Why you should watch:

Beijing has committed to reach peak emissions before 2030, to increase the role of non-fossil fuels from 15% to 20% of total energy use by 2025, and to net carbon neutrality by 2060. But, last year, it had three times more new coal-fired power capacity than the rest of the world combined. Are its commitments realistic? And why was the latest Five-year Plan so unambitious? Are Western governments right to be skeptical, given the very different priorities in what is a highly decentralized system?

Moderators: Andrew Hilton (Director, CSFI) & Jane Fuller (Co-director, CSFI).

Panelists:

'Rhea' Yuzu Zhang is a research economist at the Bank of China in London, with a PhD in Economics from the University of Nottingham. Her speciality is China's manufacturing sector.

Yan Qin is a lead analyst at Refinitiv, based in Norway, and a Research Associate at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. Her speciality is the carbon market. She has an MA from Fudan University and a PhD from the University of Oslo.

Rodrigo Zeidan is an Associate Professor of Practice at NYU's Shanghai campus, and a Senior Scholar at NYU's Center for Sustainable Business. He is also a columnist for Folha de Sao Paulo. His PhD is from the University of Rio de Janeiro.

Why you should watch: Unemployment is a huge political and social issue. Do we measure it properly? Do we have the right policies in place to minimise it - and to help those most affected? And just who are most affected? It clearly hits the young (and their life chances) especially hard - as it does non-white Brits. But Covid-related unemployment has also hit areas (and demographics) that had actually been doing better than most pre-lockdown, in particular, London and the self-employed. Looking ahead, the labour market may be recovering, but will the most dynamic sectors actually recover at all?

Moderators: Andrew Hilton (Director, CSFI) & Jane Fuller (Co-director, CSFI)

Panellists:

Jonathan Athow is the Deputy National Statistician and D-G for economic statistics at the Office of National Statistics in Newport. He is a former chief economist at HMRC, who joined the Treasury in 1997.

Andy Chamberlain is Director of Policy at the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-employed, which was set up in 1999 to protect the self-employed. He was previously a Parliamentary researcher for Michael Jack, MP.

Dylan Buckley is co-founder of DirectlyApply, which was launched in November 2020 and describes itself as 'the world's leading job discovery platform'.

Why you should watch: Two years ago, a team led by Harvard's Jason Furman published a report, written for the UK government, entitled 'Unlocking Digital Competition'. It made a number of recommendations for changes to UK competition policy, most of which have been accepted - though not all have yet been implemented. In the meantime, Europe and the US have also launched important initiatives in this area - and there are the beginnings of a global regulatory framework. Prof. Furman and Dessi Savova discuss the various approaches being followed around the world - and what impact they are likely to have on the shape of the BigTech industry.

Moderators: Andrew Hilton (Director, CSFI) & Leighton Hughes (FinTech Lead, CSFI)

Panellists:

Jason Furman is Professor of Practise at Harvard's Kennedy School, focusing on economic policy. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute in Washington. He is a former Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers under Obama, and has advised Democratic Presidential candidates from Al Gore to Joe Biden.

Dessislava Savova is a Partner at Clifford Chance, a member of the Partnership Council and co-ordinator of the firm's Continental European Technology Group. She has a special interest in data, cyber and AI.

Why you should watch: Gillian Tett's role at the FT is to identify issues before they break cover - and then to tackle them in a way that challenges the tenets of conventional finance. She made her name by spotting the warning signs of the GFC, and since then has broadened her field to cover management, ESG issues, tech and the political challenges posed by populism, elitism and inequality - all seen through the lens of a professional anthropologist who just happens to be a star editor at the FT. This discussion is based around her latest book, Anthro-vision: A new way to see business and life - due out in June.

