Our Events

Verena Ross is the Chair of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA). She took up the role on 1 November 2021 and is responsible for representing the Authority as well as preparing the work of and chairing its Board of Supervisors and Management Board.

Between 2011 and 2021 Verena Ross served as ESMA’s first Executive Director, when she was responsible for building up the organisation and overseeing its day to day running.

Prior to this, Verena held a number of senior posts in the UK's Financial Services Authority (FSA) and was a member of the FSA's Executive Committee. Verena joined the FSA in 1998 to run the Executive Chairman’s office during the regulator’s start-up phase and was briefly a seconded advisor to the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission in 2000. She held various positions in the FSA’s Markets Division and was Director of Strategy & Risk Division before becoming Director of the International Division.

Verena is a German national. Following studies in Sinology and Economics in Hamburg, Taipei and London (SOAS) she began her career at the Bank of England in 1994, where she worked as an economist and banking supervisor.

Philip Kalus, founder & managing partner of accelerando associates, has more than 23 years of experience in the asset management industry internationally. Before setting up accelerando associates in 2004 Philip worked in European fund sales as well as in investment manager selection. Philip has published numerous articles in the European investment media and is a recognized thought leader on European fund distribution. He has spoken at many major asset management and fund distribution conferences, Philip is an engaged member of one of the world’s leading service clubs and has been repeatedly awarded for youth leadership programs. He is a native German speaker, resident with his family in Valencia, Spain and speaks fluent English, Spanish as well as basic French.

Joseph A. Sullivan is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Legg Mason Inc., a global asset management firm listed on the New York Stock Exchange, which has $707.1 billion in assets under management (as of April 30, 2016). Mr. Sullivan also serves on the Board of Governors for the Investment Company Institute (ICI), and is a current Trustee and former Chair of the Securities Industry Institute. He previously served as Chair of the Fixed Income Committee of the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), a Board Member of the Bond Market Association and as a member of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) Hearing Board. 

Mr. Sullivan joined Legg Mason in September 2008 and, after serving as Head of Global Distribution and Chief Administrative Officer, was appointed interim Chief Executive Officer as of October 2012. Before joining Legg Mason, he served on the Board of Directors of Stifel Financial and as Executive Vice President and Head of Fixed Income Capital Markets for Stifel Nicolaus from December 2005. Mr. Sullivan has more than 35 years of industry experience, holding prior executive roles at Legg Mason Wood Walker, Dain Bosworth and Piper Jaffray. 

Mr. Sullivan holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from St. John's University and is a graduate of the Securities Industry Institute at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Sullivan is active in public service and committed to improving education by serving or having served as a member of the Board of Trustees for Johns Hopkins Medicine, Johns Hopkins Carey Business School Financial Services Advisory Board, Catholic Charities, St. Ignatius Loyola Academy, Chair of the Board of Trustees of Loyola Blakefield School, and President of the Baltimore Youth Hockey Association.

After graduating from Worcester College, Oxford in 1974 in politics, economics and philosophy (PPE) David has worked for nearly 34 years in the European Commission from 1977- 2011. He held a variety of posts including at the beginning of his career responsibility for oil and gas data in the Statistical Office, Luxembourg (1977-1981) during the second oil crisis; energy policy coordination and modelling in the Directorate General for Energy, Brussels (1982-1987); and then industrial trade policy negotiations during the Uruguay multilateral trade round (1987-1989). From 1989-1992 he was a member of President Delors' "Think Tank" called the "Cellule de Prospectives" where he worked on industrial policy and wrote the first Commission document on sustainable development. In this period he co-authored a book with Professor Alexis Jacquemin on the post-1992 EU political and economic agenda called "Shaping factors, shaping actors". From 1993-1994 he was a member of Sir Leon Brittans' Cabinet and worked on various aspects of trade and industrial policy, including completion of the Uruguay Round in 1994. In 1995 he became an Adviser to President Jacques Santer in his Cabinet – covering competitiveness, industrial and telecom policies, political relations with the UK and Ireland, financial services, risk capital and various other trade and foreign policy briefs.

