BOARD AND COMMITTEES

Hilary is a partner at KPMG UK, leading the ESG reporting practice. She advises companies on the implementation of voluntary and mandatory sustainability reporting. In that role she is responsible for building KPMG’s brand and voice in the market for sustainability reporting and shaping the direction of the firm’s vision for the future of reporting, with an emphasis on meeting investors’ information needs.  

Hilary is the Chair of the CFA UK Board. She has volunteered with CFA UK since 2013, having served on the Professionalism Steering Committee and Financial Reporting and Analysis Committee. She has also been involved in the value of the investment profession work, focusing on capital allocation. Hilary was appointed as treasurer from 2021, before being elected Chair in 2023. 

Hilary previously was PwC’s head of global investor engagement, managing the firm’s relationships with the investment community. Before that, she worked at the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), where she led their investor engagement programme and the fair value measurement project. She has a background in business and asset valuation. 

Sylvia is Chief Operating Officer at Kimura Capital LLP and Chief Investment Officer at Dhow Advisory Ltd. FZCO.

Sylvia has over 30 years of investment industry experience on the buy-side, in equities and sustainable investing. She spent 25 years managing a wide range of funds, including pensions, life funds, endowments, unit trusts and hedge funds at firms such as Baring Asset Management, Hermes Investment Management, Ennismore Fund Management and Equitile Investments. Sylvia has also enjoyed C-Suite roles at Alternative Investments boutiques and been responsible for the design and implementation of ESG integrated investment processes in a wide range of asset classes including Private Markets and Trade Finance.

Sylvia is recipient of the 2022 CFA Inspirational Leader Award for Education and is a regular contributor to several investment industry stakeholder consultations and publications on regulatory standards and disclosures in Sustainability, ESG and Impact Investing. In addition to serving as a CFA Society of the UK Board Director, Sylvia Chairs the Society’s Examinations and Education Committee, and is a member of the Sustainability Committee.

As inaugural Chair of the CFA UK Certificate in ESG Investing Panel, Sylvia was instrumental in leading practitioners in the design, development and launch of the Certificate in ESG Investing. This qualification is now under the auspices of the CFA Institute’s ESG Advisory Panel, of which Sylvia is a member. Sylvia also serves as a member of the PRI Global Policy Reference Group and is a member of the Alternative Investment Management Association’s Global Responsible Investment Committee, where she contributed to the AIMA ESG Handbook 2023. 

Mark has over 20 years’ experience in the investment banking, asset management and real estate industries having worked in London, New York, Cape Town and Johannesburg. Mark is currently the Finance Director of Sustainable Development Capital ("SDCL").  SDCL is a multinational asset manager that specialises in environmental infrastructure, energy efficiency and decarbonisation.

Prior to joining SDCL, Mark was a member of the executive team responsible for the finance and operations at Atlantic Leaf Properties which was owned by the private equity firm Apollo Global Management. He started his career in financial services at PwC before spending time at Credit Suisse in New York.  He has extensive experience in asset management, corporate finance and capital raising and specialises in multinational corporate structures and tax.

Mark is also a Board member of the Quintin Hogg Trust, a charity supporting the advance of education of students at the University of Westminster and is a qualified chartered accountant as well as being a CFA charter holder and has a Business Science (Business Finance Honours) degree from the University of Cape Town.

Elena is the Head of ESG Client Experience at BlueBay Asset Management, focusing on effectively articulating the firm’s ESG proposition with investors and working with investment teams to communicate their ESG integration and engagement efforts. Elena is a co-chair of RBC BlueBay’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Forum and a member of the Corporate Responsibility Committee and the Charity Forum.  

She joined BlueBay in 2016 and has previously held roles at Goldman Sachs Asset Management and Candriam Investors Group. Elena’s academic qualifications include Masters degrees in Portfolio Management, Corporate Finance and Banking, Finance and Risk Management. Elena is a CFA charterholder, a CAIA charterholder, a CIPM designation holder and has obtained the IMC Certificate and the CFA Certificate in ESG Investing. 

Katerina is a partner at J Stern & Co, an independent private investment office. Her role encompasses wide ranging responsibilities that include managing client assets and leading the firm’s ESG strategy. Prior to joining J Stern & Co she was a Senior Global Equities Fund Manager at Allianz Global Investors. Katerina has two decades of professional experience within the industry, with an international career that has spanned the UK, Germany as well as the US.  

