2023 Investment Conference
Geopolitical tensions and implications for investors
Recording of the 2023 conference
The 2023 Investment Conference took take place on 25 April at our Oslo office. Some speakers have requested not to be included in the recording.
The speakers in 2023
Gillian Tett
Gillian Tett is chair of the editorial board and Editor-at-Large, US for the Financial Times. She writes weekly columns, covering a range of economic, financial, political and social issues. Gillian co-founded Moral Money, the FT sustainability newsletter. She has been named Columnist of the Year (2014), Journalist of the Year (2009) and Business Journalist of the Year (2008) in the British Press Awards and received three awards from America's Society of Business and Economic Writers Awards. She is a best-selling author and received the Royal Anthropological Institute Marsh Award and the American Anthropological Association President Medal for her work in social science. Tett’s past roles at the FT include US managing editor, assistant editor, capital markets editor, deputy editor of the Lex column, Tokyo bureau chief, and reporter in Russia and Brussels.
Stanley Freeman Druckenmiller
Stanley Druckenmiller is an investor, hedge fund manager and philanthropist. He is former chairman and president of Duquesne Capital, which he founded in 1981. When he closed the fund in 2010 Duquesne Capital had over 12 billion dollars in assets. Duquesne posted an average annual return of 30 percent without any money-losing year. From 1988 to 2000, he managed money for George Soros as the lead portfolio manager for Quantum Fund. Stanley got his degree in economics from Bowdoin College. Druckenmiller then attended the University of Michigan for a graduate program in economics but dropped out after he was offered a position as an oil analyst for Pittsburgh National Bank. As a philanthropist, he is particularly involved in medical research, education and poverty.
Chris Miller
Chris Miller is Associate Professor of International History at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. His research focuses on technology, geopolitics, economics, international affairs, and Russia. He received his PhD and MA from Yale University and his BA in history from Harvard University. Chris Miller is the author of the Financial Times Business Book of the Year, Chip War. "a nonfiction thriller — equal parts ‘The China Syndrome’ and ‘Mission Impossible.’ ...The galloping momentum of Moore’s Law is a perfect engine for Miller’s thriller. If any book can make general audiences grok the silicon age — and finally recognize how it rivals the atomic age for drama and import — Chip War is it.” – The New York Times
Lord Hague
The Rt Hon Lord Hague of Richmond, William Hague, served for 26 years in the British House of Commons until he stood down in 2015. In that time, he served in many senior roles, including Leader of the House of Commons, but is best known as the Leader of the Conservative party, 1997-2001, and First Secretary of State and Foreign Secretary, 2010-2014. He now pursues a wide range of business and charitable activities, and is a well-known writer of historical biographies and as a columnist for The Times. In November 2020 Lord Hague became Chair of the Royal Foundation of The Prince and Princess of Wales. William Hague was educated at Wath-on-Dearne Comprehensive School and Magdalen College, Oxford where he studied philosophy, politics and economics. He was President of the Oxford Union. He continued his studies at INSEAD Business School in France.
Kai-Fu Lee
Dr. Kai-Fu Lee is the Chairman and CEO of Sinovation Ventures and President of Sinovation Venture’s Artificial Intelligence Institute. Sinovation Ventures, managing USD3 billion, is a leading venture capital firm focusing on developing the next generation deep tech companies in China. Prior to founding Sinovation in 2009, Dr. Lee was the President of Google China, and senior executives at Microsoft, SGI, and Apple. Dr. Lee received his bachelor’s degree in computer science from Columbia University, Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University, as well as Honorary Doctorate Degrees from both Carnegie Mellon and the City University of Hong Kong. Dr. Lee has been in artificial intelligence research, development, and investment for more than 30 years. His New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling book AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order discusses US-China co-leadership in the age of AI as well as the greater societal impacts brought upon by the AI technology revolution. His new co-authored book AI 2041 published in fall 2021 explores how artificial intelligence will change our world over the next twenty years.
Anita Nergaard
Ambassador Anita Nergaard assumed her position as Norway’s Permanent Representative to NATO in September 2022. Prior to her current position, she served as Ambassador of Norway to Singapore. From 2012 to 2017, she served as Deputy Permanent Representative of Norway to NATO. From 2010, she served as Director of Russia, Eurasia and Regional Cooperation in the High North and Arctic in the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and from 2008 as Director of Global Security Affairs and Eurasia. From 2005 to 2008 she served as Director of Security Policy, Crisis Management, and the US and Canada. Previously, she was posted to Ankara and NATO. Prior to entering the Foreign Service, Nergaard worked for the Central Bank of Norway on financial stability and asset management. She holds an MSc in Economics and Business Administration and a PhD Study Programme Degree in Economics from NHH - Norwegian School of Economics. Nergaard has assisted Government Commissions on financial stability, the sovereign wealth fund and geopolitics.
