Edward Baker

Advisor at Tipping Frontier

Speaker

Edward Baker has enjoyed a 40 plus year career in the investment management business, with a focus on quantitative approaches to investing, risk modelling and management, corporate governance, ESG investing, and emerging markets. He is currently an advisor to climate change and extreme risk modelling firm Tipping Frontier; where the mission is to help companies and government entities assess the potential costs from both the direct and indirect impacts of extreme risks, particularly climate related risks.

From October 2018 until April 2023 Mr. Baker was Senior Managing Director, Currency Management for Chicago-based financial services firm Mesirow Financial, in their London office. Mr. Baker joined London-based The Cambridge Strategy in September 2007 as Executive Chairman and a member of their board of directors. He played a significant operating role in growing The Cambridge Strategy into a successful, absolute return strategy business, focused on currency strategies, with AUM's exceeding $2billion at their peak. In October 2018 he joined Mesirow and helped engineer an asset purchase and team lift-out of The Cambridge Strategy, and continued his focus on currency alpha strategies, risk management and research at Mesirow. He left Mesirow in April 2023. While at Mesirow he conducted some of the first research identifying a direct connection between country level ESG characteristics and exchange rate movements.

Until 2007, Mr. Baker was the Chief Investment Officer of Emerging Markets Growth Equities at AllianceBernstein in London, having joined the firm in 1995, then Alliance Capital. During his tenure at Alliance, he served as CIO of their Emerging Markets Growth Equity business and as CEO of their London office. He pioneered the development of one of the first models of corporate governance in emerging markets and the AUM's of the emerging markets strategy based on this model reached capacity, at $10billion in AUM's, by the time of his departure.

Prior to joining Alliance, Mr. Baker worked for Barra Inc., an investment technology firm. He joined Barra in 1978 as an early founding member, initially working in a research capacity. He later assumed responsibility for business development and became Director of Marketing in 1986. Barra was a pioneer in risk management modelling and technology, having developed the financial industry's first fundamental multiple factor equity models.

He has been active with industry associations and not-for-profits and served as Chairman of the Working Group on Corporate Governance and Transparency for the Institute of International Finance, where he was responsible for developing a Code of Corporate Governance for emerging market countries. He has been a Trustee for the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute for over 15 years, having served as Chairman of the Board, and is currently chair of their Investment Committee. In conjunction with the Investments & Wealth Institute, he founded the Journal of Investment Consulting in 1998 as Editor in Chief and continues as a member of its editorial advisory board.

Mr. Baker earned an MS degree in mathematics from the University of California at Berkeley, where he was a Regents Fellow and was subsequently advanced to candidacy for a PhD in mathematics, receiving an ABD. He also completed coursework in the University of California’s PhD program in finance. He is the recipient of the 2023 IWI Investment Consulting Impact Award, recognising his 40+ years contribution to the investment consulting industry. He has published a notable range of research papers in practitioner journals over his career, with an emphasis on ESG related and risk management topics.