Tina Fordham: How I Made Bankers Care About Politics

On Wednesday 29th April, the OFS is honoured to be video-hosting Tina Fordham, world-leading political analyst who revolutionised the world of finance. Starting her career in the man-dominated banking of early 2000s, she began to teach bankers and investors about the crucial importance of assessing political risk in the financial world. After 20 years of advising the top management of Citigroup, the United Nations or British Prime Ministers, Tina is among the world's greatest experts on the crucial intersection between finance and politics. Today, she is a partner at Avonhurst, helping leading institutions protect billion-dollar investments. Still, she is perhaps most recognisable for her appearances on the likes of the BBC and Bloomberg as a commentator on international affairs. We could hardly hope to find a better expert to help us understand the vast financial and economic consequences of the current pandemic!

With a rich career encompassing work for institutions as varied as the United Nations and Citigroup, Fordham likely represents one of the most interesting people in the world of finance. A California-native, she is a world-leader in the study of political risk. Starting out in the US, she established Wall Street’s first index on the topic whilst working for Eurasia Group, where she was also responsible for setting up its financial markets research business. She went on to serve as Citigroup’s Chief Global Political Analyst for 17 years, the first position of its kind at any major financial institution; indeed, such work has seen her recognised as one of the ‘Top 100 Most Influential Women in European Finance’ by the Financial News on five separate occasion. Not content with merely shaping the way the private sector dealt with her specialist topic, Fordham’s expertise in the sector ultimately saw her recruited to serve as a Senior Advisor to Tony Blair’s Strategy Unit in Downing Street, working with the government on ‘countries at risk of instability’.

Beyond the realm of finance, Fordham is an influential figure in a number of positions at academic and non-governmental institutions. Alongside Christine Lagarde, she was appointed by UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon to the first-ever UN High-Level Panel on Women’s Economic Empowerment. Moreover, as one of the world’s foremost experts on political risk, she also serves as an Advisory Board Member to the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, as well as Carnegie Europe, an independent think tank dedicated to promoting international peace. For those with an interest in the interplay between politics and the world of finance – or who simply want to catch one of the experts that the British people have so famously “had enough of” – be sure to tune it for what will surely be a fascinating discussion.