at Royal Philips Electronics, as Managing Partner Corporate Finance at Coopers & Lybrand and as Chief Compliance Officer and Acting Commissioner of Quotations at the Amsterdam Stock Exchange.
Moderators
Armand Kersten
Since May 2017, Armand Kersten is head of European Relations of VEB, the Dutch Investors’ Association. He is an internationally experienced lawyer and banking and compliance professional. Armand is always committed to serve in the best interest of his clients or beneficiaries. Armand holds a doctorate from the Erasmus University Rotterdam, serving as lecturer in law there as well for many years. In his doctorate thesis ‘Compliance at Banks’ he addresses the crossroads between company law and financial markets law.
For almost 20 years (1989-2009) he held varied positions within ABN AMRO related to the legal, compliance, commercial and private banking departments, in several countries. He was ABN AMRO delegate at the Wolfsberg Group of Banks. As such he co-drafted the Wolfsberg Anti Money Laundering Principles of 2000 and 2003. In 2001 he was appointed global head Compliance Private Banking and some years later Armand was appointed head of Group Compliance Policy. From 2009-2012 Armand was senior manager with EY in the Netherlands. Before joining VEB he acted as head of Group Legal at Horus Europe Holdings Ltd in Brussels.
Moderators
Niels Lemmers
Niels Lemmers (1978) is director of European Investors and director Public Affairs at the Dutch Investors‘ Association VEB. He is responsible for representing both investor organisations in engagement and policy activities, legal cases and negotiations. He advocates the position and interests of the VEB and European Investors in the broad public debate on corporate governance, financial markets and securities regulation and investor rights and responsibilities.
Niels studied Corporate and Securities Law as well as international Financial Economics at Radboud University in Nijmegen. After working at the Dutch Authority for Financial Markets (AFM), he became a research assistant at the Van der Heijden Institute, which is part of the ‘Business and Law’ research department of Radboud University Nijmegen. His academic publications focus on corporate law, securities law and financial markets, including regulation and supervision of the financial markets and investor interests.
Niels is a member of the Consultative Working Group for the European Securities Markets Authority (ESMA) Investor Protection & Intermediaries Standing Committee and a member of the Advisory Panel and Consumer Panel of the AFM. Niels is acting co-chair of the Shareholders Responsibility Committee of the International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN) and he represented investors in the EU Task Force on IPOs.