Alan Gemes

Global Practice Leader, Financial Services, Booz & Company

Biography

Alan Gemes is the Global Head of the Financial Services Practice of Booz & Company. Alan specialises in the development and implementation of transformation strategies for private banks and wealth management players. In this context he has worked with leading banks, and investment companies in Europe, the US, Asia and Australia.

Examples of his assignments include:

• For a leading UK bank, development of their global private banking strategy and operating model

• For a major UK bank, development of their approach to private banking across Europe

• For a major European bank, the design and implementation of a new approach to private and affluent banking and the transformation of its operations and technology to deliver the new value proposition

• For a Swiss private bank, the development of a new strategy for offshore and onshore private banking, including the transformation of its relationship management model and its operations

• For a major US private bank, the development of a new approach to segmenting and attracting target clients

• For a pan-European bank, the development of a profit improvement programme for its wealth management operations, encompassing private and personal banking

• For a UK financial services company, the design and implementation of a new wealth management offering

• For a major European private bank, the development and implementation of a new model for investment management and client servicing

• For a global wealth management company, an assessment of market opportunities in Europe, Latin America and Asia, selection of target markets and the development of a new value proposition for its chosen markets

Prior to joining the firm, Alan was the deputy CEO of a Swiss Private Bank, where he was responsible for the transformation of the bank to better serve the new generation of offshore and onshore clients.

Alan earned a Master's degree in commerce from the University of New South Wales and a first class B.A. with honors from the University of Sydney.

Chris Meares

Global Chief Executive, Private Banking, HSBC

Biography

Chris Meares is a Group General Manager and CEO of Global Private Banking in the HSBC Group.

HSBC Private Bank generated pre-tax profits of over US$1,100m in 2009 and employs over 7000 staff in 90 locations with client assets of US$460 billion (at 31st December 2009).

Chris has worked as an International Manager for the HSBC Group for 30 years with the majority of his career spent in Hong Kong, the Middle East and the UK and Channel Islands. He has also worked in New York. Having gained broad experience in retail and commercial banking, and as a Strategic Planner involved in a number of HSBC's acquisitions, Chris has been in Private Banking for the last 10 years.

He is Chairman of HSBC Private Bank (UK) Limited, HSBC Alternative Investments Limited and HSBC Private Bank (Monaco) SA. Other directorships include HSBC Private Bank Holdings (Suisse) SA, HSBC Private Bank (Suisse) SA and HSBC Bank Middle East Ltd.

Chris graduated from Southampton University in 1978 with a BA (Hons) degree in Geography and History. He is an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Bankers.

Adrian Crichton

Private Banking Director, Weatherby’s

Biography

Adrian Crichton, Private Banking Director, joined Weatherbys in 2006 to develop Private Banking and Wealth Management services within this family owned group. He was previously at Barclays where he gained experience of Private Banking in France, Spain and Italy before returning to the UK as a Director of Barclays International and Private Banking.

Natalie Merrens

Head of Strategic Wealth Advisory, Kleinwort Benson Private Bank

Biography

Natalie joined Kleinwort Benson in November 2006 as Head of Product Advisory, with the key objective of developing a framework for providing holistic wealth management advice across the Kleinwort Benson client base, and assuming responsibility for new product development. Since then she and her team have introduced an innovative suite of products including hedge funds and private equity funds. Under her stewardship the Product Advisory team have also developed proprietary risk assessment tools for clients.

Natalie was a senior foreign exchange trader for Citibank NA before she began studying for a Masters in Investment and Risk Management at the City University Business School. After achieving a Masters with distinction, she was employed by Ernst & Young to help set up an Investment Consulting department for High Net Worth Investors. This department was then purchased by UBS AG Private Wealth Management in London, where Natalie was instrumental in the education and roll out of the Strategic Asset Allocation process used by UBS.

In 1997 Natalie won the Euromoney Award for Best FX Market Maker.

Norman Jones

Chief Executive Officer, WealthTouch

Biography

Norman Jones, CEO of WealthTouch, has more than 15 years of experience as a business consultant and entrepreneur in Asia, Europe and the United States. Over this time, Jones built two successful distribution and marketing businesses and spent seven years in Accenture's strategy practice, where he led numerous engagements for financial and high-tech companies, and founded Connection to eBay™. He holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Cape Town and an MBA from IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Adrian Crichton

Private Banking Director, Weatherby’s

Biography

Adrian Crichton, Private Banking Director, joined Weatherbys in 2006 to develop Private Banking and Wealth Management services within this family owned group. He was previously at Barclays where he gained experience of Private Banking in France, Spain and Italy before returning to the UK as a Director of Barclays International and Private Banking.

Natalie Merrens

Head of Strategic Wealth Advisory, Kleinwort Benson Private Bank

Biography

Natalie joined Kleinwort Benson in November 2006 as Head of Product Advisory, with the key objective of developing a framework for providing holistic wealth management advice across the Kleinwort Benson client base, and assuming responsibility for new product development. Since then she and her team have introduced an innovative suite of products including hedge funds and private equity funds. Under her stewardship the Product Advisory team have also developed proprietary risk assessment tools for clients.