From March 2000 – October 2010 he was first Director, then Deputy Director-General for securities and financial markets, then for all financial services policy in DG Internal Market and Services. He helped design and drive forward the Financial Services Action Plans to integrate the EU's capital and financial services markets. He was the rapporteur for both the Lamfalussy (2000/1) and De LaRosière Committees (2008/9), chaired the Securities and Banking Committees and represented the Commission in the Financial Services Committee and in various FSB/G20 fora. He also played a leading role in the EU-US financial markets dialogue in this period. He was the EU Visiting Fellow at St Antony's College, Oxford until July 2011 and was a Member of the European Commission's Task force on Greece until the end of January 2012. David Wright’s appointment as Secretary General of the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) commenced on 15 March 2012.David Wright left IOSCO in March 2016. He is a now a partner in the strategic business advisory firm Flint-Global, London and Chairman of EUROFI, Paris. 

Leonard Ng is Co-head of the EU Financial Services Regulatory Group at Sidley Austin LLP in London. He advises a wide range of financial institutions, in particular investment managers, on the ongoing changes to the UK and EU regulatory landscape. He also works closely with Sidley’s global regulatory team in advising clients on cross-border regulatory reform, in particular clients affected by overlapping US and EU regulations. Leonard spends a significant portion of his time advising clients on UK FCA complex compliance issues, the implementation of MiFID II, MAD II, SFTR, REMIT, AIFMD, EMIR, Short Selling Regulation, Basel III/CRD IV, Solvency II and the proposed regulatory framework for shadow banking. Leonard is a member of the Board of the Managed Funds Association (MFA) and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences.

Sven Gentner is head of unit for asset management in the European Commission's directorate-general for financial stability, financial services and capital markets union.

Sven joined the European Commission in 2004 and has served in various positions in its Brussels headquarters and abroad. From 2004-2006 he was responsible for the coordination of the EU-US Financial Markets Regulatory Dialogue, in 2006 he served as a member of the private office (cabinet) of Commissioner Charlie McCreevy, from 2007-2011 he was executive assistant to the director general of Directorate General Internal Market and Services with special responsibility for financial services. In 2011 he was seconded to the African Union Commission in Addis Ababa to advise the AUC on building an African internal market. From 2012 to 2013 he was head of unit for human resources and planning in DG Internal Market and Services. From 2013 to 2015, Sven was a counsellor in the Economic and Financial Affairs Section of the Delegation of the European Union to the United States. He dealt with EU-US regulatory issues and TTIP negotiations in financial services. Sven started his professional career in the private sector where he worked for an insurance company. Sven holds masters degrees in economics from Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt, and the University of York, UK. 

Olwyn Alexander is a partner in the audit practice and leads PwC Ireland's alternative asset management practice.

Olwyn spent 6 months working in PwC Dallas and 4 years working in PwC New York specialising in hedge funds, structured products and private equity.

Olwyn co-chaired the AIMA Guide to Sound Practices for Hedge Fund Valuation and was a member of the expert working panel for IOSCO's principles on hedge fund valuations in 2007. She has also presented at numerous global hedge fund conferences and has published a number of articles on alternative investments, in particular on valuation.

Olwyn is a member of the AIMA research committee, a Director of the Society of Investment Analysts of Ireland, the PwC representative on the Alternative Investment Management Committee with the Irish Funds Industry Association and is also a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland. Olwyn obtained her Chartered Financial Analyst qualification in 2003.

John Mullins is Chief Executive Officer of Amarenco, a fast growing company which is focused on the development, financing and ownership of solar assets in Europe. Previous to this role, John was Chief Executive of the Irish Gas Utility, Bord Gáis. He has held senior management positions with ESB, ESB International, PricewaterhouseCoopers (UK) and NTR plc. He is Chairman of the Port of Cork Company and Chairman of the Irish Ports Association. He is also Chairman of Heneghan PR in Ireland. He is a Fellow of Engineers Ireland and the Irish Academy of Engineering. He holds a Bachelor and Masters Degree in Engineering and an MBA from the Smurfit Business School in Dublin. John was recently awarded the honour of a Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur by the French Government.

