The international monetary system has proven remarkably resilient, yet it is also facing a period of renewed scrutiny as inflation dynamics, geopolitical fragmentation, and shifting policy frameworks test some of its underlying assumptions. Against this backdrop, our event, drawing on history and market experience, will explore how the system may evolve in the years ahead — including whether alternative anchors (such as a modern interpretation of the gold standard?) merit reconsideration.
Russell Napier is an investment strategist and author of “The Solid Ground” report, with 36 years’ experience advising global institutional investors on asset allocation since 1995. He wrote “Anatomy of the Bear”—a long-standing “cult classic”—and “The Asian Financial Crisis 1995–1998: Birth of the Age of Debt (2021)”, and founded the Practical History of Financial Markets course (running since 2004, now offered in-person and online). He serves on advisory committees for Cerno Capital, Kennox Asset Management, and Bay Capital, and is part owner of Cerno and Kennox. In 2014, he founded The Library of Mistakes, a financial history charity based in Edinburgh with international branches, which also runs lectures and a top-ranked podcast.
Dr Felix Martin is an economist, investor, and advisor to government and corporate leaders globally. His thirty-year career in international finance has ranged from sovereign lending and post-conflict reconstruction at the World Bank to designing, launching, and managing a sequence of global investment funds at publicly-listed asset managers, leading private firms, and his own independent boutique. He is a Non-Resident Fellow of the Washington, DC-based Center for Global Development; chairs the independent Cost Benefit Analysis Panel of the UK Financial Conduct Authority; and is a columnist for
Reuters Breakingviews. Felix’s 2013 book
“Money: the Unauthorised Biography” has been published in fifteen countries and ten languages, was a
Financial Times Economics Book of the Year, and was called “compulsively readable” by the
New York Times.
Izabella Kaminska is the founder and editor of The Blind Spot, an independent media venture focused on uncovering stories overlooked by the broader news cycle. Covering finance, markets, media, and technology, the publication combines analysis, reporting, aggregation, and long-form commentary to surface emerging narratives and underexamined risks. She is also developing The Peg, a dedicated news and intelligence platform covering the evolving stablecoin ecosystem. Previously, Izabella served as senior finance editor at Politico Europe, where she led the expansion of the publication’s financial coverage. Before joining Politico, she spent 13 years at the Financial Times in a variety of reporting and editorial roles, most notably as editor of FT Alphaville, the FT’s award-winning markets and finance blog. She also wrote columns and opinion pieces on technology, finance, and markets. Her freelance work has appeared in Bloomberg, The Telegraph, Unherd and other trade periodicals. Izabella began her journalism career in 2001 at the Warsaw Business Journal before reporting from the former Soviet Union for Caspian Business News, covering Azerbaijan and Georgia. In 2003, she freelanced from Kabul, Afghanistan, before joining BP as associate editor of the company’s internal magazine, Horizon. Following the 2005 Reuters graduate trainee programme, she joined S&P Global Platts to cover European natural gas markets, before moving to CNBC in London as a senior producer on the flagship programme Squawk Box. Through The Blind Spot, Izabella is pursuing a broader effort to rethink how journalistic information is organised and distributed online, with a focus on improving signal discovery, contextualisation, and narrative accountability in the digital media ecosystem.
The meeting starts at 5.30pm and will take place at The Royal Airforce Club, 128 Piccadilly, London, W1J 7PY. Doors open at 5.15pm and the debate will be followed by a short networking drinks reception.
Members can register via SPE email communications. Interested in attending but not a member? Visit our member pages to find out how to join Europe’s largest economics professional networks. Or email us on office@spe.org.uk
