2016 Transforming Finance conference

A one-day conference on finance, housing, jobs and climate.

Earlier this year, the Transforming Finance Network brought together campaigners, academics, businesses, policymakers, regulators and the media to ask:

How can we transform finance to support affordable housing, secure jobs and a low-carbon future?

Together we examined how the finance system needs to change to address some of the most pressing problems facing our society and economy, such as making housing affordable for all and providing secure, fulfilling jobs through sustainable investment in the UK economy.

Speakers:

Lord Adair Turner

Adair Turner has been a Senior Fellow at the Institute for New Economic Thinking since 2013, and in 2015 became Chairman of the Institute’s Governing Body. Prior to that he chaired the UK Financial Services Authority from 2008 until 2013, during which time he played a leading role in the redesign of the global banking and shadow banking regulation as Chairman of the International Financial Stability Board’s major policy committee.

In his new book, Between Debt and the Devil, he sets the record straight about what really caused the crisis. It didn’t happen because banks are too big to fail — our addiction to private debt is to blame.

Mariana Mazzucato

Professor Mariana Mazzucato holds the RM Phillips chair in the Economics of Innovation at SPRU in the University of Sussex. She has held academic positions at the University of Denver, London Business School, Open University, and Bocconi University.

Her recent book The Entrepreneurial State: debunking public vs. private sector myths (Anthem, 2013) was on the 2013 Books of the Year list of the Financial Times. It focuses on the need to develop new frameworks to understand the role of the state in economic growth — and how to enable rewards from innovation to be just as ‘social’ as the risks taken.

Matthew Taylor

Matthew Taylor became Chief Executive of the RSA in November 2006. Prior to this, he was Chief Adviser on Political Strategy to the Prime Minister. He was the Director of the Institute for Public Policy Research between 1999 and 2003.

He has written numerous articles and is a regular panelist on Radio 4’s Moral Maze, a provocative and engaging live debate examining the moral issues behind one of the week’s news stories.

Zoe Williams

Zoe Williams is a columnist for the Guardian, Spectator and New Statesman. She is most well known for her political and cultural commentary, including regular writing on housing and finance.

Beth Stratford

Beth Stratford is a researcher and activist for a more humane and sustainable economic system. She is doing a PhD on post-growth economics and the housing market at Leeds University. She convened the first Transforming Finance Conference (2013) and the Just Banking conference in Scotland (2012), and has worked variously as a lecturer (Masaryk Uni, Roehampton Uni, C.A.T.), campaigner (10:10, Friends of the Earth Scotland), editor (Lean Economy Connection), and film maker (Cheat Neutral, Age of Stupid). She holds an MSc in Ecological Economics, a Diploma in Social Research Methods, and a degree in Social and Political Science from Cambridge.

Fran Boait

Fran is Positive Money’s Executive Director. She studied Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge and went on to complete a PhD researching carbon dioxide storage. Fran became interested in economics and money creation after realising that the huge environmental and inequality crises we face could not easily be fixed without re-thinking how the current economic system works, and how to redesign it. Fran has worked at various global organisations including the United Nations, Greenpeace and BP.

Chris Hewett

Chris Hewett started working on policy with the Finance Innovation Lab in 2011 having previously worked for NGOs, think tanks and government on environment, economics and finance issues. He currently leads the Lab’s work on policy research and advocacy. He convenes the Transforming Finance Network of civil society groups who focus on finance reform, and leads the Lab’s policy development work to accelerate the growth of a diverse finance sector.

Catherine Howarth

Catherine joined ShareAction as Chief Executive in July 2008, having previously been the founder and lead organiser of West London Citizens. Earlier in her career she was Senior Researcher at the New Policy Institute. Catherine is a board member of Green Alliance and of the Scott Trust, owner of The Guardian, serving on the Scott Trust’s investment committee. She was a Member Nominated Trustee of The Pensions Trust (the multi-employer pension scheme for the UK’s not-for-profit sector) for five years until Spring 2013. She served for four years on The Pensions Trust’s Investment Committee.

Anna Laycock

Anna Laycock is Lead Strategist at the Finance Innovation Lab. She leads the overall strategy, business model, governance and public profile at the Finance Innovation Lab. Prior to joining The Lab, Anna was Ethics and External Affairs Manager at Ecology Building Society. She was instrumental in the development of new regulation to enable building societies to issue a new type of shares to their members, and represented the Society on the Global Alliance for Banking on Values Communications and Impact Metrics expert groups.

Paul Nowak

Paul Nowak became Deputy General Secretary of the TUC in February 2016. Before joining the TUC, Paul had a variety of jobs as a call centre operator, a hotel night porter and a bus information officer. He first became a union member when he worked part-time at Asda aged 17, and has been a union rep and activist in the CWU, the GMB and UNISON.

Josh Ryan-Collins

Josh is Associate Director of the Economy and Finance team at NEF, leading a programme of research into reforming the financial sector and the economy to align with long term interests of society. Josh’s own research has focused on the impact of money and credit on the macroeconomy. He is the lead author of a NEF’s book “Where Does Money Come From”, has authored 15 other reports across a range of economic and social policy areas in his 8 years at NEF and has just completed a part-time PhD in economics at the University of Southampton examining the relationship between credit creation by banks and central banks, house prices and economic growth.

Benoit Lallemand

Benoît is responsible for Finance Watch’s Strategic Development. He is an expert in market infrastructure, asset servicing and data reporting. He has ten years’ experience in the clearing and settlement industry, most recently as senior internal consultant at Euroclear. He has also roots in the NGO world.

Ingrid Holmes

Ingrid’s work as Director of E3G focuses on how the public and private finance sectors are reorganising in response to the financial, economic and climate crises. She has over 10 years experience of working on energy/energy efficiency policy and financing issues – with roles in Government, Parliament and banking. Ingrid has led E3G’s programme of work on Low Carbon Finance since January 2010.

Toby Lloyd

Toby is Head of Policy at Shelter and has over a decade of experience in housing policy gained across the voluntary, public and private sectors. After graduating from Leeds University and the London School of Economics, he became deputy chief executive of campaigning and research charity the Henry George Foundation, following which he spent two years at the London Rebuilding Society developing non-profit equity release products for vulnerable homeowners in London’s East End.

Paul Marston

Paul joined RateSetter as Head of Commercial Finance from Secure Trust Bank, where he was managing director of the business and commercial division which provides funding for SMEs and property development loans. Prior to that he was a managing director at NatWest RBS, where he was responsible for the business and commercial banking in the South and West of England and Wales. He was also previously head of the SME division at Lombard Asset Finance.

Baroness Kramer

Baroness Kramer was appointed Minister of State for Transport in October 2013. She is a Liberal Democrat Peer. She began her career in banking in 1982 at Continental Illinois Bank. She was a Vice-President at Citicorp in Chicago working with large national and multi-national companies. Susan joined the Liberal Democrats in 1993 and in 2000 Susan was the Liberal Democrat candidate for Mayor of London. In 2005 she was elected MP for her constituency of Richmond Park, losing the seat in 2010. During her time in the Commons she was in turn a member of the Treasury Select Committee, Liberal Democrat spokesperson for International Development, then Trade & Industry, next Transport, followed by the Duchy of Lancaster and lastly for Heathrow. Susan was introduced into the House of Lords in 2011 focussing on Finance and Business issues including her long-standing interest in developing a framework for community banks.