Place: T Rowe Price, Warwick Court, 5 Paternoster Square, London EC4M 7DX
Welcome by Catherine Battershill, FBC Managing Director
Opening remarks by Louise McDonald, Director and serves on the Board of Directors of T. Rowe Price Funds
Session 1:
Keynote from Camille Blackburn, FCA Director Wholesale Buy-Side, and Q&A facilitated by FBC CEO Shiv Taneja. Key regulatory focus areas for fund board directors, including their expectations of iNEDs.
Session 2:
Responsible Investment/ESG; Fund board and iNED oversight accountabilities led by FBC Senior Adviser, Brandon Horwitz. With anti-greenwashing regulations about to come into force at the end of May 2024, this session drew on the results from a poll of iNED peers to explore the involvement that fund boards have in setting ESG policy and overseeing fund performance against RI objectives. It also explored iNEDs roles’ in ESG oversight and expectations in how this will develop.
This was followed by a panel discussion on the previous sessions.
4:45 PM Closing remarks by Shiv Taneja, FBC CEO.
THEREAFTER
Informal drinks
This event was by invitation.
Contributors
Louise McDonald is a director of T. Rowe Price UK Limited and serves on the Board of Directors of T. Rowe Price Funds SICAV, Select Investment Series Ill SICAV and T. Rowe Price Funds B SICAV. She is head of Product for the Europe, Middle East and Africa region of T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. Louise is a member of the Global Product Executive team and a vice president of T. Rowe Price Group, Inc., and T. Rowe Price International Ltd.
Louise’s investment experience began in 1995, and she has been with T. Rowe Price since 2019. Prior to joining the firm, she was head of Product Development & Management at Newton Investment Management Ltd. Louise earned a B.A. in business administration from the University of Strathclyde.
Camille joined the FCA as Director of Wholesale Buy-Side in October 2022. Most recently she worked at Legal & General Investment Management where she was Chief Compliance Officer and was responsible for the company’s global compliance framework and team. Before that she was Chief Compliance Officer at Aviva Investors and was Chair of the Investment Association’s Brexit Committee. She has held international chief compliance officer roles in investment banking and money services businesses.
Camille has held senior policy roles at the Central Bank of Ireland and for the Australian Government. She was a Principal Advisor to the Australian Treasury on the 2014 Australian Financial System Inquiry and the 2016 Capability Review of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. During the financial crisis she was the Head of Investment Banking at the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.
John is an independent non-executive director of T. Rowe Price UK Limited. He is also a trustee of the Mineworkers Pension Scheme and he sits on investment committees at both the King’s Fund and Aviva Life & Pensions. John worked for 24 years at Schroders Investment Management, including in a variety of senior roles, before retiring in 2017. He holds an M.A. from the National University of Ireland and a D. Phil. from Oxford University, both in mathematical physics.
Elisabeth Scott has over 35 years’ experience in the asset management industry, beginning her career as an investment manager in Edinburgh and then moving to work the Hong Kong asset management industry between 1992 until 2008, latterly as managing director and country head of Schroder Investment Management (Hong Kong) Ltd. She chaired the Hong Kong Investment Funds Association between 2005 and 2007.
Elisabeth has been a non-executive director of investment companies since 2011. She is currently the chair of JPMorgan Global Emerging Markets Income Trust plc and India Capital Growth Fund Ltd and a non-executive director of Capital Group UK Management Company and Allianz Technology Trust PLC. She was the chair of the Association of Investment Companies from January 2021 until January 2024.
CEO, Fund Boards Council.
Shiv Taneja is the CEO of Fund Boards Council, a professional members organisation that supports good governance outcomes on investment fund boards in the UK and across Europe. A key distinguishing feature of FBC is the wrap-around engagement and support it provides to its membership: coverage for the whole board (chair, iNEDs and executive directors) as well as those key senior executives, not on the board, but crucial to the success of the investment boards they support.
Shiv leads FBC’s Board Advisory Services, a high-touch, bespoke consultative service focusing around two key governance themes: cost/transparency and board effectiveness.
Shiv has 30 years’ research and consulting experience in and around the global asset management industry, and over the past decade has developed a deep professional interest in corporate and investment fund board governance.
Shiv has degrees in accounting and finance, and is a professional non-executive director, having qualified with the FT-NED, Level 7 Advanced Professional Diploma in 2013.
In addition to his work around investment fund board governance, Shiv is a recognised industry authority, media commentator and regular conference speaker on trends in the global asset management industry, having led and completed numerous large industry-wide studies in the area of market sizing, product development and distribution trends in both the retail and institutional segments of the industry.
Catherine Battershill is the Managing Director of Fund Boards Council. She has over 15 years of experience of marketing and communications in asset management in Europe and Asia. During the course of her career, Catherine has led regional marketing and communications initiatives across major institutional and wholesale retail markets and overseen the development of an international thought-leadership programme for a leading multi-national asset manager.
Catherine has held voluntary board roles in education and a children’s charity, through which she has developed a strong interest in governance topics. This, combined with her asset management background, led her to join Shiv in setting up Fund Boards Council.
Brandon is Fund Boards Council’s Senior Adviser, involved with developing FBC’s Assessment of Value analysis and assurance model for its members and leading FBC’s new proposition – offering bespoke training and coaching for boards and executives.
He is also the principal of NomBon Consulting and an experienced actuary and independent director, providing consulting to insurers, asset managers, banks and wealth managers on investment and pension proposition design, delivery, governance and distribution strategy.