This year’s Annual Conference will be held on Monday 13 October, kindly hosted by Bloomberg LP in their offices at 3 Queen Victoria Street, London, EC4N 4TQ.

Our event will be chaired by Stephanie Flanders, Head of Bloomberg Economics, and will feature a powerhouse lineup of speakers, including:

• Megan Greene, External Member, Monetary Policy Committee, Bank of England
• Jamie Rush, Director of Global Economics, Bloomberg
• Sir Ivan Rogers, former UK G8, G20 and EU Sherpa and former UK Permanent Secretary to the EU
• Neil Shearing, Group Chief Economist, Capital Economics
• Jennifer Welch, Chief Geoeconomics Analyst, Bloomberg Economics
• Michael Pollitt, Prof of Business Economics, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge
• Rachel Fletcher, Director of Regulation and Economics, Octopus Energy
• Ken Egan, Senior Director, KBRA
• Jason Furman, Aetna Professor of the Practice of Economic Policy, Harvard University
• Rupert Harrison, Senior Advisor, PIMCO
• Lorenzo Codogno, Founder, LC Macro Advisors and Visiting Professor, London School of Economics

With economics at a turning point, our leading experts will discuss policy, markets and global dynamics.

Registration is from 11.30 with the conference starting at 12.00pm. Networking drinks will follow the close of conference.

This conference is FREE to attend for SPE members and tickets will be given on a first-come first-served basis. Non-members wishing to attend can do so if they join the Society, for further info please click here or email us on admin@spe.org.uk.

Programme:

11.30   Registration

12.00  Welcome address
             George Buckley, Chair, SPE and Stephanie Flanders, Bloomberg

12.05   Opening keynote address: Monetary policy under uncertainty
             Megan Greene, Member, Monetary Policy Committee, Bank of England

12.45   The past, present and future of the natural rate of interest
             Jamie Rush, Bloomberg

13.00    Lunch

13.45   The threat of geopolitics
             Sir Ivan Rogers, former UK G8, G20 & EU Sherpa & former UK Permanent Secretary to the EU
             Neil Shearing, Capital Economics
             Jennifer Welch, Bloomberg Economics

14.30   Switching lanes – time for a change in utilities regulation? 
            Professor Michael Pollitt, University of Cambridge
            Rachel Fletcher, Octopus Energy

15.15   Tea 

15.45   Going off-road: is government debt too high?
             Ken Egan, Senior Director, Sovereigns, KBRA
             Jason Furman, Aetna Professor, Harvard University
             Rupert Harrison, Senior Advisor, PIMCO 

16.30   European renaissance or stuck in the mud?
             Lorenzo Codogno, Founder, LC Macro Advisors

17.15   Closing remarks    
             George Buckley, Chair of the SPE and Stephanie Flanders, Bloomberg

17.20    Drinks reception

18.00   Close of event

Meet the Speakers:

George Buckley is Chair of the Society of Professional Economists and Nomura’s Chief European/UK Economist. He has twenty five years of experience as a market economist previously working for Deutsche Bank, London, in a similar role. Prior to that George completed his PhD in the area of housing market economics at Bristol University where he also taught undergraduate courses in macroeconomics.

Stephanie Flanders has been Senior Executive Editor for Economics at Bloomberg News and head of Bloomberg Economics since October 2017. She was previously Chief Market Strategist for Europe at J P Morgan Asset Management in London (2013-17) and BBC Economics Editor (2008-13).  She served in the second Clinton Administration as speech writer and senior advisor to US Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers (1997-2001).

Megan Greene, External member of the Monetary Policy Committee, was appointed to the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England on 5 July 2023 for a three-year term. Ms Greene is a Senior Fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University and also teaches at London Business School. She serves on the Academic Advisory Committee at the San Francisco Federal Reserve and is a Senior Fellow in Global Macroeconomics at Chatham House. Ms Greene is an advisory board member of Rebuilding Macroeconomics and Econofact and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Bretton Woods Committee. Prior to her appointment, Ms Greene was the Global Chief Economist at Kroll, a business services and risk mitigation firm. She was also a Contributing Editor and regular columnist at the Financial Times, writing on global macroeconomics and policy. In addition, she served on the International Advisory Committee of the board of the Hong Kong stock exchange.

Jamie Rush is Director of Global Economics at Bloomberg in London. He was Chief European Economist (2015-2025) and has worked at the British Treasury, the New Zealand Treasury and the UK Office for Budget Responsibility. He is co-author of “The Price of Money” a guide to the past, present and future of the natural rate of interest.

