Notes on Contributors
Dr Inna Amesheva holds a PhD in climate change law and policy from Hong Kong University Law School. She is an Associate at Arabesque S-Ray, where she focuses on mainstreaming sustainable finance through the power of technology, big data, and artificial intelligence. Inna has a background in innovation and entrepreneurship, gained throughout Europe and Asia. She also serves as a UN SDSN Youth Project Officer, focusing on Solutions Initiatives and developing Digital Ecosystems that foster SDG youth entrepreneurship. Inna is passionate about environmental sustainability and enhancing economic opportunity for all.
Dr Douglas W. Arner is the Kerry Holdings Professor in Law at the University of Hong Kong and one of the world's leading experts on financial regulation, particularly the intersection between law, finance, and technology. At HKU, he is Faculty Director of the Faculty of Law's LLM in Compliance and the Regulation, LLM in Corporate and Financial Law and the Law, Innovation, Technology, and Entrepreneurship (LITE) Programmes. He is a Senior Visiting Fellow of Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne, an Executive Committee Member of the Asia Pacific Structured Finance Association, and an independent non-executive director of the Nasdaq-listed Aptorum Group. He led the development of the world's largest massive open online course (MOOC): Introduction to FinTech, launched on edX in May 2018, now with over 35,000 learners spanning every country in the world. From 2006 to 2011 he was the Director of HKU's Asian Institute of International Financial Law, which he cofounded in 1999, and from 2012 to 2018, he led a major research project on Hong Kong's future as a leading international financial centre. He was an inaugural member of the Hong Kong Financial Services Development Council, of which he was a member from 2013 to 2019. Douglas served as Head of the HKU Department of Law from 2011 to 2014 and as Co-Director of the Duke University-HKU Asia-America Institute in Transnational Law from 2005 to 2016. He has published 15 books and more than 150 articles, chapters, and reports on international financial law and regulation, including, Reconceptualising Global Finance and Its Regulation (with Ross Buckley and Emilios Avgouleas; Cambridge, 2016) and The RegTech Book (with Janos Barberis and Ross Buckley; forthcoming, 2019). His recent papers are available on SSRN at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=524849, where he is among the top 150 authors in the world by total downloads. Douglas has served as a consultant with, among others, the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, APEC, Alliance for Financial Inclusion, and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and has lectured, co-organised conferences and seminars, and been involved with financial sector reform projects around the world. He has been a visiting professor or fellow at Duke, Harvard, the Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research, IDC Herzliya, McGill, Melbourne, National University of Singapore, University of New South Wales, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, and Zurich, among others.
Martin Blessing was appointed co-President of Global Wealth Management of UBS Group AG and UBS AG as of February 2018. Prior to this, he was President of Wealth Management, effective January 2018. He held the positions of President of Personal and Corporate Banking of UBS Group AG and President of UBS Switzerland, as well as President of the Executive Board of UBS Switzerland AG from September 2016 to December 2017. He became a member of the GEB in September 2016. Before joining UBS, he worked for 15 years for Commerzbank AG, from 2008 to April 2016 as Chief Executive Officer. Before, he held various senior management positions; from 2004 to 2008, he was Head of Corporate Banking and from 2006 onward was also responsible for IT & Operations. From 2001 to 2004, he was Head of Private Clients. Before joining Commerzbank, from 2000 to 2001 he was Chief Executive Officer of Advance Bank, a subsidiary of Dresdner Bank AG. From 1997 to 2000, he acted as Dresdner Bank's joint Head Private Clients. From 1989 to 1996, he worked for McKinsey & Company, the last two years as Partner. Martin Blessing holds an MBA from the University of Chicago and in 1987 graduated from the University of St. Gallen with a degree in business administration.
