Advisory Board
Brandon Diersch
Brandon Diersch oversees governance for Microsoft’s retirement plans across 105+ countries and manages its global financial wellbeing program, within the Total Rewards organization. Over his 20+ year tenure at Microsoft Corporation, he has extensive experience in finance and benefits including managing strategic investments and venture portfolios; managing passive and internal equity overlay strategies; overseeing external managers and private equity real estate investments; and trading equity derivatives. He is also a member of Microsoft’s 401(k) Advisory Committee, which supports the company’s plan fiduciaries in oversight of their $55B+ defined contribution plan. He is currently serving as President-Elect of the Plan Sponsor Council of America and a board member of the American Retirement Association. Additionally, Brandon is an experienced venture capital and private equity investor, has served as a Board Observer for a SaaS provider in the dental space, and led a syndicate for a Series A investment in a non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) startup. Brandon graduated with a Bachelor of Business Administration from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.oversees governance for Microsoft’s retirement plans across 105+ countries and manages its global financial wellbeing program, within the Total Rewards organization. Over his 20+ year tenure at Microsoft Corporation, he has extensive experience in finance and benefits including managing strategic investments and venture portfolios; managing passive and internal equity overlay strategies; overseeing external managers and private equity real estate investments; and trading equity derivatives. He is also a member of Microsoft’s 401(k) Advisory Committee, which supports the company’s plan fiduciaries in oversight of their $55B+ defined contribution plan. He is currently serving as President-Elect of the Plan Sponsor Council of America and a board member of the American Retirement Association. Additionally, Brandon is an experienced venture capital and private equity investor, has served as a Board Observer for a SaaS provider in the dental space, and led a syndicate for a Series A investment in a non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) startup. Brandon graduated with a Bachelor of Business Administration from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.
Jacqueline Curzon
Jacqueline Curzon is the Executive Director of Arkas International, the Geneva hub of a maritime transportation company operating ca. 100 container vessels in the Mediterranean Sea.
Jacqueline also acts as independent board member for a number of institutions. Since March 2022, she is the Vice-Chair of the Board of the Pension Fund of the State of Geneva (CPEG). She sits on the board of Clairfield International a leading M&A advisory firm for global mid-market transactions operating in over 26 countries and more recently was elected as the representative for the maritime sector to the board of the Fédération des Entreprises Romandes (FER) the umbrella employers’ and economic organization. Up until January 2022, she was Vice-Chair of the Board of Patrimonia Foundation and Chair of its Investment Committee.
Jacqueline also acts as Internal Control Officer for RAEX gmbh an ESMA regulated rating agency and the leading issuer of ESG ratings in the Former Soviet Union.
Jacqueline has an academic background in Finance (Wharton MBA, CFA charter now expired) and Law (Sorbonne and King’s College) and more recently was awarded an Advanced post-graduate Professional Diploma for Non-Executive Directors issued by the Financial Times. She has worked in Geneva since 2000
Pierre-Emmanuel Beun
Since 2014, he is a member of the Governing Board. In addition to that, he is the Vice President of the Legal and Technical Committee. Prior to that he held similar positions at the CIA pension fund.
Therese Gerber
Therese Gerber is a business economist, a graduate in banking/finance from Swiss Finance Institute of University in Zurich, in management of IMD in Lausanne (PED, OWP).
She started her professional activity at Credit Suisse’s Head office in Zurich. In 1987 she joined Private Bank Sarasin in Zurich to lead, build and develop the Swiss institutional business. In 1996 she joined the London based MAM/MLIM (from 2003 BlackRock) as their first Swiss Country Head building the Swiss organisation and the AM business with Swiss institutions. In 2002 she decided to multiply her experience and founded CONTAG in Zug. She is active to date as an independent management consultant, supporting other businesses also as member of their (advisory) board, as a coach and mentor.
Howie Li
Howie joined the investment manager as Head of ETFs following LGIM’s successful acquisition of the Canvas ETF business in March 2018 from ETF Securities. During his time there for almost 10 years, Howie held various roles including CEO of Canvas, Co-Head of Canvas ETFs and Head of Legal.
Howie trained and worked at Simmons & Simmons in London advising the alternative investment funds industry and is a qualified solicitor in England and Wales.
Marianne Piquerel
Marianne Piquerel joined Scientific Beta in 2016. She is responsible for Business Development and Sales Management in Continental Europe for Smart Beta, Climate Impact Consistent Indices, and Macro Indices offerings.
Previously, Marianne worked for more than 10 years as an Equity Derivative Salesperson (structured products, exotics & flow), covering France, BeNeLux and Portugal at Barclays Capital, Societe Generale CIB, and BNP Paribas Arbitrage.
She graduated from ESCP-Paris and Dauphine University where she majored in Finance.
Christophe Decor
Since January 2015 Christophe Decor is the CEO of the Caisse de Prévoyance de L’Etat de Genève. From 2011 to 2015, he was heading the insurance division of the pension fund. Prior to that, he held similar positions in management and service companies.
Christophe holds an Executive MBA from the Institute for Management and Development (IMD) and a Diploma of Biochemistry from the University of Geneva
Chris J. Battaglia
Chris J. Battaglia is President of the Global Fiduciary Symposium, Japan’s most important neutral and educational conference for corporate, public, and government pension and retirement systems that collectively manage more than USD $4 trillion. Mr. Battaglia has been actively involved in the Japan pension and asset communities since the early 2000s. He is also the Founder and CEO of Pareto Partners LLC, a company focused on providing media, marketing, and communication solutions to global institutional investors. With decades of experience working with investors and asset management companies, he launched Pareto Partners LLC.
Mr. Battaglia is also the retired president and publisher of Pensions & Investments, the leading global media organization serving institutional investors. During his tenure at P&I, Chris launched the first Japanese language news product and launched the Global Pension Symposium in Japan in 2007.
Mr. Battaglia has a passion for all things relating to investing and over his many years of experience in media and financial services, has been advising thousands of leading asset management companies, and asset owners (pension, retirement, insurance, corporate, family offices). He is especially focused on improving the outcomes for the “end-user”, or the ultimate beneficiary of the investment management process.
An experienced veteran of media, marketing, and financial information publishing, Chris has also served as Vice President, Associate Group Publisher of The Industry Standard, a start-up media company that made publishing history during the internet boom of the 1990s and early 2,000s and has held key executive and management positions with Yahoo Inc., Corporate Finance magazine and Investment Dealer’s Digest.
He began his career working on Wall Street in equity syndicate marketing at Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith after earning a bachelor’s degree from Ithaca College. Chris enjoys meeting investors in their home countries where his cultural dexterity and skills are always kept sharp and have led many discussions on the most important investment themes as a conference chair, panelist, and moderator in hundreds of conferences in North America, the UK, Europe, Africa (Nigeria), and Japan.