Background: Douglas and Michael McWilliams launched the Cebr report on the economic impact of the Belt & Road Initiative in Beijing last May and followed it by driving all the way back from Beijing to Paris, participating in the world’s toughest endurance rally and becoming one of only 21 out of 106 entrants to complete the rally entirely under their own steam. The feat was chronicled in the book "Driving The Silk Road – Halfway Round The World In A Bentley S1", released recently. Doug and Mike will talk about how the Belt & Road Initiative is likely to affect the balance of world economic activity, how this might be affected by Corona Virus and what it looks like on the ground in the real world where this infrastructure is being built.

Speakers:

Douglas McWilliams is a world leading economist, and author of The Flat White Economy, Driving The Silk Road ,and The Inequality Paradox. He is the founder and executive deputy chairman of Cebr, the leading economics think tank, which is well-known around the world for its expertise in forecasting the economy and understanding globalisation and technology.

Mike McWilliams has worked in the power and energy sectors for more than 40 years, gaining widespread geographic experience from projects in over 50 countries, including 12 years spent in Africa and Asia. He is Head of Energy at Cebr, an advisor to World Bank and is a Director of SN Power, a renewable energy company owned by the Norwegian government. Mike specialises in project planning, economic and financial analysis, risk management and commercial contracts.

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Speaker: Often told that Oxford TRIZ gives her one of the most interesting jobs in the world, probably explains why Karen has done nothing but TRIZ for over 20 years - helping different companies solve their own most intractable problems just by following logical steps and adding TRIZ to their other toolkits.

Karen studied Mechanical Engineering at Imperial College, and has an MBA from London Business School, and worked in banking, classical music, as a governor of Coventry University and a tutor of Oxford’s Business School (ESCP) before founding Oxford Creativity. The development Oxford TRIZ and the success of Karen’s book TRIZ for Engineers (published by Wiley’s in 2011) has helped European industry access TRIZ by making it easy to learn and apply to any problem.

Oxford Creativity has helped many different teams of senior managers engineers and scientists and to quickly master this unique Russian toolkit – which offers direct routes to all available powerful solutions. Thousands of challenging problems in many different industries have been solved by driving Oxford TRIZ logic through the valuable experience and knowledge of many different companies – who despite their expertise and brain power have been stalled, stuck or stymied by an apparently unsolvable problem. This varies from huge cost savings for Bucks County Council to innovative medical devices for Sanofi – quadrupling one division’s turnover from £1.5 billion to £6 billion. So far Karen and her Oxford TRIZ team of experts have never seen it fail. Next week thy are working on a virus killer for rooms. This is through remote problem solving with one of our long established customers.

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Robert Rubinstein delivers his fascinating talk on his experiences of Triple Bottom Line Investing (TBLI) and its integration with ESG into the culture and strategy of international corporate business and investment company.

Speaker: Robert Rubinstein is the Chairman and Founding Partner of TBLI Group Holdings. Mr. Rubinstein has been instrumental in championing Sustainable and IMPACT investment dedicated to solving social issues. Prior to TBLI, Mr. Rubinstein had an extensive career in publishing. He founded Source magazine in 1995, a publication focused on integrating “profits and principles” as a message to the business community. Mr. Rubinstein taught courses in Sustainable Finance at the Rotterdam School of Management from 2003–2006. Mr. Rubinstein has served on various profit and nonprofit boards, and advises various organizations; i.e. International Center for Corporate Accountability, WE- TV editorial advisory board, IMSA (International Sustainability Consultancy), Chairman Swift Prize of the King Boudewijn Foundation, 3IG-International Interfaith Investment Group, Fortis Investments SRI fund, ICCA Advisory Board, and the Developments Alternatives Advisory Council. At present, he is on Advisory Board of Project X Global, Wealth & Society and Lifestyles Magazine. Rubinstein is a tenacious public speaker on both TBLI and ESG at global conferences and has been asked to speak at numerous engagements including the Global Reporting Initiative, the inaugural Impact Investing Israel Summit and World Pension Council in Singapore. TBLI was asked to organise a session at COP21, Paris in December 2015 and more recently, Mr. Rubinstein was invited at the request of Natural Step, a leading advisor on Sustainability for the Swedish corporate sector attended by King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden.

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This webinar focused on developments in Gujarat International Finance Tec-City, India’s first International Financial Services Centre - a new international financial gateway of India. We heard about the latest developments in GIFT City and future plans for the development of GIFT City as a international financial services hub connecting India with the world. Dipesh Shah, Head of GIFT International Financial Services Centre Department and Professor Michael Mainelli presented their views on key developments and future plans for GIFT City.

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Z/Yen conducts an irregular series of short webinars, CommunityZ Chest, featuring people from its various communities and clubs, viz. technology, financial services, civil society, and business. These webinars provide an opportunity to meet people from the wider CommunityZ, to share ideas, and to make connections.

This CommunityZ Chest features Jonny Fry. Jonny is co-founder and CEO of TeamBlockchain Ltd, is a Blockchain, Digital Assets and funds specialist. He founded, and was the CEO for over 20 years, of Premier Asset Management Plc which he floated on the London Stock Exchange. He has considerable experience of open and closed-ended funds and structured products as well as well as considerable knowledge and experience of the financial services sector. His recent focus has been on the dynamics of financial innovation, advising organisations on how Blockchain and Digital Assets are being used in the commercial world. He is also a regular speaker on these topics in the UK and overseas. He works closely with a number of professional firms, such as accountants and lawyers, advising their client’s on corporate strategy and adoption of Blockchain technology.

