Panel Discussion on the Current Credit Crisis

Carol Alexander is Professor of Risk Management and Director of Research at the ICMA Centre. Prior to this post, she held positions in both academia and financial institutions at: Gemente Universiteit in Amsterdam; UBS Phillips and Drew; The University of Sussex; Algorithmics Inc. and Nikko Global Holdings. Carol was a lecturer in Mathematics and Economics for 13 years at Sussex University. From 1996 to 1998 she also worked part-time in the industry, as Academic Director of Algorithmics, a large international enterprise-wide risk management software company. Following this, she worked briefly as full-time Director of Nikko Global Holdings, before returning to Academia. Carol has a PhD in Algebraic Number Theory and a first class BSc in Mathematics with Experimental Psychology from Sussex University and an MSc in Econometrics and Mathematical Economics from the London School of Economics. She holds an honorary professorship at the Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest. She is Chair of the Academic Advisory Council of the Professional Risk Management International Association and Co-Editor of the acclaimed Professional Risk Manager's Handbook. Carol has published numerous papers in international academic and professional journals. Her current research interests are in continuous and discrete time volatility and correlation analysis, hedge funds, multifactor pricing models and operational risk. She has edited several books, and is author of the best selling text book Market Models: A Guide to Financial Data Analysis. Since 1990 the professional side of Carol's career has focussed on developing mathematical models for risk management and investment analysis. Her new textbook on Market Risk Analysis will be published by Wileys in 2007. Most of her consultancy work involves the design of software for risk management, portfolio optimization and trading. See consultancy pages for further information.

Dr. Andy Bevan graduated with a first class BA in economics from Reading University in 1978 and was awarded a PhD in international monetary economics from City University in 1986. ThNicolee subject of his thesis was an examination of speculative efficiency in the foreign exchange market, within the framework of a general equilibrium model. Separately, Andy also holds a PhD in theology from Kings College, London, awarded in 2002. Andy started his career in 1978 with J&A Scrimgeour, a London-based specialist gilt broker. He then held posts with Chase Manhattan bank (1979-1983) and Midland bank (1983-1986) in London, working as an economist. In both positions, he specialised in the forecasting of interest rates and exchange rates. Having spent the first part of his career in the money and foreign exchange markets, he was then appointed Head of International Fixed Income Research at Drexel Burnham Lambert (1986-1988). He was subsequently Head of International Bond Research at West LB UK (1988-1990) and Head of the Financial Analytics and Structured Transactions group at Bear Stearns International (1990-1994). In 1994, Andy was appointed Director of International Bond Research at Goldman Sachs in London. He was appointed Managing Director in 2000, and became Head of Global Markets Research, producing research and trading strategy for foreign exchange, money markets, government bonds and corporate bonds. He retired from this post in 2005 and started his own independent consulting company, before joining Fulcrum Asset Management as Research Director in May, 2006. Andy's major research interests include exchange rate modelling and the integration of term structure theory with models of the business cycle in the macro-finance literature.

John Board is Professor of Finance and the Director of the ICMA Centre. Before joining the Centre, he spent a number of years at the London School of Economics. His overall research agenda is characterised by the application of finance theory to real world problems and issues. In pursuit of this he has been widely published in journals as diverse as the Journal of Accounting Research, Management Science, Journal of Regional Studies and Journal of Financial Services Research.His recent research has been in the area of market regulation in which he has acted as consultant to, among others, the House of Commons, the Financial Services Authority, the Corporation of London, and a number of London's financial markets. Some of this work has been based on large scale analyses of trading data, while other parts have considered more general issues of the effects of market fragmentation and consolidation. Among his most recent publications in these areas are Transparency and Fragmentation: Financial Market Regulation in a Dynamic Environment, (Palgrave, 2002) and Distortion or Distraction: US Restrictions on EU Exchange Trading Screens (Corporation of London, 2004). Before this, he was been funded by the Department of Trade and Industry to investigate the effects of innovation in financial markets. He also has a long standing interest in accounting and the effects of accounting policy on stock prices. In relation to this, he is currently engaged in research into the use of fair value accounting by insurance companies. This work is being sponsored by Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

Professor Richard Dale is Professor of International Banking at the University of Southampton and Visiting Professorial Fellow, Queen Mary and Westfield College, London University. He specialises in the economics of financial market regulation, was previously a consultant to the Bank of England and is Bank of England Senior Houblon Norman Fellow since 1994. Also, he has been a consultant to the Financial Times since 1986. Richard has been a Rockefeller International Relations Fellow at Brookings Institution, Washington DC in 1982/3. Since 1991, he has been an adviser to the House of Commons Treasury and Civil Service Committee on financial regulation. Richard has been an executive with N.M. Rothschild and Sons Ltd. Between 1973 and 1977 and 1984/5. He is board member at European Capital Markets Institute (ECMI) and member of European Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee. He is currently studying international clearance, settlement and payments systems. Also, Richard is completing work on background to Japanese banking system problems and policy implications ? with co-operation of Japanese Ministry of Finance.

