Aon DB Investment Conference

Sion Cole

Partner and Head of European Distribution
Delegated Consulting Services, Aon

Sion Cole is a Partner and Head of European Distribution for Aon 's delegated investment business, Delegated Consulting Services (DCS).

Sion is responsible for client needs and ensuring Aon deliver all clients bespoke solutions to meet their unique requirements. Sion also oversees our engagement with the market to ensure appropriate new solutions are created. Sion is a member of the executive committee for the Delegated Consulting Business, was in Financial News' Top 40 Under 40 Rising Stars of Asset Management (Sept 2014), and was shortlisted for Professional Pensions' Pensions Personality of the Year Award 2015.

Sion re-joined Aon 's investment practice in February 2012 having previously worked at for over 8 years to 2010. During 2007 - 2009 he was key to the product design of Aon 's Delegated Consulting Service. Previously Sion has acted as a traditional investment consultant where his main client responsibilities included advising both private and public sector clients ranging from £20m to £1.5bn.

Prior to re-joining Aon in 2012 Sion was Head of UBS's Fiduciary Business for UK & Ireland. Sion regularly speaks at industry conferences and participates in panels as an expert on the topic of fiduciary management. He graduated from Cardiff University with a First Class Honours in Mathematics and is a Fellow of the UK Institute of Actuaries.

George Carvounes

Senior Equity Research Analyst

George Carvounes joined in 2008. He is a member of the Global Manager Research Team and the equity Manager Selection Committee. The majority of his equity research is focussed on Global and Asia Pacific ex-Japan managers. In addition he is also a member of our global Infrastructure team focussing on research of UK and European Infrastructure managers.

Prior to joining , George worked for Old Mutual Life Assurance Company in its investment area and was involved with strategic asset allocation modelling and investment manager mandate structuring and monitoring. Prior to this he worked for a South African investment consultancy in its hedge fund risk management area. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries and graduated from the University of Cape Town with a first class Actuarial Science degree.

Zoe Taylor

Principal Consultant
Aon Retirement & Investment

Zoe Taylor joined Aon in 2003 and is a Principal in the London Investment Practice.

Zoe has experience across a broad range of clients of different sizes and structure, and advises on all aspects of investment strategy and implementation across a full range of asset classes.

Zoe is a CFA Charterholder and holds a first class Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from Kings College London.

John Baines

Partner
Aon Retirement & Investment

John Baines is a Partner and Actuary, working in Aon 's Pensions Practice since 2002. He splits his time between ongoing corporate appointments and specialist work in relation to risk settlement.

John is a qualified actuary fully regulated to provide risk settlement advice and leads Aon 's medically underwritten bulk annuity team. More widely, he has advised on risk settlement projects from £5M to £8Bn. He is often quoted in the media in relation to bulk annuities, and is a frequent speaker on the topic.

Recent projects include:

• Lead adviser for a large multi-national on three full scheme pension buy-outs, completed within a 6 months period, as part of a $4Bn corporate transaction.
• Lead adviser on Pilkington and Kingfisher's bulk annuity transactions.
• Lead adviser on the largest medically underwritten bulk annuity and the largest medically underwritten full buy-out.

More broadly, John advises clients on long term pension risk management strategies.

Mike Rogers

Partner and Head of Large Clients
Delegated Consulting Services, Aon

Mike Rogers is a Partner and Head of Large Clients for Aon 's delegated investment business, Delegated Consulting Services (DCS). Mike works closely with large UK pension scheme clients to ensure our fiduciary solution is tailored to meet their unique needs.

Mike has 25 years' industry experience and joined Aon in 2015 from Towers Watson's fiduciary investment team where he was responsible for the development of the whole fund delegated proposition. He worked on some of Towers Watson's largest delegated clients (from £500m to c£2bn) as well as leading development of a proposition for the small-mid market. He also had various content development roles including membership of the UK Portfolio Construction Group. Prior to focussing on the fiduciary business, Mike worked in the investment strategy team giving advice to clients on flight planning, risk analysis, portfolio construction, hedge implementation and design and options strategies. Mike is a qualified Actuary and graduated from Oxford University with a degree in Physics.

