Dr Radek Stech and M. Nicolas J. Firzli, LL.M. in Paris
SFLS Founder at World Pensions Council
Dr Radek Stech was invited to give a plenary talk at the 7th Annual World Pensions Forum (WPiF), held on 22-23 March 2018 at the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts de Paris, one of Europe’s oldest universities. Radek presented his research on how social movements influence the law and policy by engaging with complex finance dynamics such as pension finance. He also briefly explained the track record of the Sustainable Finance, the Law and Stakeholders (SFLS) Network and the ongoing work aimed at moving the network towards a global think-tank. The talk was followed by lively discussions with influential stakeholders over the weekend.
This prestigious event is held annually in a G-10 capital and organised by the World Pensions Council (WPC), a Paris-based international association of pension funds and policy research institute. The WPC is dedicated to innovative analysis that helps strengthen and disseminate academic and professional research on a wide array of pension related topics such as demographics, actuarial science and statistical methods, public and private pension policies, and pension fund governance across Europe, Asia and the Americas.
The event brought together more than 120 pension/pension reserve, social security and sovereign fund Chief Investment Officers and board members (trustees) as well as senior policy makers and financial regulators from across all OECD and BRICS jurisdictions. Dr Joaquim V. Levy, Chief Financial Officer and Managing Director of the World Bank Group delivered the opening keynote address on ‘Long-Term Financing and Economic Development’ (by video-link from DC), followed by Bertrand de Mazières, Director General of Finance, European Investment Bank (EIB) on ‘Financial Innovation for the Real/Green Economy: A European Union Tradition.’
M. Nicolas J. Firzli, Chairman of the World Pensions Forum (WPiF) and Advisory Board Member of the World Bank Global Infrastructure Facility (GIF) highlighted the cross-cutting, strategic significance of the SFLS framework, which he described as “harnessing actionable insight from the socio-economic triangle of our time” and expressed his strong support for the Network’s ambition to move towards a global think-tank structure in the future. Radek praised the WPC Forum for “its success in blending highly topical financial economics, actuarial science and corporate governance research from a diverse array of US, Canadian, APAC, EU and MENA area scholarly research centres with a concrete, pragmatist spirit, nourished, as it were, by the constant interaction with pension executives and policy makers.”
Date: 28 March 2018