Paul is the CEO of Morgan Stanley Investment Management (Ireland) Limited and Global Head of Client Engagement for the investment management business. He joined Morgan Stanley in 2010 and has 33 years of industry experience. Prior to joining the firm, Paul was Global Head of the Institutional Business at Pioneer Global Asset Management; he was also a member of the firm’s executive committee and held various directorships. Previously, he was head of MFS Investment Management’s non-U.S. institutional business. Paul has also served as an associate director on the Fixed Income team at Lombard Odier and held various roles, both as a senior dealer in the treasury division and within the asset management business while at the Bank of Ireland. Paul received a bachelor of commerce degree from University College Dublin and a master’s degree in investment and treasury from Dublin City University.

Michael is a Partner and senior investment consultant in Mercer’s Investment business based in Dublin and London. He has 20 years of investment industry experience, concentrated in investment consulting, fund management and macro-economic analysis. Michael manages a number of relationships with financial institutions, private banks and family offices in Europe and contributes to the development of Mercer’s wealth management initiatives globally. He also advises a small number of DB and DC pension plans on their investment arrangements. Prior to joining Mercer Michael was Head of Investments with Bank of Ireland Private Banking where he was responsible for the management of a multi-asset, multi manager fund. Prior to joining Bank of Ireland Michael spent a number of years with Russell Investments in the UK analyzing and constructing multi-manager funds. Michael holds an MA in Economics from University College Dublin and also holds the Investment Management Certificate (UK) qualification.

Charles joined Insight in January 2005 as Head of Distribution and is a Board Director. Charles was appointed Chief Risk Officer in February 2008. Before joining Insight, Charles was with Merrill Lynch Investment Managers Limited (formerly Mercury Asset Management). During his 16 years there, finally as Head of Institutional Business ex US, Australia and Japan, he had worked in a number of senior management roles including Company Secretary, Head of Compliance and Head of Legal. Prior to Merrill Lynch, he spent five years working in the banking department at Simmons and Simmons after qualifying as a solicitor. Charles has a degree in Law from St Catharine’s College, Cambridge.

Kieran Fox joined the Association in August 2007 and is the Director - Business Development for Irish Funds. As well as being responsible for working with investment managers and developing our membership offering, Kieran participates in a number of our steering groups including Distribution, Marketing & Promotion and Front Office and has led engagement on specific regulatory matters. Kieran has a BSc Finance and holds a Post Graduate Certificate in Information Systems. Prior to joining us he gained significant experience both in industry and within the regulator. He was a senior regulator and risk specialist with the Central Bank of Ireland for almost two years and prior to this spent seven years in a variety of roles across the front office within the hedge fund industry in London. Kieran represents the Association on the Summit Finuas Network Steering Committee.

Mr. Schuster is Head of Business Development in Europe and responsible for intermediary and institutional business development efforts across the continent. Additionally Mr. Schuster is a Director of PineBridge Investments Europe Limited and PineBridge East Africa Limited. He was previously responsible for European sales and product development efforts at the Financial Advisor Services company for Europe. Prior to joining the firm in 2001, he was a Senior Relationship Manager in International Private Banking at Bank Leu. Prior to that, he worked for Fidelity Investments where he was responsible for building up their Austrian business. He also held various positions at Fidelity Investments in the European Broker business. Mr. Schuster received a BA in Economics from the University of Augsburg, Germany and a German Masters diploma (Dipl. Kfm) in Banking, Finance and Business Management from the University of Augsburg. In addition, he also received the German Bankers certification (Bankkaufmann, IHK) from the German Industry and Trade Association.

