Renowned mathematician and presenter Professor Hannah Fry has been confirmed as a keynote speaker at this year’s Guernsey Funds Forum, held in London.
Hannah (pictured) is a Professor in the Mathematics of Cities, a best-selling author, an award-winning science presenter and the host of numerous popular podcasts and television shows.
She examines the insights data can provide, but also where its limitations lie. In her book ‘Hello World: How to be Human in the Age of the Machine’ she explains how AI can reveal incredible new insights but also has ethical considerations.
“Funds Forum is our flagship event for the funds industry, and we are delighted that we have confirmed Hannah as our closing keynote speaker,” said Guernsey Finance Chief Executive Rupert Pleasant.
This year’s event is titled ‘Venture to the future’ and will cover the latest trends within the investment and funds sector, exploring key developments within the global venture capital market – including the rise of VC-backed tech-led enterprise.
Rupert added: “We will be setting out specific use cases for Guernsey’s range of fund structures, particularly those that are relevant to private capital and alternative investment strategies.”
Registration is now open for the event, taking place 20th May from 1pm – 7pm at 155 Bishopsgate, London.
The event will open with a keynote speech from Guernseyman Steven Hillion, Head of Data at Astronomer, the New York-based company behind open-source data orchestration platform Apache Airflow.
Steven has been leading engineering and analytics teams for 20 years. Previously, he founded Alpine Data, a collaborative data science platform later acquired by TIBCO. Prior to this, he built a global data science team at Pivotal and developed a suite of open-source and enterprise software in machine learning.
The first panel of the day, titled ‘Investing in the future: how tech is driving venture capital returns’ features speakers Archie Burgess, Investment Director at Cibus Capital, Mark Harrison, Chief Financial Officer at Sprints, Benn Mikula, Managing Partner and CEO at Cordiant Capital, and Woody Stileman, Managing Director at RTW Investments.
The panellists will explore how private equity firms are leveraging digital tools and technologies, and the rise of specialisations in technology as a result of this.
Panel two, titled ‘Guernsey’s edge: global regs, liquidity, and fund innovation,’ will focus on Guernsey’s capabilities in secondary markets, the flexible, cost-effective solutions for emerging managers, and the island’s position amid global regulation changes.
Speakers comprise Stephanie Biggs, Partner at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, Ed Hammond, Head of Tax & GP Operations at Coller Capital, Jerry Paul, Finance & Operations at Queen’s Park Equity, and Aranpreet Randhawa, Partner at Fried Frank.
Both panel sessions will be moderated by Nick Watt, Political Editor of Newsnight, who has more than 30 years’ experience reporting on UK and EU politics.
