Speakers
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Paul Torsney Head of Pensions, LawDebenture Pension Trustees
Paul is an actuary, an independent professional trustee and a former pensions consultant. He joined Law Debenture in 2021 to bring the market leading UK proposition to the Irish market. He is a trustee for a number of Irish pension schemes.
With 19 years’ experience advising trustees and sponsors in all areas of pension provision, Paul is also a Qualified Pension Trustee (QPT), a Chartered Enterprise Risk Actuary (CERA) and is both a former council member and the former Chair of the Pensions Committee, of the Society of Actuaries in Ireland.
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Sylvia McNeece Professional Trustee, LawDebenture Pension Trustees
Sylvia is a solicitor, qualified pension trustee and Chartered Director. She is a former Head of Legal with the Pensions Authority. Sylvia joined Law Debenture in 2025. She has extensive experience in pension scheme governance, risk management and regulation. She was responsible for drafting pensions legislation, statutory instruments, codes of practice and other trustee guidance, while working in the regulator, so has a deep understanding of the regulator’s expectations for pension schemes. Most recently she worked as a Senior Governance Consultant with Lane Clark & Peacock.
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Kelly Tran Managing Director, Institutional Sales – MFS Investment Management
Kelly, CFA, is Managing Director of UK & Ireland at MFS Investment Management® (MFS®). In this role, she is responsible for new business development for the institutional business across defined benefit clients, defined contribution clients and consultant relations. She is based in London.
Kelly joined MFS in 2021 in her current role. Previously, she held various roles over a seven year period with Newton Investment Management/Bank of New York Mellon including client director, commercial sustainability leader and head of UK sales. She also spent eight years at J.P. Morgan Private Bank managing multi-asset portfolios for ultra-high-net-worth clients, covering Russia, Greece and Israel.
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Benoit Anne Senior Managing Director, Head of Market Insights– MFS Investment Management
Benoit is a Senior Managing Director and Head of Market Insights at MFS Investment Management® (MFS®). In this role, he leads the Market Insights team while also focusing on fixed income strategy. He is based in London and joined MFS in 2021.
Previously, Benoit was a managing director in charge of asset allocation and market strategy at Liberty Mutual Investments, based in Boston. He was also the global head of Emerging Markets Strategy at Société Générale and worked as senior director and head of EMEA Strategy at Merrill Lynch. He began his career in the 1990s in Washington, DC, where he served as an economist both at the Institute of International Finance and the International Monetary Fund.
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Rosalind Smith-Maxwell Senior Director–Quinbrook
Rosalind is a Senior Director with over 15 years’ experience in renewable energy and clean technology. She has successfully advised on more than 4 GW of renewable energy power projects including onshore wind, solar and biomass technologies. Her clean technology expertise includes behind the meter storage and battery manufacture technologies.
Previously, Rosalind was a Vice President at Fieldstone Private Capital Group between 2015 and 2020, where she focused on transactions located in Europe and Africa. Prior to joining Fieldstone, she was at Climate Change Capital for seven and a half years.
She holds a BSc in Genetics from the University of Edinburgh, and was called to the Bar in 2009, after being awarded the Jules Thorn scholarship by Middle Temple.
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Mark Burrows Managing Director and Head of Relationships and Fundraising, Europe – Quinbrook
Mark is Managing Director, Head of Capital Formation in Europe with over 14 years’ experience in the institutional funds management and finance sector.
Prior to joining Quinbrook, he was director, head of institutional capital between 2008 and 2016 of Foresight Group, a market-leading renewable energy and private equity asset manager. Mark led the institutional fundraising efforts at Foresight, and raised USD 600m across 20 Limited Partners and co-investors, transitioning Foresight from a retail funded to an institutionally funded business.
He hold a BA (Hons) in Economics and French Studies from Oxford Brookes University.
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Mairéad O’Dowd Director, UK & Ireland, Global Client Group – Barings
Mairéad is a member of Barings’ Global Distribution Group and is responsible for managing relationships with institutional clients and investment consultants in the UK and Ireland. Mairéad has worked in the industry since 2010. Prior to joining Barings in June 2023, she was a client and sales director at abrdn. Mairéad holds a Bachelor of Commerce and Masters degree from University College Dublin. She is a CFA Charterholder and has certificates in ESG and Climate Investing from CFA UK.
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Orla Walsh Head of Europe Private Credit Portfolio Management – Barings
Orla is a Managing Director and Portfolio Manager in Barings’ Global Private Finance Group. Orla has worked in the industry since 2009, most recently for StepStone Group where she built out the European Private Debt asset class and team. Prior to that, Orla held roles at The Carlyle Group, Goldman Sachs and European Investment Bank. She holds a Bachelor of Business Studies and a master's degree in business, economics and social studies from Trinity College Dublin.
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Martin Jost Head of Product Specialist– Capital Fund Management (CFM)
Based in Paris, Martin is CFM's Head Product Specialist within the Business Development team, working with institutional investors globally. He works closely with the Research team and is responsible of a team running technical analyses for clients and communicating CFM’s investment approach for its various investment programs.
Martin has over 15 years of experience in the financial industry and has previously worked in London in the Investment Banking division of Rabobank and Société Générale, where he structured equity derivatives and hybrid trading strategies. He graduated from Centrale-Supélec engineering school, earned a BS. in Economics from Université Paris Sud, and an MSc in Finance with Distinction from Imperial College London where he studied financial engineering.
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Maria Gendelman Investor Relations, UK & Ireland – Capital Fund Management (CFM)
Maria is responsible for UK and Irish investors at CFM. Maria started her career in the Deutsche Bank Cap Intro team after which she moved to the buy side, working at Marshall Wace and Syquant Capital before joining CFM in London at the beginning of 2023.