Paul Boerboom

Founding Partner
Avida International

Paul Boerboom founded Avida International in 2006 and has been advising institutional investors in the Netherlands, Germany, the UK, France, Italy and Japan ever since. Typical themes are organisational design, partnering and outsourcing in various (complex) investment areas such as illiquid investments.

Previously, Paul performed a number of senior roles at Royal Dutch Shell and has lived in Latin America and various European countries. During this time he was part of the Supervisory Committee of various joint ventures, and led complex M&A projects and contractual negotiations in the renewable energy, gas and power sectors. He also acted as Head of Investment Strategy and portfolio manager private equity for Shell Pensions.

Paul is an econometrician and business economist by training, completed by executive education programs at the Wharton School of Management and Harvard Business School.

Today he is a lecturer at various business schools and a frequent speaker at seminars.

Hans Holmen

Principal

Hans is a principal in the firm’s private equity group with a focus on infrastructure.

Prior to joining Aon in 2012, Hans had roles at Merrill Lynch Europe where he was responsible for the assessment of direct infrastructure investments globally and Commonwealth Bank of Australia where he had a variety of roles across infrastructure project finance and advisory, institutional banking and credit management. Hans’ practitioner experience is complemented by a role as executive director of the Coller Institute, a private equity research center housed within London Business School.

Hans has substantial experience across the infrastructure asset class. This includes experience in direct investments, co-investments, fund investing, project finance and financial advisory.

Hans holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Adelaide and a Graduate Diploma in Applied Finance from the Financial Services Institute of Australia.

Rikhav Shah

Senior Manager
Ernst & Young

Rikhav is a Senior Manager in EY's Pensions Advisory team specialising in fiduciary management. Rikhav leads EY's fiduciary management research team which conducts regular research meetings on fiduciary managers. His key focus is on evaluation of fiduciary managers from an investment perspective to ensure clients have full transparency on performance and costs.

Prior to joining EY, Rikhav was at Willis Towers Watson for over 10 years, where he worked with pension scheme trustees on implementation of investment strategy utilising diversity and liability driven investment, under both advisory and fiduciary arrangements.

Rikhav is a Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and holds a Masters in Finance from the London Business School

Lucinda Downing

Senior Research Analyst

Lucinda develops asset class views within Aon 's global asset allocation team for investment advisory and delegated consulting clients. She was previously Director of Balanced Funds at Russell Investments where she structured and managed multi-asset, multi-manager funds. Before then, she was a Portfolio Manager at State Street Global Advisors, where she managed bond and currency portfolios and created forecasting models. Her 20+ work experience has included posts in South Africa and Hong Kong. She has a BSc in Economics from the University of Warwick.

John Shiels

CEO, Manchester United Foundation

John Shiels has been the Chief Executive of Manchester United Foundation since January 2008. During this time, John has created the Foundation's strategy to use the power of the Manchester United brand to change the lives of young people across Greater Manchester, the UK and around the world.

Working principally with disengaged children, the Foundation uses football to engage and inspire young people to build a better life for themselves and unite the communities in which they live. John leads a dedicated team of 55 permanent members of staff, plus casual members and volunteers, who deliver football coaching, educational programmes and personal development, providing young people with opportunities to change their lives for the better.

Over the years, John has conducted countless leadership workshops in conjunction with club icons such as Sir Bobby Charlton and Bryan Robson, as well as senior management figures such as Group Managing Director of Manchester United and Foundation Chairman, Richard Arnold. He has recently presented to top business executives, demonstrating how to adapt the secrets of Manchester United's success into a business environment, and his journey has taken him from Berlin to Australia, with a fifteen city tour of the US along the way.

Under John's leadership the Foundation has developed tremendously in recent years, with the number of partner schools and community outreach programmes having doubled since 2014. Key relationships with club partners have already taken the charity overseas but John's global strategy will soon see Manchester United Foundation take on the world in its own right.

Prior to running the Foundation, John led the Bobby Charlton Soccer Schools and was latterly Head Coach of Manchester United Soccer Schools. He graduated from Manchester University more years ago than he would care to admit.