Quarterly Investment Strategy Roundtable - Geopolitics: Prepare or predict?
Wednesday 23 September 2026 | 18:00 - 20:30 | Evening Event
Join CFA UK’s Investment Strategy Roundtable, a new quarterly flagship series to bring together senior investment professionals for high‑quality, discussion-led conversations on multi-asset investment strategy. To support open peer level conversation, this roundtable is designed for CFA Charterholders and ASIPs only, with attendee details reviewed in advance.
Hosted under Chatham House rules and led by a volunteer practitioner Co‑Chair, this in person roundtable provides a trusted forum for experienced investors to exchange views on today’s most pressing market themes. Discussions will span equities, fixed income, and alternative asset classes, with a strong focus on asset allocation, macroeconomic developments, and evolving market dynamics.
This quarter’s discussion will focus on Geopolitics: prepare or predict? Investors spend a great deal of time discussing geopolitical and political risk, but how much of it really matters for markets, and how much is simply noise? The roundtable will explore how geopolitics should be handled in the investment process, which assets are most exposed, and what, if anything can provide a useful hedge. With the U.S. midterms approaching and a new UK government setting out its policy agenda, the discussion will also consider how investors should deal with political event risk in practice.
Why attend?
- Gain insights into how senior practitioners approach strategic and tactical asset allocation
- Deepen your understanding of current macro themes and their impact across asset classes
- Hear diverse perspectives and real-world considerations shaping investment decision-making
Who should attend?
This event is designed for CFA Charterholder, ASIPs, portfolio managers, senior analysts, fund allocators, and other CFA Chartherholder investment professionals.
Speakers:
Ji Young, Senior Portfolio Manager, Amundi
Ji Young joined Amundi in March 2021 as a Senior Portfolio Manager on the Asian Equity Focus Fund.
Prior to Amundi, Ji Young was at BlackRock where she was Head of Research on a global income and long horizon concentrated strategy and has worked at Pimco and Pioneer Investments before this as a portfolio manager/analyst on emerging markets funds.
Ji Young graduated from Mount Holyoke College with a BA in International Relations and is a HBS alumni. She also has the CFA ESG certificate and certificate from University of Cambridge in sustainable finance.
Will McManners — Founder and Managing Partner, MD One Ventures
Will McManners is Founder and Managing Partner of MD One Ventures, Europe's first venture capital firm dedicated to defence and national security. A former UK Special Forces officer, he founded the firm in 2021 to back the early-stage deep tech — pre-seed through Series A — that underpins the sovereign capability of the UK, Europe and allied nations. Investments include XTEND (autonomous drone systems), Valarian (zero-trust infrastructure for government), Greenjets (electric propulsion), SatVu (thermal imaging satellites) and Airfinity (biosecurity and disease forecasting).
He joined the business in 2014 from BNP Paribas Investment Partners where he worked as a senior strategist. He’s a graduate of both the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics and is also a CFA charterholder.
Outside of work, Chris mixes enthusiasm and incompetence for sport in approximately equal measure. He is the proud coach of his daughter’s football team, proving the maxim that “if you can, do. If you can’t, coach.”
Click here to view our event terms and conditions.