Meet the team

Christian Racicot is the founder and CEO of the Institutional Investors Roundtable (IIR) >>, where he also sits on the Board of Directors. Created in 2011, the IIR is a not-for-profit, independent, apolitical and by-invitation-only platform for the world’s leading global asset owners (mainly pension plans and sovereign wealth funds) to identify and collaborate on private market investment opportunities and challenges of long-term strategic importance for them. As of October 2019, the IIR comprised over 45 asset owners with collective assets exceeding US $13 trillion, representing (according to Prof. Ashby Monk, Executive Director of the Stanford Research Initiative on Long Term Investing) over 75% of the institutional capital available for long-term investment in the world.

He is also the founding CEO of the Long Term Investment Organization (“LTIO”) >>, a not-for-profit, independent and apolitical organization created on the initiative of the IIR whose mission is to foster collaboration among global asset owners, national governments, philanthropic organizations and other non-commercial organizations around investment strategies essential to long-term sustainable economic development that require the support of large-scale, long-term capital.

Prior to establishing the IIR and LTIO, Christian was a partner at BCF LLP, a leading law firm based in Montreal and Quebec City of which he founded the Quebec City branch in 2001, and where he was specializing in commercial and corporate law.

Christian received a Bachelor of Laws from Laval University (Quebec) in 1983 and was admitted to the Bar of the province of Quebec in 1985. He also received a Master in Business Administration (MBA) from the Richard Ivey School of Business (University of Western Ontario, Canada) in 1989.

Dr. Ashby Monk is currently a Senior Research Engineer, School of Engineering at Stanford University and holds the position of Executive Director of the Stanford Research Initiative on Long-Term Investing.

Ashby has more than 20 years of experience studying and advising investment organizations. He has authored multiple books and published 100s of research papers on institutional investing. His latest book, The Technologized Investor, won the 2021 Silver Medal from the Axiom Business Book Awards in the Business Technology category.

Outside of academia, Ashby is the Head of Research at Addepar and serves on the firm’s leadership team. He has co-founded several companies that help investors make better investment decisions, including Real Capital Innovation (acquired by Addepar), FutureProof, NetPurpose, D.A.T.A., ThirdAct, SheltonAI and Long Game Savings. He is also a member of the CFA Institute’s Future of Finance Advisory Council and was named by CIO Magazine as one of the most influential academics in the institutional investing world.

He received his Doctorate in Economic Geography at the University of Oxford, holds a Master’s in International Economics from the Université de Paris I – Pantheon Sorbonne, and  has a Bachelor’s in Economics from Princeton University.

Gilles Duruflé is presently Content Director; Head of Climate Change Initiative for the Institutional Investors Roundtable (IIR). He was until 2019 Executive Vice President of the QCC and President of the TIP Ecosystem Building Forum (formerly Public Policy Forum on Venture Capital and Innovation). He was until 2004 Senior Partner at CDP Capital Technology Ventures, the venture capital subsidiary of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, in charge of the Funds of Funds portfolio, investing in North American and European VC funds. He was previously Head of strategic studies at the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec. From 1979 to 1991, he worked as Senior Partner in strategic consulting firms in the CDC Group (Caisse des dépôts et consignations, Paris) in Africa, Europe and North America. He sits on the Board of the Quebec City Conference. Dr Duruflé obtained his Masters in Philosophy from the CERP (Paris), his Ph.D. in Mathematics from the Paris VI University and the Diploma of the Centre d’Études des Programmes Économiques (Ministry of Finance, Paris). He is a CFA and has published numerous books and articles on various subjects related to economics and finance.

Gordon, based in Switzerland, is a Content Director for the Institutional Investors Roundtable and the FIRCAP. He has extensive experience in the financial services industry, with a focus on corporate and investment governance. Most recently, he was CEO of the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors (ACSI), based in Melbourne. ACSI provides governance research and ownership services to Australian and international pension funds managing more than $1.8 trillion on behalf of 18 million fund members. Prior to leading ACSI, Gordon was Head of ESG Risk Management at the Future Fund, the Australian Government’s $160 billion sovereign wealth fund. His other experiences include working for the United Nations Environment Programme in Geneva, where he played a key role in creating the UN-backed Principles for Responsible Investment. Gordon was also employed as an investment consultant in Zurich, and as an investment banking analyst with Greenhill & Co. in London. In addition to his executive roles, Gordon is a member of the board of the Australian Government’s Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre. He holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in geophysics from the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom.

