UniCredit Longevity Economic Forum 2025

Richard Burton

Head of Client Solutions, UniCredit

Since March 2019, Richard Burton is Head of Client Solutions (CS) Division and member of the UniCredit Group Executive Committee (GEC) and of the CS ExCo.

Richard has over 30 years of experience in finance and investment banking. He started his career at The First National Bank of Chicago in 1989, in London, where he held various positions within the Credit Department before moving to Structured Finance origination roles. In 1997, he transferred to Chicago as Managing Director responsible for High Yield Bond and Private Placement Origination.

Richard joined UniCredit in 2001 as Managing Director and further pursued his career as Global Head of Financial Sponsor Solutions (FSS), whilst from May 2013 to March 2019, he acted as Head of Financing & Advisory (F&A), with full responsibility for a thorough set of core investment banking products.

Richard earned a degree with a BSc (Hons) in Banking and International Finance at the City University Business School in London.

Claudia Parzani

Chair of the Italian Stock Exchange and Senior Advisor at Linklaters

Business lawyer, specialised in corporate matters and corporate governance, strategy and sustainability, Claudia Parzani is Chair of the Italian Stock Exchange and Senior Advisor at the global law firm Linklaters.

She is also Deputy Chair of the Italian group of the Trilateral Commission, Chair of the Scientific Committee of Fondazione Politecnico di Milano and a non-executive director at Stellantis N.V. In the past she was Deputy Chair of Il Sole 24 Ore S.p.A., Chair of Allianz S.p.A. and covered the role of non-executive director for listed and not listed companies. Always extremely passionate about inclusion and social matters, Claudia Parzani is a member of the advisory board of UNHCR Italy, sits in the Comitato Scientifico of Parks - Liberi e Uguali and is the Chair of the Strategic Council of Fondazione Italia per il Dono. She is the founder of "Breakfast@Linklaters", a large network of female executives, and is the ambassador in Italy for the Inspiring Girls campaign. In 2024, she was named in the global HERoes Women Role Model List for eighth year in a row.

She is the author of articles and publications and has contributed to various books. Together with Francesca Isola she co-authored "Meravigliose Tour guidato all'interno di noi stesse" (Il Sole 24 Ore, 2020) dedicated to gender issues and female talent and with Sandro Catani she co-authored "Si vince solo insieme" (Garzanti, 2022), on the tools necessary to face future challenges in the world of work. In 2024, she published "La rivoluzione degli outsider" (Rizzoli), on the talent of women and young people, the importance of including genders and all generations and changes in leadership models.

Avivah Wittenberg-Cox

CEO 20-first, Ambassador Stanford Center on Longevity

Avivah is CEO, writer, speaker, coach, consultant, change agent - depending on the call and the context. A global expert on
21st century leadership, gender and generational balance, longevity and the future of work and careers, she helps individuals and organisations manage the consequences and opportunities of the new gender and generational balance of workforces and consumers. Themes summarised in her graphic book Thriving to 100 - Through Life's 4 Quarters and featured on her podcast 4-Quarter Lives and weekly substack, elderberries. 

Avivah is a Visiting Lecturer at OXFORD Said Business School, runs a Thriving To 100 programme for INSEAD alumni, and is co-Director of Catolica Lisbon's Longevity Leadership executive education programme. She's an Adjunct Professor at DePaul University in Chicago and has published several LINKED IN Learning courses, including Building Gender Balanced Businesses and 4 Phases of Women's Careers. She's the author of the bestselling books WHY and HOW Women Mean Business (Wiley) and the Founder and Honorary President of the Global Professional Women's Network, GlobalPWN.

An Ambassador for the Stanford Center on Longevity, and the Global Peter Drucker Forum, Avivah sits on the Boards of the National Innovation Centre on Ageing (NICA), the Chartered Management Institute's 'Everyone Economy' Board and the Vedica Scholars MBA Programme for women in India. A Fellow of Harvard's 2022 Advanced Leadership Program, in 2023, Avivah was inducted into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame.