Pat Lardner joined Irish Funds as Chief Executive in April 2012. He has over twenty five years’ experience in the global asset management industry and has held executive/leadership positions in Ireland and overseas with firms managing a broad range of both traditional and alternative investment strategies. Pat is an active participant on all significant Government sponsored groups relating to funds in Ireland, is a member of the Board of the European Fund and Asset Management Association and is an Advisor to the Asset Management Association of China’s International Partners Committee. He is a past Council Member of the Irish Association of Pension Funds and a former Director of both the Irish Association of Investment Managers and the International Investment Funds Association. He attained honours undergraduate and postgraduate degrees from University College Dublin.

With over 25 years experience within financial services, Jon joined Calastone in September 2014 as Chief Commercial Officer with focus on client relationship management, product development and sales. Jon joins Calastone from his previous role as BNY Mellon’s Head of Transfer Agency for EMEA and APAC. Prior to joining BNY Mellon in 2010, Jon was Chief Administration Officer at IFDS, State Street’s Transfer Agency organisation, a position he held for 13 years. Jonathan’s initial training was as an accountant before moving into the collective industry over 20 years ago. Five years were spent with AEGON before moving to Matheson's (part of the Jardine Group) to set up their unit trust operation. Jon previously chaired the TA Forum, the UK industry body for Transfer Agents and Platforms, and sits on the Board of TEX the industry re-registration group.

Alan Meaney is chief executive officer of Fund Recs – a leading Irish fintech. With a focus on the funds industry, Fund Recs provides a no-code platform for business users to automate their reconciliations and data workflows. Founded in 2013 Fund Recs has offices in New York, Dubai, Melbourne, Dublin and Waterford, Ireland. Last year, Fund Recs won the “Innovation in Investment Management” award at the Deloitte Financial Services Innovation Awards 2021. Alan is one of the founding members of Adminovate, a not-for-profit conference exploring innovation in fund operations. Adminovate has raised over €100,000 for basis.point and Trinity Access Programmes in recent years. Prior to founding Fund Recs, Alan worked in global fund administration and held roles at HSBC and SEI Investments in Dublin.

A Kildare native, Alan lives in Manhattan with his wife, Ruth and his two daughters. 

Simon Shapland Head of the UK & Ireland - Allfunds Bank. Simon Shapland is Head of the UK & Ireland for Allfunds Bank, Europe’s largest o pen architecture fund platform. Allfunds Bank Group offers integrated fund solutions (operational, analysis and information). Created in 2000 and owned in equal parts by the Santander and Intesa Sanpaolo groups, today Allfunds Bank has more than €215Bn assets under administration and offers close to 46,000 funds from 497 fund managers. Simon has more than 20 years of experience in the Securities Services Industry. Prior to Allfunds, Simon spent a decade with Royal Bank of Canada culminating in the role of Managing Director for the UK & Middle East of RBC Investor and Treasury Services where he was responsible for the company’s UK Branch overseeing some 350 staff. Simon joined RBC Global Services in 2004 as Regional Head of Sales and Relationship Management for the UK, Ireland and the Middle East. After the creation of RBC Dexia Investor Services in 2006 he transferred to Luxembourg in 2008 and held the role of Head of Sales & Distribution for Continental Europe. Simon joined RBC from BISYS Fund Services where he was Senior Vice President and Head of Sales for Europe and had previously held a number of senior positions at Mellon Global Securities Services, including that of First Vice President, Regional Sales and Marketing Manager for Europe. Simon began his career in IT Industry as an analyst programmer a British Olivetti, before moving into sales and relationship management at Wang Laboratories Inc.

