Helle Thorning-Schmidt secured herself a place in the history books when she became the first woman to hold the post as Leader of the Danish Social Democrats, and in 2011 when she became Prime Minister of Denmark.

In her role as CEO of Save the Children International, she held an international leading position in an organisation with an annual turnover of more than DKK 10 billion and 17,000 employees in 100 countries.

Since summer 2019, Helle has spent time on her board roles and advisory activities, as well as the international think-tanks she is part of.

Helle grew up in the city of Ishøj with a single mother and has been politically active since her early youth. She is known to be a courageous woman with a forceful personality; maybe because her father told her that “girls can do anything – even become the prime minister”.

Professor Alexander Stubb has served as Prime Minister, Finance Minister, Foreign Minister, Trade and Europe Minister of Finland (2008-2016). He was a Member of the European Parliament from 2004-2008 and national parliament (2011-2017). He was the Chairman of the Finnish National Coalition Party from 2014-2016 and Vice President of the European Investment Bank from 2017-2020.

Between 2000 and 2007, he was a visiting Professor at the College of Europe in Bruges. Mr Stubb has written numerous books and academic articles on European affairs and publishes columns for several newspapers, including the Financial Times, on a regular basis.

Mariana Mazzucato is Founding Director of the UCL Institute for Innovation & Public Purpose at University College London. She received her BA from Tufts University and her MA and PhD from the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research

Her previous posts include the RM Phillips Professorial Chair at the Science Policy Research Unit at Sussex University. She is a selected fellow of the UK’s Academy of Social Sciences and of the Italian National Science Academy.

Mariana is the author of Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism, The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy, and The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public Vs Private Sector Myths.

Gabrielle Walker is an expert strategist focused on unleashing capitalism on climate change. Gabrielle is a TED speaker and works with global companies at boardroom level, analysing emerging trends, challenging conventional thinking and driving meaningful action.

Through its partnership with the UNFCCC High Level Champions for Climate Action, Valence Solutions participated in many COP26 events in Glasgow.

She has presented many BBC TV and radio programmes, was Climate Change Editor at Nature and Features Editor at New Scientist, has written extensively for many international newspapers and magazines including the FT, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, and has authored four books. This includes the bestselling book The Hot Topic, How to Avoid Global Warming While Still Keeping the Lights On, which was described by Al Gore as “a beacon of clarity” and by The Times as “a material gain for the axis of good”.

She earned her PhD at Cambridge University and has taught at both Cambridge and Princeton.

Catherine is an Associate Professor at the University of Oxford, a fellow of Exeter College and head of the university’s Clinical BioManufacturing facility. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Catherine and her team were integral to the development of the Oxford–AstraZeneca vaccine.

Throughout the process, Catherine and her team’s skills of resilience, motivation, collaboration and agility were consistently challenged; whilst manufacturing the vaccine for the clinical trials under the glare of the global media spotlight.

Louise Beale has over a decade of experience in journalism and is currently a leading news presenter for Channel 5. She anchored her own show on Bloomberg Television in London, interviewing Europe’s business leaders, politicians and analysts. She has also covered major news stories as a correspondent for Sky News and Channel 4 News - among them Brexit, the European debt crisis and the terrorist attacks in Paris, London and Manchester. Louise has also worked extensively on radio for ITN, Classic FM, Magic FM and Monocle 24.

Additionally, Louise co-founded Middle Table with her Channel 5 co-workers, and now works with leading figures in business and politics to help them bring impact to their communication.

Tristram Stuart is an international award-winning author, speaker, campaigner and expert on the environmental and social impacts of food waste.

The environmental organisation he founded, Feedback, works to regenerate nature by transforming our food system. He is also the founder of Toast Ale which upcycles unsold fresh bread into award-winning craft beer. 100% of Toast’s distributable profits go to Feedback and other aligned charities worldwide. After three years of operations, Toast saved more than 1 million slices of bread from going to waste

Tristram is an official UN Champion of SDG 12.3 to halve food waste by 2030. He won the international environmental award in 2011, The Sophie Prize.