Moderators: Andrew Hilton (Director, CSFI) & Jane Fuller (Co-director, CSFI)

Gillian Tett is chair of the editorial board and editor-at-large for the US Financial Times, of which she was previously managing editor. She is a former deputy head of Lex and Tokyo bureau chief at the FT, as well as the author of three best-selling business books and a Governing Board member of the Institute for New Economic Thinking. She currently writes a column for the FT Weekend Magazine, and has helped the FT build its presence in the ESG world with Moral Money. She has a PhD from Cambridge in social anthropology, writing her dissertation on Tajik wedding rituals.

Why you should watch: Two committed Blockchain enthusiasts/entrepreneurs go head-to-head with a sceptic from the FT, in a context provided by Switzerland's recent passage of a DLT Bill designed to permit introduction of DLT-based securities represented or issued on a Blockchain network. Switzerland is home to around 130 Blockchain/DLT startups in the banking infrastructure, investment management and payments space, and is clearly positioning itself as a leading jurisdiction for what it sees as a decentralized financial future. Not much meeting of minds, but plenty to chew on. With an introduction by the Ambassador of Switzerland to the UK, Alexandre Fasel.

Moderator: Andrew Hilton (Director, CSFI)

Panellists:

Tim Grant is CEO and Head of Business at SIX Digital Exchange (SDX) in Switzerland. He is a former CEO of Blockchain start-up, DrumG, and a former head of the research lab at R3. He began his career with UBS, in 1992. He was educated at Cambridge and the University of London.

Mathias Imbach is CEO (and co-founder) of Sygnum, described as 'the world's first digital asset bank'. He was formerly a private wealth manager for Ratan Tata, and before that was with Bain & Co. He has a PhD from the University of St Gallen and an MSc from LSE.

Jemima Kelly is a reporter at the FT and at FT Alphaville, which she joined in 2018 from Reuters. Her Twitter feed says she is known for 'snark', which seems fair a comment. She was educated at King's College, London.

Why you should watch: Forget the title... This is really three books: it covers the conflict between a dollar-based system and a multi-currency one, the link between 'unfettered' capital flows and financial instability, and the rising influence of China as the US withdraws. It is also, in part, an attack on 'financialisation' and a call for renewed international economic cooperation, but the discussion also throws in the role of Germany within the EU and the chequered history of UK economic policy since the pre-Thatcher years.

Moderator: Andrew Hilton (Director, CSFI)

Panellists:

Paola Subacchi is Professor of International Economics and chair of the Advisory Board at Queen Mary University London. She is a former director of research at Chatham House. 

Charles Dumas is Director and Chief Economist at TS Lombard, which he joined (when it was Lombard St Research) in 1998. He was previously with JPMorgan in London and NY, and with The Economist. He is the author of several books, including 'Globalization Fractures'.

Warwick Lightfoot is Head of Economics and Social Policy at Policy Exchange. He is a former special adviser to three UK Chancellors, a Treasury economist at RBS and Economics Editor at The European. His books include 'Sorry, We Have No Money: Britain's economic problem'.

Why you should watch: There is a new cast of characters in DC when it comes to financial regulation - from Yellen at the Treasury, to Gensler at the SEC, to Chopra at the CFPB. And there are important changes in the Senate, where Sherrod Brown will head the Banking Committee. Does this mean 'progressives' have won? Our panel is not convinced, but there is no doubt that climate-related risk is going to play a much bigger role, that social justice issues are high on the agenda ('fair lending', not 'risk-based lending'), that there will be pressure for higher capital ratios on larger banks when the Covid crisis is over, and that there will be more attention paid to non-bank institutions. There may well also be changes in the US approach to multinational organisations - and, of course, to China.

Moderator: Andrew Hilton (Director, CSFI)

Panellists:

Douglas Elliott is a partner at Oliver Wyman in New York. He is the author of several papers on the Biden Administration's approach to financial regulation. He was previously a Fellow at Brookings, and before that spent two decades on Wall St.

Nicolas Véron is a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute in Washington and at Bruegel in Brussels (of which he was a co-founder). He is also an independent director on the Board of the DTCC's trade repository.

