Ethics in Finance - Robin Cosgrove Prize

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Launch of the 2010 - 2011 Ethics in Finance - Robin Cosgrove Prize, Global Edition

The third edition of the global Prize was launched on April 20th 2010 at Barclays Bank global corporate headquarters in London.

Chris Lucas, Barclays Bank Group finance director announced the launch of the Prize.

Other speakers included Philippa Foster-Back, director of the London Institute of Business Ethics, John Plender of the London Financial Times and Carol Cosgrove-Sacks of the Robin Cosgrove Prize.

The event was included in the Barclays Sustainability Day. A reception followed the launch ceremony.

Launch of the 2010 - 2011 Ethics in Finance - Robin Cosgrove Prize, Ibero-American Edition

The second edition of the Ibero-American Prize was launched on May 6th 2010 in Madrid. It was hosted by the MAPFRE Foundation.

Speakers included Juan José Toribio, Director of IESE (Madrid); Paul Dembinski, Director of the Observatoire de la Finance (Geneva); Leire San José, Professor of the University of Pais Vasco and the winners of the first edition; and Domingo Sugranyes and Juan José Almagro from MAPFRE.

The ceremony was part of an ethics in finance day organized by the MAPFRE foundation and was followed by a reception.

Award Ceremony 2009

Mr David Hiler, Chancellor of the State of Geneva and Minister of Finance, welcomed the winners of the 2009 global Prize and the first Ibero-American regional Prize: Geoffrey See, Leire San-José, David Sifah, Meredith Benton, Marie Crépin, Elise Pellerin, and Felippe Araujo.

The anonymous evaluation of the papers submitted for the Prizes resulted in a wonderful diversity of winners.

For details : please see the History section.

What difference winning the Prize made to me

Some comments from previous Prize winners

Clare Payne, winner, 2007

Clare Payne works for Macquarie Bank in Sydney, Australia. Since winning the Prize, she has been promoted in Macquarie Bank asd is now Head of the Integrity Office,focusing on compliance issues. She sees the Prize as a major step in her career. Clare has published articles via the St James Ethics Centre , which is one of the most well-known groups supporting "ethics good practice" in the world.
The first two articles are on the following topics:
- Do banks do good things?
- The ethics of down-sizing in the Banking and Finance Industry.

Clare was not able to be at the 2010 London launch due to the ash cloud, but she sent us this video.

Elise Pellerin, winner, 2009

Elise decided to participate in the competition for the Second Edition of the Robin Cosgrove Prize because she thought that it would be a fascinating intellectual challenge, and because she admired the jury’s members profiles. Winning the Prize has meant a lot for her status as an Ethics Analyst at Ethea Gestion, a French investment management enterprise, specialising in "values based" investing.

Marie Crepin, winner 2009

Marie also works at Ethiea Gestion in its commercial development, particularly concerning investment of funds from the religious congregations. Marie decided to participate in the Second Edition of the Robin Cosgrove Prize because she thought that the victory could have positive consequences for her company and would give her greater recognition in the new career area of "ethical investing".

Geoffrey K See, winner 2009

Concerning his victory at the Robin Cosgrove Prize, Geoffrey said “I chose to study how internationalization, institutions and individuals all contribute to a system of ethics as I believe that institutions and individuals are both important units of analysis in understanding why ethical finance fails. At the same time, the international dimension of financial firms also redefines what is ethical, and I wanted to link it up with the intra-country analysis.” For Geoffrey, winning the Prize has opened doors for new opportunities and enabled him to publish an article on ethical investing in the Journal of Business Ethics and to help set up the Network for Sustainable Financial Management (http://www.sustainablefinancialmarkets.net/)

Meredith Benton, second prize winner, 2009

Meredith commented “I was personally and professionally interested in how or why people
prioritize or lower their personal values or morals in the workplace. While I had never studies psychology, the Prize incentivized me to look into this topic in a more structured way.” She has completed her MBA at INSEAD and now seeks employment in fund management in London or New York.