Jason is the co-founder of Promake International. Promake’s aim is to pioneer the future of 3D printing. Jason suffered a high-speed cycling accident that ended up leaving him in a very critical condition. Using 3D printing technology, Jason and his team were able to repair parts of his body, saving him an arm and a leg at risk of amputation. Since then, Promake has also developed a full robotic 3D printing research and development lab where they are looking to revolutionise the medical and education industries with smart materials and smart innovations.

At the beginning of the COVID pandemic Promake discovered a way of creating a ‘Lab-on-a-Chip’ device by integrating a material called Graphene with 3D printing. The device, a form of RT-PCR machine, is able to detect multiple variants and pathogens including those outside of COVID. With this device Jason and his company have enabled a new world of home therapeutics and health monitoring. Promake’s machine was selected by the UK’s National Microbiology Framework in order ease the impact of the COVID pandemic. They are now working with Microsoft in order to make this technology global.

Dr Nasser H. Saidi heads Nasser Saidi & Associates, a consultant and adviser to the banking and financial sector, governments, central banks, regulators, and multi-national companies. He is the former Chief Economist of the Dubai International Financial Centre, where as a senior executive he built and promoted the centre and its strategic development and links with foreign governments, central banks, IFIs, banks & financial institutions and international financial centres. He was senior adviser to the UAE Minister of Finance from 2004-2006.

Dr Saidi was the Minister of Economy and Trade and Minister of Industry of Lebanon between 1998-2000. He was the First Vice-Governor of the Central Bank of Lebanon for two successive mandates, 1993-1998 and 1998-2003, a period spanning reconstruction of Lebanon’s economy and its banking and financial sector. He was appointed as a Member of the UN Committee for Development Policy over the period 2000-2006, by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

Dr Saidi is Chairman of the MENA Clean Energy Business Council, promoting clean energy solutions and policies in the MENA countries. He is a member of the IMF’s Regional Advisory Group for MENA and a member of the Advisory Board of the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum, a member of the advisory board of the Institute for Integrated Transitions, and co-chaired the OECD MENA Corporate Governance Working Group.

Gillian Tett has an unparalleled track record of predicting important trends that impact the world.

In her previous role at the FT, she was Managing Editor (US) and columnist and also oversaw global coverage of the financial markets. Her twice-weekly column earned her recognition as Columnist of the Year at the 2014 Press Awards.

Gillian’s recent and bestselling book, Anthro-Vision: A New Way to See in Business and Life, offers a look at how businesses can revolutionize their understanding of human behaviour by studying consumers and organizations through an anthropological lens.

Gillian is also the author of The Silo Effect: The Peril of Expertise and the Promise of Breaking Down Barriers and the New York Times bestseller Fool’s Gold, the gripping tale of how a team of Wall Street bankers led by J.P. Morgan’s CEO Jamie Dimon created the world of ‘shadow banking,’ and then lost control of their creation. She also wrote Saving the Sun, about Japan’s financial collapse in the 1990s. She was Japan bureau chief for the FT during their ‘lost decade’.

Mr Rathi was appointed CEO of the Financial Conduct Authority on October 2020, which oversees and regulates around 51,000 financial services firms and financial markets in the UK. Mr Rathi began his career in HM Treasury before serving as Private Secretary to the Prime Minister between 2005 – 2008. He then became Head of the Financial Stability Unit, overseeing a number of the UK’s financial stability interventions before becoming HM Treasury’s Director of the Financial Services Group from 2009 – 2014. In that role, he also served as the UK representative to the EU Financial Services Committee. Nikhil joined the London Stock Exchange (LSE) in 2014 and was appointed CEO in 2015. Mr Rathi holds a BA degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Oxford.

Alderman Vincent Keaveny was elected as the 693rd Lord Mayor of the City of London on 29 September 2021 and took office on 12 November 2021. He previously served as Sheriff of the City of London in 2018-19 and in that capacity supported the then Lord Mayor, undertaking numerous engagements and activities at home and abroad.

Vincent is a partner in the international business law firm, DLA Piper. He advises on debt capital markets, structured finance and securitisation transactions in the UK and banks, financial institutions and corporate clients in the UK and internationally on banking, finance and capital markets transactions. He is listed as a leading practitioner in his area of practice by all of the principal legal directories and is included in the legal ‘500’ Hall of Fame for securitisation practitioners. Until May 2019 he was International Co-Chair of the Financial Services Sector at DLA Piper. In 2014/15 he served as President of the City of London Law Society. He is an Honorary Bencher of Gray's Inn

Since his election to the City of London in 2013 as Alderman for the Ward of Farringdon Within, Alderman Keaveny has served on a number of City Corporation Committees. He is currently a member of the Policy & Resources Committee and the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Su-committee. He also a Governor of the City of London School. Vincent is also Co-Chair of the HM Treasury & BEIS Socio-Economic Diversity Taskforce.