Sir Ivan Rogers is a former British civil servant and current member of the Council at the European Council of Foreign Relations (ECFR). From 2013 to 2017, he was the UK’s Permanent Representative to the EU. In this position, he was the UK’s most senior negotiator with other Member States and the European institutions. Ivan is a well-regarded speaker and commentator on BREXIT and the implications for both the UK and the EU.

Neil Shearing is Group Chief Economist at Capital Economics and author of ‘The Fractured Age: How the Return of Geopolitics Will Splinter the Global Economy’.  Prior to becoming Group Chief Economist, Neil was Chief Emerging Markets Economist at Capital Economics, managing a team that frequently won awards for forecast accuracy. He also managed its New York office. Neil joined Capital Economics from HM Treasury where he worked as an Economic Adviser in various areas, including fiscal policy and global economics.

Jennifer Welch is the Chief Geoeconomics Analyst for Bloomberg Economics. She previously served as the director for China and Taiwan on the US National Security Council under the Biden and Trump Administrations, and as the advisor to Vice Presidents Harris and Pence on Asia and the Pacific. She is based in Washington, D.C.

Ken Egan leads KBRA’s sovereign credit ratings and macroeconomic analysis across Europe. He is a sovereign debt expert with a focus on fiscal sustainability, structural reform resilience, and geopolitical risk. Ken previously worked at the Central Bank of Ireland, specialising in monetary policy implementation, liquidity operations, and quantitative easing (QE).

Michael Pollitt is Professor of Business Economics at the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge. Michael is an Assistant Director of Energy Policy Research Group (EPRG) at the University of Cambridge and an honorary director of the Centre for Regulation in Europe (CERRE) in Brussels. Michael was elected Vice President for Publications of International Association for Energy Economics (IAEE) for 2020-23 and has advised regulatory agencies and governments around the world on utility regulation.

Rachel Fletcher joined Octopus Energy as Director for Regulation and Economics in April 2021, having been Ofwat’s Chief Executive for three years. There she worked to strengthen the water industry’s focus on its public purpose, to increase its effectiveness in improving the environment and to lay the foundations for investment in regional transfers required to meet the country’s future water requirements. She was a Senior Director and a Board member of Ofgem for many years, leading work on smart grids, wholesale market improvements and the shift to principle based retail regulation. Rachel started her career in utilities as a consultant where, having gained experience in advising on the introduction of third party access onto the gas network following the breakup of British Gas, she worked on a large number of international energy industry privatisation and restructuring projects. She joined Octopus Energy to help bring about the energy system changes needed to achieve net zero quickly and affordably.

Rupert Harrison a senior advisor to PIMCO’s UK portfolio management team. Prior to joining PIMCO in 2025, he spent nine years at BlackRock as a portfolio manager and head of research for the multi-asset strategies group. From 2022–2023 he chaired the Chancellor’s new Economic Advisory Council to help stabilize the U.K. economy. From 2010–2015 he was chair of the U.K. Council of Economic Advisors and served as chief of staff to Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne. Mr. Harrison is a regular commentator on economics, politics, and financial markets in both written and broadcast media, and his academic research has been published in the American Economic Review and the Economic Journal.

Jason Furman is the Aetna Professor of the Practice of Economic Policy jointly at Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) and the Department of Economics at Harvard University. Furman engages in public policy through research, writing and teaching in a wide range of areas including U.S. and international macroeconomics, fiscal policy, labour markets and competition policy. Previously, Furman served eight years as a top economic adviser to President Obama, including serving as the 28th Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers from August 2013 to January 2017, acting as both President Obama’s chief economist and a member of the cabinet. In addition to articles in scholarly journals and periodicals, Furman is a contributing Opinion writer at the New York Times and the editor of two books on economic policy. Furman holds a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University.

Lorenzo Codogno is the founder and chief economist of his own consulting firm, LC Macro Advisors Ltd. He also serves as a Visiting Professor in Practice at the London School of Economics (since 2015) and at the College of Europe in Bruges (since 2021), as well as a senior fellow at LUISS LEAP in Rome. Before founding his own advisory firm, he was chief economist and director-general at the Treasury Department of the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance (May 2006-February 2015). He previously worked at Bank of America, where he was managing director, senior economist, and co-head of European Economics based in London for eleven years