Natalie was a senior foreign exchange trader for Citibank NA before she began studying for a Masters in Investment and Risk Management at the City University Business School. After achieving a Masters with distinction, she was employed by Ernst & Young to help set up an Investment Consulting department for High Net Worth Investors. This department was then purchased by UBS AG Private Wealth Management in London, where Natalie was instrumental in the education and roll out of the Strategic Asset Allocation process used by UBS.

In 1997 Natalie won the Euromoney Award for Best FX Market Maker.

Norman Jones

Chief Executive Officer, WealthTouch

Biography

Norman Jones, CEO of WealthTouch, has more than 15 years of experience as a business consultant and entrepreneur in Asia, Europe and the United States. Over this time, Jones built two successful distribution and marketing businesses and spent seven years in Accenture's strategy practice, where he led numerous engagements for financial and high-tech companies, and founded Connection to eBay™. He holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Cape Town and an MBA from IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Philip Harris

Head of UK Private Clients, RBC Wealth Management

Biography

Philip Harris is responsible for strategising, recruiting and leading the UK onshore business for RBC.

Born in London and educated at the City of London School then Sandhurst, Philip spent most of the 80s serving as an Officer in the British Army. He saw service in Northern Ireland as well as West Germany, Berlin, Brunei and attachments to the French military. In 1989 he moved into the City working for a number of blue chip insurance companies. Early career friendships led to the founding of Scott Goodman Harris, a City-based financial advisory business, in 1998. This was sold to UBS in 2004. Moving from boutique to bulge-bracket was not a deterrent and he remained at UBS, eventually leading their UK domestic HNW business in London's Mayfair. Seeking further challenges in early 2009, Philip accepted an offer to create a domestic wealth management business for RBC, complementing their global offshore footprint.

Philip is a member of both the Chartered Insurance Institute and the Securities and Investment Institute.

He is married and with two children, in his spare time he is a keen motor racing driver and traveller.

Andrew Haigh

Managing Partner, Entrepreneurs, Coutts

Biography

Andrew leads the Entrepreneurs Group, one of the largest business segments at Coutts with strategic responsibility for development of the service offering to 18,000 entrepreneur clients in the UK.

He joined Coutts 6 years ago and has recently returned from creating a private bank in China from scratch as part of the RBS co-operation with Bank of China. In addition he had responsibility for development of the customer experience in the UK business.

He began his career as an investment banker in both London and New York before moving to be finance director of NatWest's International Businesses Division in 1993.

From 1996 was based offshore first as chief operating officer for the NatWest Group's retail and private banking operations in 6 offshore jurisdictions and then managing director of the Coutts businesses in Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man.

He returned to New York in 1999 for 2 years to act as country head for the NatWest Group's US businesses.

A linguist by training with a joint honours degree in French and Russian and in addition a diploma in Art History.

Christine Ross

Group Head of Financial Planning, SG Hambros

Biography

Christine Ross has been Group Head of Financial Planning at Societe Generale Private Banking Hambros (SGPB Hambros) since April 2001. Her responsibilities include expanding and developing the bespoke financial planning operation ensuring the provision of an integrated wealth management service. She is a qualified Certified Financial Planner and an associate of the Institute of Financial Planning.

Christine is a regular guest BBC 1 Breakfast News and BBC 2 Working Lunch, as well as the BBC Radio 4 Today programme and Radio 5 Live. Christine also features regularly in the money sections of the Sunday Times and Daily Telegraph.

Georges Hübner

Chief Scientific Officer, Gambit Financial Solutions

Biography

Georges Hübner (Ph.D., INSEAD) is Deloitte Professor of Financial Management, co-chair of the Finance Department and Board member of HEC-Liège. He is also Associate Professor of Finance at Maastricht University and Affiliate Professor at EDHEC (Lille/Nice). Georges regularly provides preparation seminars for the GARP (Global Association of Risk Professionals) and CAIA (Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst) certifications.

He has published numerous books and research articles about credit risk, hedge funds and derivatives. He obtained the best paper award 2002 of the Journal of Banking and Finance, and the Operational Risk & Compliance Achievement Award 2006 for the best academic paper. He is the inventor of the Generalized Treynor Ratio, a popular portfolio performance measure.

Georges is co-founder of Gambit Financial Solutions and a member of his board. As Chief Scientific Officer, he heads our team of academics and researchers and ensures that our solutions incorporates the business benefits of the latest innovations in Financial and Risk management.

Greg Davies

Head of Behavioural Finance, Investment Philosophy, Barclays Wealth

Biography

Growing up in South Africa, Greg completed his undergraduate at the University of Cape Town. He holds an MPhil in Economics and a PhD in Behavioural Decision Theory, both from Cambridge University. His PhD dissertation combined research into the psychology of decision making with finance theory to gain specialised understanding of financial behaviour and the psychology of risk.

