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.

Simone Heinemann, Third Prize 2011

During the last three years of my PhD project, I benefited a lot from the Robin Cosgrove Prize. It has provided me with the chance to come into contact with a lot of people working on ethics in finance. Several articles in the local press reported on the prize and me and the director of the university of Bochum congratulated me on the prize. I received several comments on my article published in "Finance&the Common Good" which helped me a lot and motivated me to continue with my dissertation. Considering that, I would like to thank you again and everybody who contributed to the prize! I will now prepare a new postdoc project - probably it will deal with economic/financial ethics - there is lot of work to do in this field...

David Sifah, Specially Commended paper, 2009

Working in Barclays Bank in Accra, David commented that being among the prizewinners has brought him great recognition. Barclays Bank paid for him to travel to Geneva and participate in the Prize Ceremony, giving him a wonderful opportunity to get to know Geneva as a financial centre. As David said, “I entered this competition because I feel there was a lot of me and of my ideas which was yearning to come out. I wanted that a vast auditorium could be able to hear my contribution concerning ethics and finance; I also loved very much the research work and the idea of a competition for the best works.”

Leire San Jose, winner, Latin American  prize, 2009

About her victory Leire said “Thanks to this prize I had more confidence in the importance of my work in promoting the ethical dimension of finance from a theoretical point of view, and in the Traesury management in a practical one. I hope  that this prize helps us to reflect on the applications and the improvement of different tecniques and instruments to run a Treasury based on mutual confiance and collaboration.”

Felipe Araujo, second prize winner, Latin American prize 2009

At the margin of the award ceremony Felipe said “Having won one of the awards, I believe I will be able to market myself better in the Finance job hunting field. First because I now have an international, respected recognition of my ability to analyze, and make recommendations on, the current financial sector. Second, because the award theme in itself will make a strong argument for my personal ethical standards.”

Jonathan Weisbrod, winner, 2007

Jonathan is based in Singapore, where he  has gone on to be a partner in VILLARI, a boutique finance house there.  Jonathan is a capital markets attorney  and a specialist in socially responisble investment consultancy.  He is a past winner of the Robin Cosgrove Prize for Ethics in Finance for his proposals in the field of socially responsible investing.

To quote Jonathan, "As a direct result of the quantitiative investment method that I developed for my Robin Cosgrove Prize paper, a business student who interned with VILLARI  has developed a rules-based investment portfolio based on risk-adjusted return and social impact ratings.  He applied my model to 100 companies in the Forbes 500 and we are exploring (albeit in an extremely preliminary manner at this point) the possibility of launching such a rules-based portfolio as a retail investment, most likely an exchange traded fund, or ETF.  That is in the very, very preliminary stages (an ETF requires significant investor capital to be viable) but it could get exciting in the medium term. "


Rania Mousa, special "micro finance prize" winner, 2007

Based in the Gulf, Rania works in accountancy. To quote her: "Accepting that the  Robin Cosgrove Prize intended to brainstorm new innovative ideas to promote ethics in finance, it  has been a rewarding experience. On a personal level, this award helped me figure out that there is nothing more important than striving to be a good human being. A human being who is truly passionate to contribute to the welfare of those who are poor, disadvantaged and underprivileged around the world; those who have been under served by greedy economic systems that did not appropriately protect the welfare of poor citizens. Therefore, to be awarded this prize for my essay on the experience of Grameen Bank and its effect on saving the lives of thousand women in Bangladesh is to feel acknowledged as the one of the first winners of Robin Cosgrove Prize during its successful launch in year 2007. "