Nassim Taleb confirmed to speak at the UNEP FI Global Roundtable

kristyReforming Global Finance

GENEVA, 18 March 2011 – Nassim Nicholas Taleb, philosopher, essayist, statistician, and bestselling author (The Black Swan, Fooled by Randomness) will be a keynote speaker at the UNEP FI Global Roundtable in Washington, DC. He will address the participants at the opening conference plenary, titled: Systems, Stability and Sustainability. The panel will explore the benefits for investors and financiers arising from the use of better quality and wider “lenses” that give greater depth, breadth and granularity to their understanding of a wider range of risks, as well as employment of ‘clocks’ which heighten their appreciation of the temporal nature of risks.

Nassim N. Taleb focuses on the role of the high-impact rare events (“Black Swan”) – across philosophy, economics, finance, engineering, cognitive science, and history. His current program is to design ways to live in a world we don’t quite understand and help “robustify” the world against Black Swan Events. Taleb is, among other books and research papers, the author of the NYT Bestseller The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. His books have more than three million copies in print in 32 languages. After spending twenty years as a derivatives trader, Taleb is currently Distinguished Professor of Risk Engineering at New York University Polytechnic Institute.

Nassim Taleb is the first keynote speaker to confirm his presence at the UNEP FI Global Roundtable, which will take place on 19-20th October 2011 in Washington. The Global Roundtable is a high-profile event, serving as a key platform for the financial sector to engage with UNEP FI Signatories, partner organizations, government, and broader stakeholders.

Bringing together around 600 industry leaders and policymakers just a few months ahead of the landmark United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD), scheduled for June 2012, the Roundtable will deliver an inspiring, agenda-setting programme. Building on previous successes in Cape Town, Melbourne, New York, Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro and Frankfurt, the forthcoming UNEP FI Global Roundtable in Washington will be a perfect opportunity to set the plan for action on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues for the financial services and investment sector.

REGISTER NOW: http://www.unepfi.org/events/2011/roundtable/register

MORE INFORMATION: http://www.unepfi.org/washington