Annual Nordic Investor Forum

Elena Manola-Bonthond

Chief Investment Officer; Chair SBAI Committee , CERN Pension Fund

Elena Manola-Bonthond, PhD, MBA, is Chief Investment Officer of the Pension Fund of CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, based in Geneva, Switzerland. The Fund manages approximately 4 billion Swiss francs in assets, both internally and externally. Elena has played an instrumental role in defining and implementing an investment governance framework optimised for dynamic risk management.

Before joining the CERN Pension Fund, Elena worked in CERN's science sector where she was responsible for the safety and risk management system of CERN's flagship installation, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Before that, she worked as a research physicist at CERN.

Elena holds a PhD in particle physics from the University of Savoie, France, and CERN, and an MBA in international management from the University of Geneva, Switzerland. Furthermore, she is a CAIA charterholder.

Ilkka Harju

Director, Tax Department, Finnish Ministry of Finance

Ilkka Harju graduated with a Master of Laws degree from the University of Helsinki in 1987 and joined the Ministry of Finance in 1992. He served almost 20 years (1998-2017) as an advisor to the director general and a member of the management group of the financial markets department and a deputy member of the board of the Financial Supervision Authority (1993-2008) and the board of Insurance Supervision Authority (1999-2008).

From March 2009 to September 2017 he was a Finnish member in the European Securities Committee (ESC) within the EC (DG FISMA). He was a member of an expert group on removing tax obstacles to cross-border venture capital investments (2008-2010). During the 1999 Finnish EU Presidency he was Council working group chairman in charge of the UCITS III Directive negotiations and was also the Finnish delegate in Council negotiations on various financial services directives and regulations. Since October 2017 he has mainly focused on tax issues with regard to financial services.

Stuart Fiertz

Co-Founder, President and Head of Responsible Investment , Cheyne Capital

Stuart Fiertz is the Co-Founder, President and Head of Responsible Investment of Cheyne Capital. From 1991 to June 2000, and prior to establishing Cheyne Capital, Stuart worked for Morgan Stanley where he was responsible for the development and implementation of customised portfolio strategies and for credit research in the convertible bond management practice. 

Prior to joining Morgan Stanley, Stuart was an equity research analyst for the Value Line Investment Survey, and a high yield credit analyst in Boston at Merrill Lynch and in New York at Lehman Brothers.  Stuart is a CFA® charterholder and a CAIA designee. He is chairman of the Alternative Credit Council (ACC) and a Founder & Trustee of the Standards Board for Alternative Investments (SBAI). From 2014 until 2020, Stuart was also a council director of the Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA) board. Stuart has been awarded the CFA Certificate in ESG Investing.

Stuart was educated at the International School of Geneva and at Dartmouth College where he was awarded a BA degree in Political Science and Economics.

Thomas Deinet

Executive Director, SBAI

Thomas Deinet was appointed Executive Director of the SBAI (previously known as the HFSB) in 2008. In 2007, Thomas joined the working group to project manage the development of practice standards proposed by 14 leading international alternative investment managers that led to the establishment of the SBAI.

Prior to joining the SBAI, he was a senior manager at Oliver Wyman, where he extensively worked with major financial institutions in Europe covering asset management as well as corporate and investment banking. Thomas also worked as an analyst in energy trading for a major commodities trading firm.

Thomas is a graduate of the University of Karlsruhe, Germany, with a major in industrial engineering and holds an MSc from Purdue University, USA. Thomas is a CFA charterholder.