Social media: Collective intelligence trumps elite thinking?

Speaker:  Dawid Konotey-Ahulu

Social media is opening up the possibilities for trustees to benefit from a greater exposure to group thinking on the problems facing pension schemes. Given the right circumstances, groups of people are generally smarter than the supposedly more intelligent individuals within them.

Collective intelligence trumps elite thinking as long as some basic criteria are met by a crowd. These conditions lead to the kind of joint thinking that the financial services industry and its pensions subset, in particular, could do with utilising. Up until recently, however, there has been no real effort to connect the thoughts of the various sections of the pensions community - but there are signs that this could soon change. This talk will help uncover these developments.

Agenda:

18.00 - 18.30: Registration

18.30 - 20.00: Presentation and Q&A by Dawid Konotey-Ahulu, MallowStreet.com

20.00 - 21.00: Networking over nibbles and drinks

About the speaker

Dawid qualified as a barrister in 1987 and then moved to investment banking in 1990. He worked as a derivatives structurer and marketer for NatWest Capital Markets from 1990 to 2000 then moved to Merrill Lynch. At Merrill, he was responsible for the UK Strategic Solutions Desk and set up the bank's EMEA Pensions and Insurance ALM desk. Dawid was one of the early pioneers of risk management for pension funds and in 2003 transacted the market's first LDI transaction with Friends Provident Pension Scheme, hedging out all of their interest rate and inflation exposure. He left Merrill Lynch in 2006 and, together with Robert Gardner, set up Redington to provide independent investment consulting to the pensions industry.

In 2009, Dawid set up Mallowstreet, an online social media platform, with the aim of bringing connectivity to the pensions industry. Mallowstreet now has 3,000 members including trustees of pension plans with over £1 trillion of assets.

The pensions issue is one of the greatest global challenges and Dawid is a passionate believer in innovation, the use of technology and wisdom of the crowd to find solutions. He always challenges the status quo, believing that, for the most part, we can do things better!

About TANC

TANC is a special interest group of Cass Business School and City University, which organises unique events of actuarial interest in slightly wider fields than actuarial professionals may typically have access to through their work. Although our events are aimed primarily at alumni, we also welcome friends and colleagues in joining our network of like-minded professionals.