John is the Programme Manager for Accenture’s FinTech Innovation Lab (Dublin) accelerator, which fosters innovation by bringing together leading banks, payment companies and new tech start-ups. He facilitates the mentoring of the Irish-based start-ups and entrepreneurs through the introduction to relevant teams within the banks and selected Accenture and third-party experts across a variety of fields relevant to the challenges facing the FinTech companies. He focuses on the practical aspects of adopting innovation and the generation of tangible value in corporates. Over the last fifteen years John has worked with C-level executives of large corporates and private equity in the UK, Ireland, Europe and the USA. He works with clients to develop and implement corporate growth strategies, both organic and via M&A transactions (both buy and sell sides) with an emphasis on value generation, protection and crystalisation. Prior to Accenture John spent 5 years with KPMG Consulting in Silicon Valley developing new software offerings and services with local start-ups. More recently he focused on fundraising and valuing both private and public companies in Corporate Finance and Equity Analysis roles with Merrion Capital Group and Mazars Corporate Finance. He has a degree in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA. 

Gemma is a senior lawyer in the Source legal team, and assists on all legal and compliance matters relating to product launch, maintenance and distribution. Before joining Source Gemma worked at Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management, where she dealt with legal queries relating to asset management, distribution, product development and launch, lending and new regulation.

Previously Gemma worked as an investment funds lawyer at Hogan Lovells, and also spent time on secondment at BGI/BlackRock. Gemma has an MA from Cambridge University in Law and Art History, and is qualified and admitted to practice as a solicitor in England and Wales.

Anne-Marie Bohan has 20 years experience in technology related legal matters, with specific focus on the requirements of financial institutions and financial services providers in the area. As a member of Matheson’s Asset Management and Investment Funds Group, as well as of its FinTech Group, Anne-Marie brings together funds industry knowledge, an understanding of applicable regulatory rules and regulatory requirements, and significant practical experience in advising on technology and privacy legal issues. Her experience includes advising on technology and business process outsourcings, including multi-jurisdictional cross border administration services outsourcings; electronic commerce, internet and mobile enabled financial services, and online sales; and data protection and cyber security issues, including cross-border data transfers, processing arrangements, breach guidance and data access requests.

Paul is an IT professional with over 20 years working in various industries including Financial Services, Insurance, Telecommunications and Construction. The focal point of Paul’s career has been a track record of successfully delivering IT capability through building and retaining high performance teams. Paul has achieved a significant amount during his career over the last 20 years, rising continually through the ranks of IT to become the Chief Information Officer in his latest role at Mediolanum International Funds. Paul has achieved major success on both a local and global stage across all projects, programs or initiatives he has lead during his career. Paul worked with Royal Sun Alliance and 123.ie for the previous 8 years as Head of IT and Change. Paul has also worked in HP, IBM, AOL over the last number of years. Paul has a 1^st Class Honors degree from DIT Kevin Street in Ireland.  

In 2000 Paul took a very big decision to take a career break to focus on his Olympic dream in competing in the Sydney Olympics. Paul finished in Pitney Bowes in early 2000 and then moved to Atlanta Georgia to train with an elite Irish group of athletes who were all training to achieve the Olympics qualifying times. 

After Paul’s career break, he then re-entered the work force with EDS and AOL as a IT contractor for a number of years. Pauls’ early career was focused on field service engineering, supporting various businesses with their IT issues. This is where Paul learnt the importance of ensuring delivery success for each customer. Paul also learned how to understand the importance of delivery of key milestones for any project during the field engineer phase. During this time, Paul also undertook a 4 year degree course in DIT Kevin Street. Paul achieved a 1st in his degree. Manager within the Managed Services group. The role within HP was very delivery focused for large scale multi nationals such as Amazon, O2 (Now Three), HSE, An Cheim and Vodafone. Paul quickly excelled in HP to become the main transition managers for any new clients to HP for managed services. Paul’s ability to engage with customers at various levels from peers, to executives and board members made him very successful. In addition Paul was responsible for ensuring that any new clients were successfully transitioned to the managed services.