Before starting his PhD he gained commercial experience for several years with Oliver, Wyman & Co., a financial services strategy consultancy, and continued consulting throughout his PhD as a Director of Decision Technology, a boutique consultancy which specialises in developing commercial applications from academic decision sciences and behavioural economics. He now heads up Barclays Wealth's global Behavioural Finance and Quantitative Analytics teams, and is responsible for designing and implementing the Barclays Wealth Investment Philosophy globally.

He has authored papers on risk, portfolio theory and investment decision making in multiple disciplines of Economics, Psychology and Decision Theory; guest lectures at UCL, LSE and LBS; presents regularly at both academic and industry conferences; and is a frequent media commentator on behavioural finance. He is currently completing his first book on Behavioural Investment Strategy, to be published later this year.

In earlier days he sang with the World Youth Choir, London Philharmonic Choir, BBC Symphony Chorus, and Elysian singers, and is now dabbling with jazz singing. He also trained as a foot guide for dangerous game areas in South Africa – which has not yet been terribly useful in finance.

Julius James

Executive Director, Human Resources, UBS

Biography

Julius James has worked in number of industries such as: Aero Space, Winery, Publishing, and Financial Services. For most of his career he has concentrated on HR generalist work, training and talent development, M&A, Diversity and International.

Julius is currently based in London with UBS. He is an Executive Director within the Executive Development and Key Talent group of UBS Business University. Here he focuses on the development and retention of key and high potential talent. Prior to UBS, Julius worked with Moody's KMV in San Francisco. He also ran the International HR department for Gallo Winery in California.

While living in San Francisco, Julius spent about 10 years at Charles Schwab, during the latter 5 years at Schwab he focused on Mergers and acquisitions and international business development.

He is a graduate from Seton Hall University and has HR accreditations from both Cornell University and Harvard Business School.

David Cavaye

Head of Investment Strategy, C Hoare & Co.

Biography

David has 18 years experience in investment management, and has spent the last few years developing investment strategy at C. Hoare & Co. He and his team provide strategy solutions for the management of private client portfolios, charities, trusts and personal pension funds. After qualifying as a chartered accountant with Ernst & Young he spent ten years as an investment manager and director at Martin Currie Investment Management in Edinburgh. At C. Hoare & Co., David and his team research both traditional and alternative asset classes, including UK and international equity markets, bonds, hedge funds, private equity, property funds and derivative structured products.

Interests: The visual and performing arts and travel.

Claire Perryman

CAIA, Head of UK Wealth Management Sales, iShares

Biography

Claire is responsible for relationships with key private banks, private client investment managers and family offices in the UK. Prior to joining iShares in 2008, she worked at TriAlpha in institutional business development having worked at UBS for 9 years initially in UBS Investment Bank as an Emerging Markets Institutional Sales person and then as a Client Advisor in UBS Wealth Management advising family offices, charities and corporates on their investment strategies. She studied Money, Banking and Finance at the University of Birmingham and is a holder of the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst.

David Cavaye

Head of Investment Strategy, C Hoare & Co.

Biography

David has 18 years experience in investment management, and has spent the last few years developing investment strategy at C. Hoare & Co. He and his team provide strategy solutions for the management of private client portfolios, charities, trusts and personal pension funds. After qualifying as a chartered accountant with Ernst & Young he spent ten years as an investment manager and director at Martin Currie Investment Management in Edinburgh. At C. Hoare & Co., David and his team research both traditional and alternative asset classes, including UK and international equity markets, bonds, hedge funds, private equity, property funds and derivative structured products.

Interests: The visual and performing arts and travel.

Tracy Maeter

Head of Investments, RBC Wealth Management

Biography

Tracy Maeter is Head of Investments for the British Isles. Based in London, she has overall responsibility for RBC Wealth Management's discretionary and advisory investments platforms in the British Isles.

Earning her Bachelor of Finance and Economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tracy completed her graduate degree at Columbia Business School.

Tracy joined RBC Wealth Management in the summer of 2010 from HSBC, where she was Head of Investors, based in London. Prior to her role in investments, she built and managed the High Net Worth team and launched the sales management division.

Prior to her time at HSBC, Tracy held several positions at JP Morgan beginning with the Capital Markets desk in derivatives and subsequently debt capital markets. From here, she moved on to become a relationship manager in the Private Bank to Ultra High Net Worth clients.

Tracy is a mother of three, a fan of opera, gardening and international classic car rallies.

Michael Maslinski

Managing Director, Maslinski & Co

Biography

Michael is a director of Maslinski & Co Ltd, London based strategy and marketing consultants specialising in the Private Banking and Wealth Management sector. Maslinski & Co has been recognised as the consultancy firm with the best understanding of the wealth management sector, in a survey of 40 European financial institutions, covering 11 different countries.

Michael has advised a wide variety of institutions on the development of their services for private clients, ranging from major retail and investment banks to wealth management boutiques and family offices.

He is author of numerous articles on the wealth management industry and is frequently quoted in the financial press as a leading authority on the sector.

Prior to establishing his own consulting firm in 1995, he was Head of Business Development at Coutts, where he had over 20 years practical experience of private banking.