Mr. Uday Khemka is Vice-chairman of the SUN Group of Companies, a diversified family-owned, investment and industrial group headquartered in India with activities in varied emerging markets in the natural resource, energy, real estate, electronics and investment management sectors. Prior to the SUN Group, Uday worked at Credit Suisse First Boston and Morgan Stanley in London and New York and then established and headed up Morgan Stanley’s activities in India. Uday has been on the boards of all SUN Group companies and has been responsible for the establishment of the investment management activities of the group. Mr Khemka currently leads the SUN Group’s activities in the new energy and transportation sectors which today include initiatives in electric mobility, EV infrastructure, solar energy, energy storage and clean tech investment themes.

Uday also co-chairs the Nand and Jeet Khemka Foundation which focusses on a variety of developmental themes including education, public health and governance. In 1992, at COP1 in Rio, he established the Foundation’s climate change mitigation and renewable energy policy initiative, making the foundation one of the earliest Indian philanthropic organisations to concentrate on this area. In this capacity he has led the foundation’s specific focus on policy to help catalyse large scale institutional investment into renewable energy in the emerging markets, an area that has included the foundation’s role as the principal financial sponsor in the inception of the Prince of Wales’ P8 group as well as the foundation’s initiatives in this area in the context of the COP process.

In continuance of this focus, Uday co-chaired the Clean Energy Finance Forum (CEFF) jointly established by Prime Minister Modi and President Obama to catalyse investment towards India’s 175 GW clean energy target for 2022.

Uday is on the Board of Governors of the Indian School of Business, the Public Health Foundation of India and of the Climate Group in India and has been elected a Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Educated at Eton College and Cambridge University, Uday received an MBA with distinction from Harvard Business School (Baker Scholar).

Impact-driven global executive, board advisor and business angel with focus on net-zero transformation in mobility and energy industries. Built deep experience in multi-stakeholder (public-private; across entire value chain) dialogue in eight years as Member of Executive Committee/Head of Mobility & Transport Platform of World Economic Forum and Managing Director of the European Climate Foundation. Created impactful initiatives anticipating and capturing global change, such as “Clean Skies of Tomorrow” or the “Circular Car Initiative”.

As a growth minded leader, a serial track record in building and inspiring global teams across geographies and divisions. In all major career positions – from McKinsey to DB Schenker, European Climate Foundation to World Economic Forum, proven ability to grow the business by a factor of at least three.

As Chemical Engineer and Economist/MBA, deep expertise on “Climate Technologies/Infrastructure” incl. batteries, hydrogen, carbon removal, nature-based solutions and the role of finance in making the transition happen. Long track record in Asia, in particular India and China, also South East Asia and Middle East.

Sixteen years at McKinsey & Co. as Senior Partner and Global Head of Travel & Logistics Practice and subsequent CEO and Executive Board positions at DB Schenker Rail, Solar Millennium/Ferrostaal and ABB/Novatec laid the base for global leadership roles. Deep expertise in “Innovative Business Models and Digitization” e.g. through “Mobility as a Service (Maas)” through Commercial Fleets, Autonomous Vehicles, Micromobility, Data-driven Business models for Clean Air and Road Safety, Smart Cities or “Urban Air Mobility”/”Drone-enabled Medicine from the Sky”. Key interest is Global Supply/Value Chain resilience in the age of geopolitical tensions, pandemics and digitization. Innovative business models are the focus of a range of Board/Investor roles in start ups such as Nuventura, Cleanmax Solar, MoEVing, Fahrenheit, Ampard etc.. “Innovative business models and digitization” are also in the center of assignments as Professor at the Universities of St. Gallen, Cologne and now University of California at Davis, teaching and researching “Future of Mobility”.

Divyata’s main interest is around innovation in energy and decarbonisation, with a focus towards building an equitable global energy transition.

Divyata has spent her international career in New York, Hong Kong, London and Singapore in leadership roles across transactional and fiduciary businesses. Previously Divyata was Chief Operating Officer for the Merchant Banking Division International, the alternatives investment business, at Goldman Sachs based in London. Prior to this, Divyata was based in Singapore and led the Goldman Sachs Asset Management franchise across the region, including India.

Divyata is a Trustee of a leading think tank, Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). Divyata is also a Trustee and Founder of Plaksha University, a newly established university in India that re-imagines the education of Science and Technology, with a vision to nurture world-class entrepreneurs and leaders to solve large challenges. She also serves on the Board of Skoll award winning Digital Divide Data.