Speakers
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Dawid Konotey-Ahulu CBE DL Co-founder of mallowstreet
Dawid is a serial entrepreneur, having co-founded Redington and mallowstreet with Robert Gardner. Dawid remains involved in mallowstreet as a Board Director.
Most recently Dawid co-founded The #10000BlackInterns programme with Jonathan Sorrell (President of Capstone Investment Advisers), Michael Barrington-Hibbert (founder of Barrington-Hibbert Associates), and Wol Kolade (Managing Partner of Livingbridge), the group which founded #100BlackInterns in August 2020.
Through the #100BlackInterns initiative, leading players in the investment management industry have come together to address the chronic underrepresentation of Black talent in that sector. Since its launch, the programme has garnered extraordinary support with 200 investment management companies offering internships in the Summer of 2021 to Black students in the United Kingdom as a way of attracting a more diverse range of talent to their industry.
Following the launch of #100BlackInterns, the #10000BlackInterns initiative has been designed to help transform the horizons and prospects of young Black people in the United Kingdom. The 10,000 Black Interns programme will offer paid work experience across a wide range of sectors, providing training and development opportunities and creating a sustainable cycle of mentorship and sponsorship for the Black community.
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James Kanagasooriam Chief Research Officer, Focaldata
James is one of Britain’s leading pollsters and is Chief Research Officer of the AI-Research firm Focaldata. From the Scottish referendum of 2014 onwards James has worked on almost all of the referenda and elections in the UK since, as well as multiple Federal and provincial elections in Canada, the United States and Israel. Most famously in 2019, he came up with the term and seat list the “Red Wall”. James is a regular contributor to the Times and Radio 4. He sits on the advisory board of centre right think tank Onward and is a Senior Researcher at King’s College London.
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Richard Tomlinson Chief Investment Officer, Local Pensions Partnership Investments (LPPI)
Richard is CIO at LPPI and has responsibility for management of all investment and client activity.
Richard has more than 20 years of investment experience. Prior to joining LPP in 2017, Richard was Head of Portfolio Advisory (EMEA) at Albourne Partners for six years where he advised European investors on alternative investments, portfolio construction and risk management.
Earlier in his career, Richard was Head of Multi-Strategy at Old Mutual Asset Managers and prior to this an analyst at GNI Fund Management. Richard holds a degree and a master’s degree in Engineering from the University of Cambridge and is a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst.
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Jenny Segal Motivational Speaker and Author
Jenny is passionate about improving workplace culture and has written three books on motivation at work: Building Better Workplace Cultures, Purpose & Hybrid Working and Board Effectiveness & Culture.
Jenny has had a long and varied career in finance, with a mathematics degree from Oxford University, qualifying as an actuary and working as a pensions and investment consultant. With her flair for management and communication, she specialised in leading sales teams for asset management companies, most recently as global head of distribution for Fidelity International.
A spat with cancer gave her a new perspective on purpose, and she now enjoys a portfolio career, encompassing public speaking, writing, consultancy, non-executive directorships, lecturing at King’s Business School and is an ambassador for The Diversity Project and Chief Investment Officer for Nesta Trust. Jenny spends her free time preparing for a piano diploma, running half-marathons and taking (what she hopes are) beautiful photographs.
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Leandros Kalisperas Chief Investment Officer, West Yorkshire
Leandros is the Chief Investment Officer of West Yorkshire Pension Fund (‘WYPF’), which manages £20bn of assets and 300,000 members, and is part of the £60 billion plus Northern LGPS alongside GMPF and MPF. He leads a large in-house investment team directly managing public, private and alternatives markets, alongside the collaborative partnerships in infrastructure though GLIL and in private equity through NPEP. He was most recently Head of Portfolio Solutions at abrdn and before that Head of Credit at USS, and started his career in investment banking and alternatives firms.
Leandros has an MBA from INSEAD and an MA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Oxford.
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Professor Lewis Dartnell Research Scientist, Presenter, and Author
Lewis is a Science Researcher and Writer, and holds a Professorship at the University of Westminster. His research is in the field of astrobiology and the search for bacterial life beyond the Earth. Lewis explores how microbial life, and signs of its past existence, might survive the bombardment of cosmic radiation on the surface of Mars, and what are the best ways to try and detect it.
Alongside his academic research Lewis is a science writer. He has won prizes from the The Daily Telegraph, Oxford University Press, New Scientist and The Times Higher Education. Lewis’ books include the Sunday Times bestsellers The Knowledge: How To Rebuild Our World From Scratch, which discusses how to reboot civilisation after an apocalypse, and Origins: How The Earth Shaped Human History, which is a deep dive into how features of the planet have influenced the course of history. Origins has been translated into twentysix languages, and a copy of The Knowledge even exists on the surface of the moon.
Lewis has appeared on BBC Horizon, Wonders of the Universe, Stargazing Live, and Sky at Night, as well as on the DVD extras for the sci-fi film Monsters. He acted as scientific consultant and scriptwriter for films including a full-dome planetarium show We Are Aliens, and documentaries with Brian Cox. Lewis has been interviewed on the BBC World Service the Guardian Science Weekly podcast, talkSPORT and on Lauren Laverne’s show on BBC Radio 6 Music. Lewis has delivered lectures at the Royal Albert Hall, the Royal Institution, and the Natural History Museum.