Ulf Sverdrup
Ulf Sverdrup is the Director of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI). Sverdrup recently led a government appointed commission on the long-term perspectives for the Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global (NOU 2022:12), and he was the Head of the Secretariat for the Official Norwegian Europe Review (NOU 2012:2). Sverdrup has published extensively on various topics in international politics, with a particular emphasis on European affairs and Norwegian foreign policy. He has been a Jean Monnet fellow at the European University Institute, a visiting scholar at the Mannheimer Zentrum für Europäische Sozialforschung, and a senior advisor at the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He has a doctoral degree in Political Science from the University of Oslo. He was a professor at the Norwegian Business School BI, and a research professor at ARENA, Centre for European Studies at the University of Oslo.
Kenneth Rogoff
Kenneth Rogoff is Maurits C. Boas Chair of International Economics at Harvard University. From 2001 to 2003, Rogoff served as Chief Economist at the International Monetary Fund. His widely-cited 2009 book with Carmen Reinhart, This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, shows the remarkable quantitative similarities across time and countries in the run-up and the aftermath of severe financial crises. Rogoff is also known for his seminal work on exchange rates and on central bank independence. Together with Maurice Obstfeld, he is co-author of Foundations of International Macroeconomics, a treatise that has become a widely-used graduate text in the field worldwide. Rogoff’s 2016 book The Curse of Cash looks at the past, present and future of currency from standardized coinage to crypto-currencies. His monthly syndicated column on global economic issues is published in over 50 countries. Rogoff is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Group of Thirty, and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Rogoff is among the top ten on RePEc’s ranking of economists by scholarly citations. He is also an international grandmaster of chess.
Øystein Olsen
Øystein Olsen is former Governor at Norges Bank (Norway’s central bank) serving from 2011 to 2022. Olsen came to the central bank from his previous rank as Managing Director of Statistics Norway (SSB). He has also previously worked in SSB as researcher, senior researcher, and head of the oil and energy group from 1977 to 1990. After a year in ECON, Center for Economic Analysis, Olsen returned to the SSB as research director in the years 1991 to 1994. From 1996 to 1999 he was appointed as research director and head of the research department in the same place. From 1999 until he became director of the SSB in 2005, he was deputy secretary in the Economics Department of the Norwegian Ministry of Finance. Øystein is cand.oecon from the University of Oslo. From 1993 to 1998 Olsen was professor II at Norwegian School of Management.
Bernard Looney
Bernard Looney is the Chief Executive Officer at BP. Bernard has spent his entire career at BP, joining as an engineer in 1991, and has held a number of operational and managerial positions in Alaska, the Gulf of Mexico, Vietnam and the UK North Sea. Bernard is leading BP’s transformation to an integrated energy company. He is an advocate for inclusion, mental health and the role that companies like BP can play in helping the world get to net zero. He is a steering committee member for the Council for Inclusive Capitalism, FCLTGlobal board member and leads the Energy Transition Taskforce of the Sustainable Markets Initiative. Bernard is a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Irish Academy of Engineering and the Energy Institute, and an ambassador for 25 x 25, an initiative to improve the gender balance among the leadership of FTSE companies. He has an honorary doctorate and a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from University College Dublin, and a master’s in management from Stanford Graduate School of Business. He also took the time to join our own Nicolai Tangen in the podcast In Good Company.
Ida Wolden Bache
Ida Wolden Bache is Norges Bank’s 12th Central Bank Governor. She was appointed in March 2022. Ida Wolden Bache started working at Norges Bank in 1998 as a research assistant. Since then, she has held the position as executive director in the Financial Stability Department, executive director in the Monetary Policy Department and Deputy Governor. From 2010 to 2013 she was a senior economist at Handelsbanken. Ida holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and Political Science, as well as a PhD in Economics from the University of Oslo.
Yngve Slyngstad
Yngve Slyngstad is Managing Partner of Industry Capital Partners (ICP), which he established with the Norwegian industrial investment company Aker ASA. Prior to founding ICP, Yngve served as Chief Executive Officer for the Government Pension Fund Global. During Yngve's leadership the fund grew from about 2,000 billion Norwegian kroner to 10,000 billion Norwegian kroner. He joined the fund in 1998 as Head of Equities. Yngve holds a Master’s degrees from University of Oslo (Law), NHH (Economics and Business Administration), University of California Santa Barbara (Economics) and University of Paris Sorbonne (Politics).