A Liveryman of the City of London Solicitors', the Woolmen's, Distillers', Spectacle Makers', Stationers’, Framework Knitters’, Upholders’ and Security Professionals’ Companies, Vincent served as Master Solicitor in 2014/15. He is also a member of the City Livery Club, the City Pickwick Club and the Royal Society of St. George (City Branch) and the Court of The Honourable The Irish Society. Vincent is the Senior Patron of the Farringdon Ward Club.

Vincent graduated from University College Dublin with a BCL and subsequently obtained an MLitt from Trinity College, Dublin. He was recognised in 2018 by UCD as their Law Alumnus of the Year. Since his admission as solicitor in England & Wales in 1992 he has worked in private practice in the City. Vincent's interests include theatre and the arts. He is a trustee of the Sir John Soane's Museum, where he is the Independent Director on the Board. He chairs the board of the vocal ensemble, Exaudi, and is a director of Actors Touring Company.

Vincent is married to Amanda, an Intensive Care Nurse and in what spare time he has, he enjoys tennis and walking their Labrador

Mayoral Theme

People with Purpose - Vincent’s year will champion a purpose-led and people-focused UK FPS sector; growing the global competitiveness of the UK as a world leader in ESG and sustainable finance and home to the best and most diverse global talent; driving social mobility at all levels.

Nicholas was born in Ireland, the son of Dr FSL Lyons, the Irish historian and Provost of Trinity College, Dublin. When his parents moved to Kent University in 1964, he went to school in Canterbury, attending the King’s School as a King’s Scholar before going to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he read history and won a Senior Exhibition.

After time as a political research assistant in London and with the Directorate General for External Relations at the EEC Commission, Nicholas joined Morgan Guaranty Trust Company of New York in London. He worked in NYC and London for 12 years, then at Salomon Brothers from 1994 to 1995 and then moved with the whole Financial Institutions Group (FIG) to Lehman Brothers where he worked from 1995 until 2003. He specialised in advising banks and insurance companies on mergers and acquisitions and raising debt and equity capital, leading the European FIG team. He held a series of global leadership roles, sitting on the Executive Committee of the European Investment Bank and as a member of the EMEA Operating Company. He was also Co-Global Head of all recruitment and training at Lehman Brothers with an emphasis on diversity and inclusion.

Having always promised his wife that he would stop investment banking by the age of 45, he retired from Lehman Brothers in 2003 and began a plural career, sitting on the boards of many financial institutions and numerous charities. He has done that for the last 18 years and is currently Chairman of Phoenix Group Holdings, the largest player in the UK retirement and long term savings industry and a FTSE 100 company administering over £300 billion of policyholder money for 14 million customers. Phoenix is the largest asset-owner signatory to the UN Principles for Responsible Investment in the UK. He has just stepped down from the group board of BUPA, the health insurance and care provider where he chaired their new Sustainability Committee exploring the link between human health and bio-diversity, in order to make time for his role as Sheriff. He sits on the boards of Convex Group, a specialty insurance and reinsurance carrier and Miller Insurance Services, a London market insurance and reinsurance broker. He is a member of the Leadership Council of The CityUK, sits on the Advisory Board of the International Business & Diplomatic Exchange and is a member of the Association of British Insurers and the Chartered Insurance Institute.