Katerina has volunteered for the society since 2012 and is a founding member of the CFA UK’s Diversity & Inclusion Network. She is a CFA Charterholder and holds an MSc in International Securities, Investment and Banking from the ICMA Centre at the University of Reading and a BSc in Business Administration from the University of Bath. 

Kieran Ferguson is Chief Financial Officer at The King's Foundation. Prior to this, Kieran worked at Virgin Money and spent eight years in management roles across risk, the CEO’s office, finance and treasury. Latterly, he held the role of Head of Credit Portfolio Management and was responsible for determining credit portfolio strategy for the bank's liquid asset portfolio. Kieran was also appointed to the Virgin Stakeholder Pension Independent Governance Committee (IGC) and served on the Committee for four years overseeing fund performance and value for money for members.

Kieran started his career at Accenture where he worked with banking clients on business transformation and technology projects. 

Kieran was appointed to the CFA UK board in 2020 and is currently Chair of the Business Transition Committee. He was previously a member of the Nominating Committee. He holds a first class honours degree in law and business (LLB Hons) from the University of Edinburgh. Kieran has been a CFA charterholder since 2018.

Philippe is currently an Operating Partner of Nature Infrastructure Capital, an Operating Advisor of I Squared Capital and a Venture Partner of Planet First Partners.

Until the end of 2022, Philippe was Head of European Infrastructure investments at AustralianSuper. Prior experience has been in Managing Director roles within the infrastructure investment groups of CDPQ and Goldman Sachs, as well as holding a Vice President role with Citigroup European Structured Finance team. As part of his infrastructure investing roles, he sat on the Board or equivalent corporate bodies of various renewable developers, airports, ports and toll roads. 

Philippe holds a Master’s degree in engineering and finance from the Université Catholique de Louvain (Belgium). Philippe has been a CFA Charterholder since 2004.  He is the current chair of the Membership Experience Steering committee, has served on the society’s Examinations and Education Committee for eight years and has been active in various other areas of work of the society.

Alistair is Head of Retirement Strategy and UK Institutional Distribution at State Street Global Advisors. He leads the firm's UK Institutional Distribution Team and is also responsible for thought leadership and the investment proposition for major pensions markets in Europe. Prior to joining State Street in 2014, Alistair was a Senior DC Investment Consultant at Towers Watson, where he advised a number of large DC plans and led a team of consultants and analysts. He has over 25 years’ investment experience, including as a consultant advising financial services firms, a business school academic (teaching on a CFA partner MSc program) and in a number of senior investment management roles at AEGON UK.  

Alistair is a long-standing volunteer with CFA UK and the CFA Institute. He is a member of the Professionalism Steering Committee and the Pensions Expert Panel, and was previously a member of the Exams and Education Committee. He has co-authored a number of CFA Curriculum Readings and published academic research in the Financial Analysts Journal and other CFA publications. Alistair is a CFA charterholder and has a PhD in finance from the University of Strathclyde.

Weiyen is currently a Manager at the Bank of England. He focuses on resolution to minimise the impact on depositors, the financial system and public finances when a financial institution fails. Prior to his current role, he supervised several global systemically important banks as a banking regulator in the PRA. He started his career as a European Residential Mortgage-backed Securities surveillance analyst at Fitch Ratings in London. 

Weiyen is passionate about professional learning and financial education. He was the Chair of the T Level Finance Panel at the Department for Education and currently sits on the IfATE’s Legal, Finance and Accounting Route Panel. Weiyen holds the CFA, CIPM, IMC, CAIA, FRM, and MAAT designations and earned his MSc Finance from Bayes Business School. Weiyen was co-opted to the board in 2019 to fill a vacancy which had arisen. 

Suzanne is a board member and Chief Risk Officer at Project Imagine, a fintech startup that previously offered a B2C e-money and investing app and currently offers a B2B Banking as a Service platform. She previously worked for Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers and HSBC as an equity derivatives trader and structurer and for Bloomberg developing and selling their equity and currency derivatives products.

Suzanne earned her CFA charter in 2008 and her CIPM in 2019.  She has been a member of the Professional Steering Committee since 2019 and has chaired it since 2021.  She has a JD from Stanford Law School and an MBA from Wharton. She also has a medical degree from Albany Medical College in Albany, NY and worked as a surgeon in the US from 1984 to 1997.

She is especially interested in AI governance and hopes to increase CFA UK’s influence in this area.