Jonny gives 20+ hours of his time each week to research and write an analysis of some of the developments in the Blockchain and Digital Asset sectors. This analysis, called Digital Bytes, allows subscribers to use its content thus enabling them to create their own branded version to circulate to staff and clients. Digital Bytes is used globally by a variety of professional advisors, corporate brokers, accountants, lawyers, business schools, universities, trade bodies and corporations.

He is Non-Executive Chairman of Gemini Investment Management Ltd, which owns a Dublin-based fund hosting platform, regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. As Co-founder of The British Blockchain Frontier Technology Association (BBFTA) Jonny sits on the UK All Party Parliamentary Group on Blockchain (APPG Blockchain). He is an advisor for several companies helping them with their strategic growth and managing corporate and reputational risk.

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Share schemes expert David Craddock will demonstrate the nuts and bolts of setting up and running an Enterprise Management Incentive (EMI) plan.

The EMI was introduced in the Finance Act 2000, alongside the Share Incentive Plan. It is a tax favoured plan aimed at younger and smaller companies who want to attract, reward, and retain skilled staff and as a discretionary approved share scheme it has proved very popular with SMEs.

Speakers:

David Craddock is an independent consultant specialising in employee share ownership and reward management. A recognised authority on the subject, he is the author of The Tolley’s Guide to Employee Share Schemes, along with many other essential books and courses.

David’s clients range from major public limited companies with international considerations to smaller private companies where the requirements are for Enterprise Management Incentives, tax-unapproved share scheme arrangements and market-making employee share trust structures. David has successfully established employee share schemes and employee benefit arrangements worldwide and to date has travelled to over 30 countries to personally facilitate their introduction. He enhances his service through a long experience in share reconstructions and share valuation.

David is a regular conference speaker for the Esop Centre and senior examiner for The ESOP Institute in London in relation to The Certificate in Employee Share Ownership Studies, the material for which he is author and principal authority.

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This webinar provided an opportunity to catch up with developments in financial services in Montréal. Background Robust talent in Finance and IT Globally recognized as a machine learning and AI hub Stable G7 location with a distinct cost advantage above are just a few examples of the advantages that Montréal presents as a leading international financial centre. During this webinar, we focused on the numerous developments that have led the city to become a future-ready location for financial institutions. We heard from Steve Gauthier, Vice President, Corporate Development at Finance Montreal, and Professor Michael Mainelli of Z/Yen, about how  Montréal is positioning itself as an intelligent centre for international finance, sustainability, AI, and Fintech.

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In this seminar, Dr Iain Clacher examined the advances in artificial intelligence and how the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence could revolutionise pensions. As well as whirlwind tour of what AI is and cutting edge AI innovations, specific applications will be presented. The talk covered challenges and posed the question as to how realistic this future is.

Speaker: Iain Clacher, Associate Professor in Accounting and Finance at Leeds University Business School. He is an expert on pensions and retirement saving and his work covers retirement decision making, pension fund investment, infrastructure investing, sustainable pension systems, trustee governance, and fund management costs and fees.

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Henry Tillman, an acknowledged expert on China’s Belt Road Initiative shared his thoughts. Henry is well-known for being well ahead of most analysts on Chinese economics.

Henry Tillman has had a 35+ year international banking career, with ExCo positions at Barclays and ABN Amro and a NED role at Wells Fargo EMEA. In 2003, he formed Grisons Peak LLP, a UK based merchant bank, focussed on UK/Tech partnerships with Asia, which advised on over $25 billion completed transactions before being wound down in 2018. In 2008, Mr Tillman launched a global China macro research product, China Outbound Investments, driven from a bespoke database launched in 2008 (www.chinainvestmentresearch.org), five years before the launch of the One-Belt-One-Road Initiative, later recast as the Belt Road Initiative (OBOR/BRI). Over the past few years, the firm’s business has shifted from large cap M&A advisory to BRI research/consultancy with related private placements operated within Grisons Peak Services. Mr Tillman is recognised as a western BRI expert and presents and writes on the BRI globally.

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Background: Following the release of his book, ‘Stop The Rot: Reframing Corporate Governance For Directors and Politicians’ in 2017, Bob has been speaking with directors and politicians in eight countries and recently presented to the All Party Parliamentary Group for Corporate Governance on 11 March 2020 at Westminster. In this webinar Bob reflected on these experiences and discussed what he believes a 21st century board really looks like.

Speaker: Professor Bob Garratt is a ‘pracademic’ – a businessman and director who has always kept one foot in academia to ensure that he keeps his clients’, and himself, honest. He has consulted at the highest levels in some 40 countries and been chairman of consultancies in Hong Kong, Singapore and London. He has worked with the International Monetary Fund, Washington DC, the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority, and given evidence to the UK Treasury Select Committee on the Restructuring of the corporate governance of the Bank of England. His background spans architectural and community education at the Architectural Association School, London, Ulster College, Belfast, and then into top management and board review and development through The General Electric Company’s action learning-based Developing Senior Managers Programme. He was on the faculties of The Judge Institute of Management, University of Cambridge, and Imperial College, London.

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