His philanthropic activities have revolved around education, children’s hospice care and the arts. This included being vice chair of Governors at the King’s School, Canterbury for 16 years from which he stepped down in July 2020. He currently sits on the governing bodies of Saint Columba’s College in Dublin, St Dunstan‘s College in Catford and King Edward’s, Witley in Surrey (for the City of London). He is also a Trustee of the St Paul’s Cathedral Choristers’ Trust, The Honourable the Irish Society, the East Anglia Art Fund where he set up the Board of Patrons, and is a patron of Temple Bar Trust. Nicholas is a Court Assistant both at the Merchant Taylors’ Company, where he sits on the Charities committee, and also at the Bakers’ Company. He is a Freeman of the Insurers’ and the Educators’ Companies

Nicholas was elected Alderman for Tower Ward in September 2017. He sits on the Education Board and the Epping Forest and Commons Committee at the City of London Corporation. He has also sat on Planning and Transportation and the Finance Committee. He is President of the Tower Ward Club, a member of the Guild of Freemen, the City Livery Club and the City of London Club. He is a director of the Lord Mayor‘s Show Ltd.

Nicholas is married to Felicity who was until recently the Chair of Trustees of Tapping House, the Norfolk Hospice. She is a Freeman of the Musicians’ Company. They have four children (Oliver, Charles, India and Alistair), two daughters-in-law, one son-in-law and three granddaughters. They spend weekdays at The Charterhouse where they rent a flat and their weekends in North Norfolk, their home for the last 20 years. They escape occasionally to Provence where they have a house in the southern Rhône wine region. Nicholas is a keen golfer and has just completed his year as Captain of The Royal West Norfolk Golf Club which, thanks to Covid, involved rather less golf than expected and rather more administration! He still plays golf for the Norfolk Seniors County team with limited success

Ingrid Holmes is the Executive Director of the Green Finance Institute and Chair of the UK’s Green Technical Advisory Group, which is advising the Government and Minister John Glenn on designing and implementing a green taxonomy in the UK.

Ingrid has 20 years of experience working on environmental policy and sustainable finance. She was a Member of the European Commission’s High Level Expert Group on Sustainable Finance and ran the Secretariat for the Green Finance Taskforce, which led to the establishment of the Green Finance Institute. 

Ingrid has a background working in financial services, NGOs, Government and the UK Parliament. Her abiding passion is her focus on scaling investment into climate change solutions to address the climate crisis.

Sir Richard Shirreff had a 37-year career in the British Army, and commanded soldiers on operations at every level from platoon to division. This has included combat in the Gulf War of 1991 as a tank squadron leader and again in Iraq as a divisional commander, together with other operations in Northern Ireland, Kosovo and Bosnia. In addition he had extensive staff experience at brigade, Army HQ and in the Ministry of Defence. He commanded NATO’s Allied Rapid Reaction Corps and his final military assignment was NATO’s 4 Star Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe.

In February 2016 he co-founded Strategia Worldwide Ltd, a global risk advisory company, which has since built up a sizeable portfolio of clients across different industrial sectors. Also in 2016 his novel entitled 2017: War With Russia, was published and became a bestseller. It has been translated into eight languages.

Daniel Finkelstein is an Associate Editor at The Times and also writes a weekly political column for the newspaper. He also has a regular column in The Jewish Chronicle.

Before joining the paper in 2001 he was adviser to both the prime minister John Major and the Conservative leader William Hague. He was also Director of the Social Market Foundation think-tank and is a former Chairman of Policy Exchange.

Daniel was appointed to the House of Lords in 2013 and named political commentator of the year at the Editorial Intelligence Comment Awards 2010, 2011 and 2013.

Janine Hirt is the CEO of Innovate Finance, the industry body representing the world-leading UK FinTech sector. Having joined the founding IF leadership team in 2015 first as Head of Membership then Ecosystem Director, she moved into the COO role in 2017 before stepping up to lead the organisation in 2021. Janine is passionate about driving transformation to create a more democratic, transparent and inclusive financial services sector for all. Her professional career has been marked by roles that sit at the intersection of policy, international relations, and industry, including senior positions at Chatham House, (the Royal Institution of International Affairs) and the Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce.

Lawrence Wintermeyer is a globally recognised digital finance advocate with a track record as an advisor, executive, and board member, working with startups to institutions. He is the Chair of Global Digital Finance, a not for-profit promoting fair and transparent markets for crypto and digital assets, and is the former CEO of Innovate Finance, the UK fintech members association. He is the Principal of Elipses, a digital investment management firm focused on sustainable investments, systematic investment management strategies, big data analytics, machine learning, and DLT technologies. Lawrence is a regular Forbes and Fintech.TV contributor, and promotes ethical and sustainable finance policies for a transparent, secure, and quality digital future for everyone.