Apfi adds to leadership team, to create advisory board
The Association of Professional Fund Investors has added lead members representing South African and US markets, a UK adviser, and is to create an advisory board, as it continues to build its membership and global presence representing the professional fund investor community.
Riad Daniels has joined as Apfi lead, South Africa Chapter and Africa and Middle East representative. Currently at GTC Capital, where he is responsible for portfolio strategy, asset allocation, portfolio management as well as investment consulting, Daniels started his 20-year career as an investment analyst at Old Mutual. From there he subsequently worked as a quantitative analyst at Investec Asset Management and Coronation Fund Managers, and at Riyad Capital in Saudi Arabia as portfolio manager responsible for third party asset manager research, managing conventional and Sharia fund of funds, the manager’s Gulf fund and institutional global mandates.
On returning to South Africa, Daniels joined Acsis as a consultant to develop the investment process, and thereafter joined Sanlam Multi Manager International as a portfolio manager heading their global research capability.
Adam Choppin has joined as Apfi lead, United States representative. Currently a global equity analyst at FIS Group, where he is the primary analysts for emerging market and frontier market strategies for both manager research and investment strategy teams, Choppin previously founded and ran a boutique advisory firm, advising on private investments in South America, Africa and the Middle East. Before that, he worked for US government agencies, including as a trade and economic affairs liaison in Iraq, Afghanistan, Cape Verde, Sierra Leone, Ghana and Mozambique. In 2008 he organised the first official US government trade mission to Iraq in over 25 years.
Bev Shah has joined as Apfi adviser in the UK. The founder and CEO of City Hive, the only professional network dedicated to to women at all levels of asset and investment management, she previously spent some 15 years in the City of London working with financial institutions including Aviva, Aviva Investors, Merchant Securities (now part of Sanlam UK), HSBC, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers. With extensive multi-asset and multi-manager investment and governance experience, both as a portfolio manager and research analyst, she brings a 360-degree insight into the industry, also having worked in multiple areas including platform, asset manager and private client investment manager roles.
JB Beckett, UK director of Apfi (below left), said: “This is an exciting period for the Apfi; by expanding the leadership team we can both reach into new markets and address key issues such as diversity. The role of the local leads are to build communities of professional fund investors and engage the industry on key topics. We welcome Riad, Adam and Bev to the team. We continue to look for local leads in key markets such as Europe and Asia and hope to build our advisory board over the coming months.”
Other directors of Apfi currently include Mussie Kidane (below middle), co-founder and Swiss and Benelux representative, who is head of fund selection at Pictet & Cie, where he also runs a $1.5bn absolute return fund of funds; and Jauri Häkkä (below right), Nordic representative, who founded Widhaby Advisors after most recently spending a decade in fund selection at Nordea Asset Management in Stockholm.
For further information on Apfi, visit http://profundinvestors.com/