Ross Buckley is the KPMG Law - King & Wood Mallesons Professor of Disruptive Innovation and a Scientia Professor at UNSW Sydney. His research focus is FinTech, RegTech, and blockchain. His research on these topics has been downloaded more often from the Social Science Research Network than that of any other social scientist. His joint world-first research has (i) developed the generally accepted timeline for the evolution of FinTech; (ii) reconceptualised the true potential of RegTech; (iii) undertaken the first comprehensive analysis of the liabilities of blockchain; and (iv) analysed the rise and regulation of initial coin offerings, in a forthcoming article in the Harvard Journal of International Law.
He chairs the Digital Finance Advisory Panel of ASIC, and has consulted to government departments in ten countries, including Australia and the United States. He consults regularly to the Asian Development Bank, and has twice been a Fulbright Scholar, at Yale and Duke.
Emily Chew is Managing Director, Global Head of ESG, Manulife Investment Management. She leads Manulife Investment Management's team of dedicated ESG research and integration analysts to advance the firm's ESG agenda. She oversees the team of ESG analysts that work with portfolio management teams on progressing ESG integration processes and conducting ESG engagement with investee companies; works with Manulife Investment Management's sales and product teams on ESG strategy and marketing; and represents Manulife Investment Management on various industry groups and collaborative initiatives.
Before joining Manulife Investment Management, Emily was Head of ESG Research for Asia-Pacific at MSCI Inc., where she led a team of nine ESG analysts across the region, commencing her role in Beijing and later continuing in Hong Kong. Her team had oversight into research quality and issue identification for approximately 1,200 stocks, and under her leadership produced original research on the relevance of ESG to Asian and emerging markets, with a particular emphasis on China. Prior to that, she was a capital markets lawyer with Baker & McKenzie in Melbourne, Australia, with a focus on funds management, capital raisings, and REITs.
Emily holds an MBA from the University of Oxford, and Bachelor of Laws and Bachelor of Arts from the University of Melbourne. She is a member of the United Nations-sponsored Principles for Responsible Investment's Listed Equities Integration Subcommittee, and the Steering Committee for the Climate Action 100+ global collaborative investor engagement initiative. She previously served as chair of the Asian Investor Group on Climate Change's Member Working Group from 2016 to 2018.
Margaret Childe is the Director of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Research and Integration at Manulife Investment Management responsible for working with Manulife IM's Canada-based investment teams on ESG integration, identifying and managing ESG risks and opportunities for Canadian portfolios. Margaret also works on global ESG integration projects and methodologies for ESG product development, and represents Manulife IM's ESG capabilities among the local investment community.
Previously, Margaret was a senior manager of ESG advisory services at Sustainalytics, where she helped asset owners and investment managers in Canada and the United States to develop and implement sustainable and responsible investment strategies, including ESG integration and impact investing solutions. Earlier, Margaret managed RBC Capital Market's collateral management desk and was an associate on the Global Equity Linked Products desk. Margaret has also worked for Save the Children and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission. Margaret is fluent in French.
Alex Clark is a climate finance analyst at the Climate Policy Initiative in San Francisco. He is also a Researcher at Harvard Kennedy School supporting Professor Henry Lee on electric vehicles, environmental economics, and other select topics. Alex is a former Henry Fellow at Harvard University and a graduate of Oxford University (MSc) and Warwick University (BA Hons. First Class), with an exchange at Sciences Po in Paris. He is also an advisor, and previously Project Leader for Operations, with UN SDSN Youth, and youth delegate to the COP21/COP22 climate conferences.
Helen Clark was Prime Minister of New Zealand for three successive terms from 1999 to 2008. She was the first woman to become Prime Minister following a General Election in New Zealand and the second woman to serve as Prime Minister.
Throughout her tenure as Prime Minister and as a Member of Parliament over 27 years, Helen Clark engaged widely in policy development and advocacy across the international affairs, economic, social, environmental, and cultural spheres. She advocated strongly for a comprehensive programme on sustainability for New Zealand and for tackling the challenges of climate change. She was an active leader of her country's foreign relations, engaging in a wide range of international issues.
In April 2009, Helen Clark became Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme. She was the first woman to lead the organisation, and served two terms there....