Paud O'Keeffe is the Head of Innovation at BNP Paribas Securities Services. Paud leads the newly founded Innovation Lab recognizing the critical role innovation must play in driving growth at BNP Paribas amid accelerating disruptive forces and heightened customer expectations. A career Innovator, Paud and his team partner with BNP Paribas' businesses to shepherd creativity and implement breakthrough solutions for BNP Paribas clients His experience prior to BNP Paribas spans multiple industries; public sector, advertising, education and information technology. Previous roles include Head of R&D at Citi Innovation Lab, Directory of Technology, Innovation and New Ventures at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Technical Director at Agency.com  Paud is Chairman of the Irish Funds Fintech working group and holds a degree in Applied Physics

Manuel Brieske is Managing Director and EMEA Head of Product Development within the Global Product and Marketing Group at State Street Global Advisors, based in the London office. Manuel is responsible for developing, launching, and continuously improving SSGA's product sets across all client segments and product types for all SSGA funds within EMEA. Manuel joined SSGA in 2014 from Barclays where he was Head of Product Development and Fund Range Management in their Wealth and Investment Management division. He has over 20 years of experience working in European asset management firms including Barclays (BGI), BlackRock, Investec, F&C and Merrill Lynch in a wide variety of product, business development and distribution roles. Manuel has an MSc (Econ) from the London School of Economics and an Executive MBA from the London Business School.

Alan O'Sullivan is a Managing Director and Head of European Business Development for Brown Brothers Harriman. Alan also serves as a Director of the BBH Fund Administration Services (Ireland) and BBH Luxembourg Fund (SICAV). Alan has been with Brown Brothers Harriman for 20 years and has held a number of senior positions within the Relationship Excellence Division, both in Boston and Dublin. Alan is a graduate of University College Dublin and is one of the initial groups that qualified in the Certified Investment Fund Directors Programme at the Institute of Bankers in Ireland. Alan is currently a member of Council of Irish Funds and serves as Chair of the Industry body for 2016/2017.

Paul Schellekens joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Netherlands) in 1977. Early in his career he was posted at the embassies in Columbia, Tunisia and Trinidad and Tobago. From 1994 to 1998 he was the consul general in Toronto, Canada. From 1998 to 2002, Schellekens was deputy head of Mission and Head of Political Section in the Netherlands Embassy in Beijing, China, and from 2002 to 2006 he served as the Netherlands ambassador to Peru. Schellekens became director of the Queen's Office on 1 September 2006. In January 2012, it was announced that Paul Schellekens was appointed to the post of Netherlands ambassador to Ireland in Dublin and he took up this position in the summer of 2012. He is married to Maureen van Rijk.

With over 47 years of experience in foreign policy, Afonso José Sena Cardoso was born in Rio de Janeiro and started his career in the Brazilian Civil Service at the Ministry of External Relations in 1967. His first overseas posting was to Budapest, where he served from 1970-1973. After graduating with a degree in Portuguese and Latin from the “Centro de Ensino Unificado de Brasília”, Mr. Cardoso entered the Brazilian Diplomatic Academy and started his career as Third Secretary in 1976. Postings to Washington (1980-1983) and Montevideo (1983-1987) followed. Between 1990-1993, he was assigned to the Brazilian Mission at the United Nations, where he first served at the 5^th Commission of the General Assembly and, later on, at the Security Council. He has also served in Santiago (1994-1996) and In 2008, Mr. Cardoso was appointed Ambassador to Angola and, in 2010, became the Brazilian Consul-General in Toronto, Canada. He has been the Brazilian Ambassador to the Republic of Ireland since 2014. Ambassador Cardoso is married to Solange Escosteguy Cardoso, a Brazilian visual artist. They have three children and two grandchildren.

Declan Casey joined Irish Funds in August 2001 becoming the second employee and since late 2006 he has been the Association’s Legal & Technical Director. He is responsible for developments in both the international and domestic regulatory and legislative environment. He is an experienced government and regulatory affairs professional with a strong background in financial services. Declan is a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants and prior to joining Irish Funds spent over a decade working for a large domestic bank in structured finance, commercial lending and legal roles. Declan is an active participant on a number of government and international groups, in particular the IFSC Funds Group, EFAMA’s Supervision and Third Country Developments Standing Committee and the International Investment Fund Associations Regulatory Affairs Working Committee.