Jacques Pézier is currently a Visiting Professor at the ICMA Centre, Henley Business School, University of Reading. His current research interests are in investment management (intelligent use of personal views, optimal design of structured products and portfolio insurance, performance criteria), risk management (optimal capital allocation, banking regulations) and financial engineering (efficient option replication). From 1986 to 2002 he worked in the City of London as General Manager of Crédit Agricole Lazard Financial Products (CAL FP) Bank, a bank specializing in structured products for corporate clients, Executive Director with Mitsubishi Finance International plc (MFIL, now TMI), heading the arbitrage and Research and Product Development Group and Director at Barclays, de Zoete Wedd (BZW), heading the Equity Risk Management Unit. But his career started in academia (Dartmouth College, USA, and HEC/ISA, France) and consulting (Stanford Research Institute, Investment Intelligence Systems). He is a graduate from Ecole Centrale (Paris) and holds a DEA in Mathematical Physics (Institut Henri Poincaré, Paris) and a PhD in Decision Theory (Dartmouth College).

Emeritus Professor Brian Scott-Quinn is non-executive Chairman of the International Capital Markets Association (ICMA) Centre ? the business school for financial markets which he created at the University of Reading in 1991 as a new venture. ICMA which is the trade association and market regulator for the international capital market, initially provided him with start up finance and then, in 1997, made a gift of £3m to the University of Reading to allow the construction of a highly innovative new building on campus (an additional £5m gift from ICMA for the construction of an extension was agreed in 2006). He trained initially as a finance/ operations manager with Coats Viyella Plc. which at that time was a multinational, FTSE 100 textile company. He later moved to the City of London where, while also teaching at the University of Reading, he was a financial analyst with Kidder Peabody Securities Ltd. before becoming a founder shareholder of Ross and Partners Ltd ? a privately owned Eurobond trading house which he helped set up. In 1981, he became finance and operations director of Drexel Burnham Lambert Securities Ltd, Ross & Partners successor in title. In 1986 he moved to Security Pacific Hoare Govett, a UK/US joint venture investment bank as a bond analyst and subsequently became strategy advisor to the Chief Executive. He left Security Pacific in 1990 to return to the University of Reading and set up the ICMA Centre. His main areas of executive education and research are the functioning of securities exchanges, OTC trading, asset management and private banking, collateralised debt obligations, securitisation of insurance risk, and risk management. Amongst his extensive consulting activities, he has been a consultant to the chief executive of the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and was on the Market Advisory Panel of Tradepoint Investment Exchange (now virt-x). He was the academic member of the Financial Services Authority (FSA) industry working group on Secondary Bond Market Transparency which examined issues relevant to the forthcoming EU, Markets in Financial Instruments, Directive (MiFID). He has been a consultant to the US Treasury and to a central bank and was a monetary policy advisor to a former UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord Howe of Aberavon (Sir Geoffrey Howe) in 1978/9. He has consulted widely for investment banks and asset management houses and most recently advised a major Dubai investment bank on a strategy for growth in its securities trading business. He has also recently advised a major UK life insurer on the use of collateralised debt obligations in asset portfolios. He has been involved in an expert witness case providing input on market functioning and trading. As well as speaking at many industry conferences and presenting at ICMA and FINRA seminars, he has published ? The New Euromarkets?, ?The Eurodollar System? and ? Investment Banking? as well as many papers on trading systems, clearing and settlement, offshoring financial services (published by the Corporation of London in March 2005) the Single European Securities Trading Market and European financial market regulation (chapter in ?Investor Protection in Europe?, OUP, 2006). He is currently working on a sponsored report on wealth management. He co-authored a book on European Securities Market Regulation which was published in 2006. He is a non-executive director of Madiston Plc a start up company set up to acquire, consolidate and develop companies providing software and related services to the securities and banking sector.