Meet our speakers
Louise Cooper
Our host for 2023 is Louise Cooper, a straight-talking journalist who specialises in business, personal finance, the financial markets and investing.
Louise was a presenter on BBC 5 Live’s Wake Up to Money and BBC Radio 4’s Money Box Live.
Martin Jennings, CEO Parmenion
Martin has been providing the inspiration and leadership that drives Parmenion from strength to strength since 2016. Having built or supplied investment platform services right across the globe, he is perfectly placed to guide our development of innovative products and market-leading services.
Mark Polson, the lang cat founder
Mark Polson is founder of the lang cat. The lang cat works with advisers, asset managers and providers and, bit by bit, it aims to make the industry just a little bit less corporate and stuffy and more human. Mark is a prolific writer, contributor to the trade press and public speaker, even when people ask him not to be.
Pete Ridlington, CEO Ningi
Pete is a Chartered Financial Planner with a degree in computing, who has spent the last decade combining these two things to help some of the biggest names in Financial Services innovate and digitise their propositions. After working at a number of big companies, startups and scaleups, Pete founded Ningi so he could focus on partnerships with more agile firms to actually innovate.
Cathi Harrison, CEO The Verve Group
Cathi is a true entrepreneur, a passionate innovator and pioneer for positive disruption. She founded The Verve Group and launched Dextera ä - a new business operations dashboard to support firms with the running of a business. Cathi has been in financial services since leaving university and holds both the Chartered and Certified Financial Planner status as well as being a Fellow of the PFS.
Mat Grice, Parmenion
Mat is Head of Product for Data and Services at Parmenion. This means he spends his days looking at how we use data and tech to provide better tools and services for planning and advice firms - to help them reduce risk, reduce cost and create better outcomes for their customers. He’s always been fascinated by using technology to make life easier, help clients and improve mundane day-to-day tasks.
Rhys Williams, Quietroom
Rhys, branded an '‘agitator for change'’ is a familiar face in financial services and sits on the board of Quietroom. His career as a writer, strategist, consultant, coach and public speaker spans almost three decades. His devotion to making money more meaningful, passion for learning and uncanny knack for bringing out the best in people have helped mould Quietroom into business that it is today.
Sarah Lyons, CMO Parmenion
Sarah is Parmenion’s Chief Marketing Officer and is responsible for our strategy, our proposition and our marketing and communications, to ensure we work with our customers to understand them well and continue to deliver market leading services that meet their needs. She brings over 20 years financial services experience to Parmenion, having held a wide variety of strategy, proposition and marketing roles across the industry.
James Ashley, Goldman Sachs
James is a Managing Director in the Global Client Business within Goldman Sachs Asset Management. He leads the International Strategic Advisory Solutions team, which provides clients across EMEA and Asia Pacific with expertise on market trends, portfolio construction and innovative business practices. James joined Goldman Sachs in 2015 as an Executive Director and was named managing director in 2021.
Hugh Gimber, JP Morgan
Hugh Gimber, Executive Director, is a Global Market Strategist based in London. He is responsible for generating research-driven analysis on the global economy and markets, and communicating this to clients and the media across the UK and Europe. Prior to joining J.P. Morgan Asset Management, Hugh worked as a multi-asset investment strategist at BlackRock.
Hugh holds a first class honours degree in Mathematics from the University of Bristol and is also a CFA charterholder.
Peter Dalgliesh, Parmenion Investment Management MD
Peter’s remit encompasses a broad range of investment management responsibilities, covering both general management and strategy. He conducts in-depth fund analysis and top down market research in order to identify development opportunities for both products and services. He is meticulous when monitoring and adjusting risk-graded portfolios, to ensure they are in sequential alignment with their risk profile and guided by client suitability.
Craig Burgess, CEO ebi
Craig Burgess is Chief Executive Officer of ebi. Craig's been involved in financial services since 1992, with experience in the wealth management industry both as a financial adviser and entrepreneur.
An early adopter of evidence based investing, Craig founded ebi Portfolios which became part of the Parmenion group in 2023. He works with fund managers in helping seed new funds.
Harry Garrett, Parmenion Investment Management
As an Investment Director in PIM, Harry monitors and manages the investment solutions available on the Parmenion platform and performs fund analysis across all asset classes. He's a regular contributor of Parmenion's Let's Talk Makets series where he focuses on market performance and is a respected voice for industry commentary across the region.
Harry has a first class degree in Accounting and Business and is a CFA Charterholder. After graduating, Harry began his career at Novia Financial and joined PIM in 2014, where he has excelled.
Chris Budd, Institute for Financial Wellbeing founder
Chris Budd founded financial planning company Ovation Finance Ltd in 2000. He sold a majority of Ovation to an Employee Ownership Trust (EOT) in March 2018.
He is the author of six books, with his latest work being "The Four Cornerstones of Financial Wellbeing”.
Chris is also the founder of the Institute for Financial Wellbeing (IFW) to bring together financial advisers and planners who want to focus on their clients’ happiness, not just their money.
Cleona Lira, founder of Conscious Money
A Chartered financial adviser based in London, Cleona runs a financial advisory practice connecting money to life; working with individuals with an investment focus on investing with values or sustainable investing. Within her work, she seeks to integrate a focus on financial integrity and being more conscious with money.
She is also a member of Parmenion's Ethical Oversight Committee (EOC) who are a group of independent ethical experts who have been involved with ethical investing for many years.
Patrick Ingram, Parmenion
Patrick joined us in 2009 and has experience of private client discretionary management and wealth management consolidation, in a number of AIM quoted companies. He was previously CEO of Rowan & Co and Finance Director of Seymour Pierce Group plc. Patrick graduated with a degree in History from Oxford University in 1981, trained as a Chartered Accountant from KPMG, and holds the ASIP investment research qualification.
David Swanwick, Dimensional
David is Dimensional’s Head of Client Communications for the EMEA region and a Vice President in the firm’s London office. He helps firms achieve their potential by applying proven practice management and client communication techniques. David has chaired industry committees and taken part in lots of projects and panels about advice, investments, communication and practice management.
Mike Morrow, CCO Parmenion
Mike is responsible for growing mutually beneficial relationships with existing and new customers, and for strategic mergers and acquisitions. A Board member of PIMFA, the trade body for the financial advice profession in the UK, he has over 30 years' experience in distribution management and proposition development at AXA, HSBC, Ascentric and Openwork.
Speak to us and find out how we can help your business thrive.