Bola Tobun is Investments and Treasury Manager at the London Borough of Enfield. She is a frequent participant on the local government conference circuit, which is where we met, and she has a long history of experience in pension fund roles across local government and pensions administration businesses.

A discussion of a journey from chemical engineering to finance and how this led to finance and a particular passion for and knowledge of ESG.

Kurt Summers is a Senior Managing Director and Head of Public-Private Partnerships in
Blackstone’s Infrastructure Group. In this capacity, Mr. Summers is responsible for
investment strategies in partnership with governments, public entities, civic and labor
organizations, and broader stakeholders to help advance local infrastructure priorities
and he also advances Blackstone Infrastructure’s ESG efforts. Mr. Summers was
elected and served as Chicago’s 70th City Treasurer until 2019. Mr. Summers also
served as both Chairman of the Chicago Infrastructure Trust, where he led the largest
lighting retrofit project in North America, and Chairman of the Chicago Community
Catalyst Fund, a first-of-its-kind $100 million local investment fund focused on private
investments in Chicago neighborhoods.

Kevin Leonard is Partner and Practice Group Director – Public Funds and Taft Hartley at
NEPC. He has had a long career in consulting and started his career as an accountant.
Kevin has had a career of over 30 years in investment consulting, and it had a somewhat
“accidental” start – being driven more by location and convenience than a calling. Things
quickly shifted however, and Kevin found that working with public funds where the possibility to
add value and have impact was high and the touchpoints with investment committees and
Boards frequent and satisfying.

Shane Lanigan is Portfolio Manager at Beach Point Capital Ireland, a role he has held since September 2018.  He was previously a director at BSM Finance, a senior debt provider to entrepreneur owned, VC or PE backed businesses. 

Asha Mehta is Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer at Global Delta Capital, where she has a thematic focus on Emerging and Frontier Markets as well as Sustainability Investing. She was previously Lead Portfolio Manager and Director of Responsible Investing at Acadian Asset Management and prior to that an investment banker.  She has traveled to over 80 countries and lived in six, and recently released a book, The Power of Capital: An Adventure Capitalist’s Journey to a Sustainable Future. 

Apurva Schwartz is a portfolio specialist at Harding Loevner LP. She was previously a principal at Rocaton Investment Advisors, where she was a senior member of the investment team. Prior to that she held a series of roles in equity analysis and investing. Our conversation starts with her serendipitous start in finance and how that experience of picking stocks drove her to launch her own hedge fund. Her interest then expanded to analyzing managers themselves and a career in investment consulting. This came full circle then when she chose her next move, which was back into the investment management field.

Bruno Kaiser is CFO at Smile CDR Incl, a digital health company based in Toronto. He previously spent over 20 years in a series of investment banking leadership roles with a particular focus on the Metals and Mining Sector. We were classmates at INSEAD from 1999-2000.   

Melanie Pickett is Executive VP and Head of Asset Owners, Americas at Northern Trust, based in the Chicago area.  She oversees the Alternative Asset Servicing Group and directs the firm’s strategy , growth and delivery of all firmwide products for asset owners and allocators in the America’s region. She was named 2021 Top 40 Women in Fintech and the 2021 Global Banking & Finance US Business Woman of the Year. She previously was Chief Operating Officer and Managing Director of Emory Investment Management at Emory University and prior to that spent over 10 years at Morgan Stanley. 

Francois Bourdon is Managing Partner of Nordis Capital, based in Montreal. He is also Managing Partner in Sustainable Market Strategies, an independent investment strategy research service tracking global developments in ESG/impact-investing worldwide.  He was formerly Chief Investment Officer at Fiera Capital.  

Christine Reed is an analyst on the Fixed Income team at Ninety One covering Latin American sovereign and currency markets. Based in New York, Christine is responsible for all Latin America coverage and supports the alpha decision-making process across investment capabilities. She previously worked at Goldman Sachs Asset and Citigroup.