Chairmen

David Blake (UK)
Dr David Blake is Professor of Pension Economics and Director of the Pensions Institute at Cass Business School, London; Chairman of Square Mile Consultants, a training and research consultancy; and Co-Founder with JPMorgan of the LifeMetrics Index.  Consultant to many organizations, including JPMorgan, Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, Union Bank of Switzerland, Paribas Capital Markets, McKinsey & Co., the Government Actuary’s Department, the Financial Services Authority, the Department for Work and Pensions, HM Treasury, the Bank of England, the Prime Minister’s Policy Directorate, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. In June 1996, he established the Pensions Institute. The Pensions Institute undertakes high quality research on all pension-related issues and publishes details of its research activities on the internet (www.pensions-institute.org). His recent books include Pension Schemes and Pension Funds in the United Kingdom published by Oxford University Press in 2003, and Pension Economics and Pension Finance, both published by Wiley in 2006.

Theo Nijman (the Netherlands)
Professor Theo Nijman is the Van Lanschot professor in Investment Theory at Tilburg University. Nijman was the pioneer of Financial Econometrics in the Netherlands. He has published extensively in the leading international journals on a wide variety of topics within empirical finance and econometrics. His recent work covers topics such as pension fund management, the optimal individual pension contract, measurement and management of inflation, interest and longevity risk, and performance attribution and measurement. Nijman is chairman of the Scientific Board of Netspar, a Network for Studies on Pensions Aging and Retirement in which seven universities and a number of insurance companies and pension funds participate (www.netspar.nl). Moreover, Nijman is Scientific Director of the Tilburg Center of Finance and Academic Coordinator of Inquire Europe, which brings together investment professionals interested in understanding and developing quantitative solutions to investment problems. As a consultant Nijman has been involved in all kinds of projects for many different financial institutions.