Charles Taylor is currently a Visiting Scholar at GW Law in Washington. He is a former Executive Fellow at the Office of Financial Research in the US Treasury, a former Deputy Comptroller of the Currency (who represented the US on the Basel Committee), and a former Executive Director of the Group of 30.

An interview with Mohamed El-Erian: Biden, the Fed, the markets, Covid and the Middle East...

Why you should watch: Mohamed El-Erian is someone who moves markets. What he says matters - and, at the moment, his main concern revolves around the commitment by central banks to be the buyer of last resort for securities that, arguably, they should not touch. Yes, he understands the dilemma posed by the Covid crisis, but an excessively accommodating monetary stance is itself a danger. Bubbles can pop; inflation can creep up on policymakers. As for Biden, no problem with his programme - so far. This surely isn't (yet) the time for austerity. But don't write off Trump's legacy entirely: we won't go back to a tariff-free world, and globalisation Mark2 will be rather different than before. As for recovery from Covid itself, El-Erian is surprisingly upbeat: there are some silver linings. Also in the Middle East - where the key is education, education, education... (Heard that before?)

Moderator: Andrew Hilton (Director, CSFI) & Jane Fuller (Co-director, CSFI)

Mohamed El-Erian is a man of many parts - and hats. An Egyptian, born in NYC and raised in the US, Egypt, France and the UK, he took on the role of President of Queens' College, Cambridge in October. He is also part-time chief economic adviser at Allianz and Senior Global Fellow at Wharton. Previously, he was CEO and CIO at Pimco and head of Harvard's endowment. Prior to that, he spent 15 years at the IMF after completing his DPhil at St Antony's, Oxford. He writes extensively for the FT, Bloomberg and Project Syndicate, and has published several books on global economics. He is also a former adviser to President Obama on development issues.

Why you should watch: In 2014, Anne Boden decided that what the UK needed was a brand-new, tech-based, branchless bank that (a) would not carry the legacy of generations-old IT systems, (b) that would operate through one's phone, not through high-cost branch networks, and (c) that (as she said) would 'put the customer first'. She wasn't entirely alone - but she was pretty much the first to get a banking license and the first to be profitable.  Arguably, Starling is the most successful of the new 'disruptor' institutions, and, unlike some of its competitors, it appears to have thrived through the pandemic, using the CBILS and BBL programmes to build its customer base. She explains her motivation, how she did what she did, and how she sees the future - both for Starling and for UK banking.

Moderators: Andrew Hilton (Director, CSFI) & Leighton Hughes (FinTech Lead, CSFI)

Anne Boden is CEO and founder of Starling Bank, which she began to build in 2014 after a career that included senior positions at Allied Irish Bank, RBS, ABN Amro and Aon. She is, by background, a technologist, a computer science graduate from Swansea, with an MBA from Middlesex University.

Why you should watch: Anne Krueger may be in her ninth decade, but she is sharp as a tack - and not at all happy at what the Trump Administration has done to the global trading system. She remains a committed free trader, a believer in globalisation - and a guarded optimist about prospects both for the global economy (once Covid is defeated) and for the Biden Administration. Her thoughts on China, on multilateral cooperation, on the Gini coefficient, on EM indebtedness and on the limits of both fiscal and monetary policy are well worth watching. She also has a new book coming out: International Trade: What everyone needs to know (OUP).

Moderator: Andrew Hilton (Director, CSFI)

Prof. Anne Krueger is a former Chief Economist at the World Bank, and a former First Deputy MD (and Interim MD) at the IMF. She is currently a Senior Research Professor at SAIS in Washington, and a Senior Fellow (and Emerita Professor) at Stanford's Center for International Development, as well as being a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economics Association. She has taught at, among others, Stanford and Minnesota, and has written books on trade, India, Korea, Turkey and many other subjects. She has also advised a number of governments on debt (including, notably, Puerto Rico). She currently writes regularly for Project Syndicate.