Awards Committee

The ICGN Awards Committee

Philip Armstrong

Committee Chair

Philip Armstrong is an internationally acknowledged expert on corporate governance. He has worked extensively with governments, regulators and policy makers, institutions and organisations, companies and boards on issues of corporate governance in some 70 countries around the world. His wide depth of experience and expertise covers policies, standards, best practices and their implementation. Philip has extensive knowledge and experience of the inner workings of complex board room situations in both the private and public sectors.

He was closely associated with the earlier King Reports in South Africa, notably as one of the architects of the 2002 edition known as “King II” which brought together a comprehensive package of globally-acclaimed corporate governance best practices and standards calibrated and integrated with stakeholder-focused issues and priorities. Among his involvement in many other internationally significant initiatives, he was an adviser to the Commonwealth Association on Corporate Governance (CACG) and was instrumental in developing the CACG Corporate Governance Principles adopted by the Commonwealth Heads of Government in 1999.

Philip retired in 2020 as Director: Governance at the Gavi Alliance based in Geneva, Switzerland which is an internationally important multi-stakeholder public-private partnership in the global health sector comprising representation across key players in public health, including but not limited to governments from developed and emerging market countries, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, business sector, etc. Prior to that he headed the Global Corporate Governance Forum (GCGF), a joint World Bank/OECD initiative, from 2005 through 2012 which led several initiatives around the world seeking to develop the capacity of director and corporate governance institutes and was at the forefront of producing capacity building tools for the training of directors and corporate secretaries supported by a Private Sector Advisory Group made up of prominent business leaders from around the world. With the GCGF being absorbed into the Corporate Governance Group (CGG) of the International Finance Corporation, he took on the role of Senior Adviser from 2012 through 2015.

Philip Armstrong has also served on various governing bodies of professional institutions and policy initiatives in South Africa and internationally, including on the Board of Governors of the International Corporate Governance Network (representing over US$50 trillion in AUM) from 2012 through 2017 and as Board Vice Chair in his final two years on the Board. He is a Chartered Secretary by profession and served as President of The Chartered Governance Institute of Southern Africa in 2001. He has received numerous accolades and awards from around the world for his work on corporate governance, specifically in emerging markets, and was conferred with an Honorary PhD in Business Administration from the Oxford Brookes University in 2006.

In his earlier career, he has held executive and senior management positions in some of South Africa’s prominent listed companies including as Corporate Secretary of Anglo American Corporation of South Africa Limited. Philip continues to be associated with a number of potentially path breaking initiatives associated with good corporate governance, as an adviser, in South Africa and the United States and is an independent non-executive director of Hawkamah – The Institute for Corporate Governance in the United Arab Emirates.

Christine Chow

HSBC

Christine is the global head of Stewardship at HSBC Asset Management and a board member of HSBC Asset Management UK Limited. She has 25 years’ experience in investment management, research & consulting, with a focus on technology and sustainability.

Her PhD thesis on responsible investment was short-listed for a United Nations award in Sweden for industry relevance and academic excellence. She is a board member of the International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN), an organization led by investors responsible for assets under management in excess of $US 59 trillion from over 39 countries and territories. She was appointed an honorary adviser to the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) Hong Kong in April 2021, and the Convenor (Chair) of the FRC Sustainability and Climate Action Task Force (SCATF) in February 2022.

She is an Emeritus Governor of the London School of Economics (LSE), following the completion of her six-year term as a Member of Court and Investment Committee (2015-2021). She was a member in the Data Governance Task Force of the UK All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Artificial Intelligence (2018 – 2021); and an Adjunct Professor in Finance at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (2014 - 2016), where she established the first tri-modal graduate course on social entrepreneurship and impact investing, supported by funds from family foundation and the Hong Kong government.

She was named as one of the top 30 Inspirational Women in the City of London. In 2020, she won the Finance Monthly Women in Finance Award as the Investment Management Leader of the Year (Asia).

Christine is a graduate of the London School of Economics and the University of Melbourne. She completed an executive education course on financial engineering at Stanford University.

Prior to joining HSBC, she was executive director in charge of ESG advisory and integration at IHS Markit and the global head of technology, Asia and emerging markets at Federated Hermes EOS.

Dan Konigsburg

Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited

Dan is a senior managing director of corporate governance and public policy for Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, leads Deloitte’s Global Center for Corporate Governance, and is based in New York. The Global Center promotes dialogue in the critical area of corporate governance through a network of local governance centers across 62 countries.

The Global Center coordinates thought leadership on governance issues developed by Deloitte member firms to advance thinking on corporate governance issues around the world. Additionally, as one of the leaders for Deloitte’s public policy work, Dan works with teams in Washington, D.C. and Brussels that seek to engage government officials, policy-makers, investors, and non-government organizations on key policy questions affecting our capital markets, economy and society at large.

Prior to joining Deloitte, Dan served as Director of Corporate Governance at Standard & Poor’s in London and then New York. Over a period of eight years at S&P, Dan was responsible for the development and application of services to evaluate the corporate governance practices of rated companies as well as the integration of governance analytics into credit ratings. Dan serves as Chairman of the OECD’s Business Advisory (BIAC) Task Force on Corporate Governance in Paris, is a former member of the International Corporate Governance Network’s (ICGN) Business Ethics Committee, and serves as a director on the board of the Executive Council on Diplomacy. Dan holds a B.A. in Russian and East European Studies from Yale University.

Rob Lewenson

Old Mutual Investment Group

Robert joined the Old Mutual Investment Group Responsible Investment team in October 2014, as a Governance and Engagement Manager. He is responsible for proxy voting and engagement, representing Old Mutual Investment Group on various industry bodies and championing responsible investment for the OM group. Robert’s legal and corporate governance background enables him to bring his knowledge of law and negotiation skills to the fore in promoting clients’ interests. Prior to joining the Responsible Investment team, he was a legal advisor at Old Mutual Investment Group for seven years. Robert has fourteen years of work experience in the legal profession and asset management industry. He holds a BBusSci LLB (UCT) and is an Attorney of the High Court.

Anne-Marie Jourdan

Caisse des Dépôts

Anne-Marie spent a large part of her career in asset management companies, first at BNP Paribas Asset Management, then as Head of Legal Department at AGF Asset Management (now Allianz Global Investors). She was recruited in 2005 at the Fonds de Reserve pour les Retraites (FRR), the French Reserve Fund. As Chief Legal Officer, member of the Executive Board, she is in charge of legal aspects of selecting external managers, corporate governance, proxy voting, and institutional communications. She is also a member of the Responsible Investment Committee of FRR’s Supervisory Board.

Anne-Marie is in charge of corporate governance since 2005 and of the preparation of the article 173 Annual Report of the Energy Transition law.

Anne-Marie is a member of the Experts College of the French Institute of the Responsible Capitalism, representing ICGN. The College of Experts is the ICR’s advisory body. It consists of independent and interdisciplinary financial leader experts, civil society representatives and organisations, which are all dynamically working towards “integrated thinking”. The College’s duties include fostering and enriching debates held within the Institute, contributing to any work carried out by specialized committees and responding to marketplace consultations. It also ensures the Institute’s independence and ethics.

She is a member of two Think and Do Tanks : the Grand Jury of the “Best general meeting of CAC 40 companies’ Awards” and “The Integrated Thinking Awards”.