London Speakers

Garrett Curran
Head of Fixed Income Sales
Credit Suisse

Garrett Curran is a Managing Director of Credit Suisse in the Investment Banking division, based in London. He is Co-Head of European Securities Sales.

Mr. Curran joined Credit Suisse in September 2008 from Dresdner Kleinwort where he was a member of the Dresdner Kleinwort Executive Committee. Previously, he held a variety  of positions within the Capital Markets Distribution business over a period of eight years. Prior to that, Mr. Curran worked at UBS for three years in London and New York. He began his career at Bankers Trust.

Mr. Curran holds an M.A. Hons. in Law from Cambridge University. He is member of the Queens University Foundation Board.


Peter Davies
Senior Limited Partner
Lansdowne Partners Limited

Peter is currently a senior limited partner at Lansdowne Partners, an investment partnership dedicated to Absolute Return products, where he also sits on the Management Committee and is jointly responsible for the UK Equity Strategy. This strategy was established in 2001 and has become the largest fund of its type in the UK (current strategy AUM c. $10bn). Prior to that, he was a Director at Merrill Lynch Investment Management (previously Mercury Asset Management).

He is also a Governor of the Wellcome Trust, as well as sitting on its Investment Committee, a role he also fulfils at Magdalen College Oxford. He is a member of the advisory committee of Manocap, a venture capital fund investing in some of the most distressed areas of the world, initially focused in Sierra Leone.

Charles Dumas
Chairman
Lombard Street Research

Charles Dumas has been with Lombard Street Research since 1998 and is Chief Economist and Head of the World Service.

His work encompasses global issues, including China, the Eurozone and Japan and he is a recognised authority on financial markets and the US economy.

Charles has had extensive experience in the financial world as an investment banker spending 12 years at JP Morgan as well as an economist and journalist. At the International Economist, he was initially responsible for covering continental Europe and in charge
of liaison with the Treasury division. He then moved to capital markets covering NY city clients for bonds and swaps, where JPM was the leading product innovator.

Charles has commented and contributed to the press over the years to Newsnight, CNBC, The Economist to name but a few.

 

Andrew Smithers
Chairman
Smithers & Co. Ltd.

Andrew Smithers is a leading expert on financial economics and global asset allocation. His forty-five years experience in international investment includes twenty-five years at SG Warburg & Co where, amongst other roles, he ran the investment management division, and twenty years as head of his own investment consultancy firm, Smithers & Co, based in London. He is the coauthor of three books on international finance: Valuing Wall Street, co-written with Stephen Wright, published in 2000, and Japan's Key Challenges for the 21st Century, co-written with David Asher, published in 1999. His latest book Wall Street Revalued - Imperfect Markets and Inept Central Bankers was published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. in July, 2009.

As head of Smithers & Co., Andrew has helped pioneer the application of academic analysis of financial economics to investment management. Best known for its application of Tobin's q to market valuation, Smithers & Co.'s work on valuing employee stock options led directly to changes in the way these are accounted, whilst its work on Japan has revolutionised the role of demographics in investment analysis.

Neal Soss
Chief Economist
Credit Suisse

Neal M. Soss is a Managing Director of Credit Suisse and Chief Economist within the Investment Banking division, based in New York.

Prior to joining the Bank in 1984, Dr. Soss was with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. As a Vice President, his responsibilities included bank supervision and foreign relations. During a two-year leave from the NY Fed, he was assistant to Chairman Paul A. Volcker of the Federal Reserve Board. Dr. Soss' experience in Washington also includes two years as Director of the Banking Research and Economic Analysis Division in the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Dr. Soss has also held various positions in New York State government, including three years in the New York State Banking Department as both deputy and first deputy superintendent of banks. As Chief Economist in the office of Secretary to the Governor during the Carey administration, he acted as liaison between state economic regulation and promotion agencies and the Governor.

Sushil Wadhwani CBE
CEO
Wadhwani Asset Management LLP

Dr Sushil Wadhwani is currently CEO of Wadhwani Asset Management LLP, a London-based fund  management company.

Sushil was a full-time external member of the Monetary Policy Committee at the Bank of England between June 1999 and May 2002. The MPC is responsible for setting UK interest rates to meet the governments 2.5% inflation target.

From 1995-1999 Dr Wadhwani was Head of the Quantitative Systems Group, a member of the Management Committee and Partner at Tudor Proprietary Trading LLC, a fund management company. He was previously Director of Equity Strategy at Goldman Sachs International (1991-95) and before that Reader / Lecturer in Economics at the London School of Economics (1984-91).

He has published a number of articles in academic journals. His past research includes work on financial markets, and the determinants of unemployment and inflation.

He was designated a Commander of the British Empire in the Queen's Birthday Honours List in 2002.



Martin Wolf
Chief Economics Commentator
Financial Times

Martin Wolf is Associate Editor and Chief Economics Commentator at the Financial Times, London. He was awarded the CBE (Commander of the British Empire) in 2000 "for services to financial journalism". Mr Wolf is an associate member of the governing body of Nuffield College, Oxford, honorary fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford University, an honorary fellow of the Oxford Institute for Economic Policy (Oxonia) and a special professor at the University of Nottingham. He has been a forum fellow at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, in Davos, since 1999 and a member of its International Media Council since 2006. He was made a Doctor of Letters, honoris causa, by Nottingham University in July 2006. He was made a Doctor of Science (Economics) of London University, honoris causa, by the London School of Economics in December 2006. He was made a Doctor of Science, honoris causa, by Warwick University, in July 2009.University Press, 2008).