Keith Metters

President, Fidelity International

Keith Metters is President at Fidelity International since March 2024. Having joined in early 2020, Metters previously led Fidelity International's Global Workplace Investing business, and more recently its wider Global Platform Solutions business. He spent over 20 years at Fidelity Investments in the US in a variety of roles, culminating in leading its Workplace Investing Core Market division. Prior to joining Fidelity Investments, he served in various finance and strategy roles in the telecommunications industry and was an Infantry Officer in the United States Army.

Nic Palmarini

Director of the UK's National Innovation Centre for Ageing (NICA)

Prior to heading up NICA, Nic was Head of AI for Healthy Ageing at IBM Research and AI Ethics Lead and Research Manager at the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab, an academic-industry partnership for the responsible advancement of artificial intelligence. Trained in social studies and business communication, Nic developed a deep expertise in leading heterogeneous teams and connecting dots across disciplines to bridge academic and industrial research with real-world applications to deliver return-on-community and return-on-business, with a specific focus on longevity and the coming effects and opportunities of the demographic revolution. Having served as Director of the IBM Human Centric Solution Centre in Paris he holds a decade of experience in research on supporting older adults' autonomy and independence, leading a global team to develop Human Activity Recognition techniques dedicated to older adults based on AI applied to IoT data.

Stefano Scarpetta

Director, Employment, Labour and Social Affairs, OECD 

Stefano Scarpetta has been the Director of the Employment, Labour and Social Affairs (ELS) Directorate of the OECD since 2013. He leads the work of the Organisation in a number of broad areas including Employment, Labour, Migration, Health, Skills, Gender and Tackling Inequalities and contributes to the implementation of the Secretary-General's strategic orientations in these areas. Stefano represents the OECD in the G20 and G7 and many other high-level international fora on labour market, social, migration and health issues. Under his leadership, ELS provides continuous assistance and support to countries in the design, implementation and evaluation of polices drawing from evidence-based analyses of how policy affects different economic, labour and social outcomes. His advice has contributed to numerous policy reforms in OECD countries and beyond, and new policy thinking in areas ranging from inequalities, labour market inclusion and the future of work, social protection for all, the integration of migrants, the economics of public health and patient-centred health care. 

Prior to 2013, Mr. Scarpetta held different position in the OECD, leading a number of large-scale, innovative projects. He wrote the first assessment of the original OECD Jobs Strategy (Implementing the OECD Jobs Strategy). He was also in charge of the seminal work conducted by the Economics Department on the "Sources of Economic Growth", which for the first time also included firm-level analyses, and later led to the regular assessment of Going for Growth. Stefano also developed a new framework to assess "The Policy Challenges of Population Ageing". From 2002 to 2006 he was the labour market advisor and lead economist at the World Bank in charge of the Bank-wide programme of Employment and Development; he authored a number of reports and was one of the leading authors of the 2005 World Development Report. Upon his return to the OECD in 2006, he led the economic reviews of Japan, Korea, Mexico, Portugal, Denmark, Sweden, China and India. In 2008 he moved back to ELS as the Head of the Employment Analysis and Policy Division and the editor of the Employment Outlook. In 2010, he became the Deputy Director of ELS. 

Mr Scarpetta has published extensively in academic journals, including in the American Economic Review, the Economic Journal, Economic Policy, the International Journal of Industrial Organisation and Labour Economics. He holds a PhD in Economics from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (Paris), a M.Sc. in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a Laurea Summa cum Laude from the University of Rome "La Sapienza".

Prof. Tito Boeri

Head of Economics Department, Bocconi University ad

Fondazione Ing. Rodolfo Debenedetti

Tito Boeri is professor and head of the economics department at Bocconi University in Milan (where he had also been Pro-rector for research until fall 2014) and Senior Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics (where he was Centennial Professor). He has been senior economist at the OECD, consultant to the IMF, World Bank, EU, ILO as well as to the Italian Government. From March 2015 to February 2019 he served as President of INPS. He is Scientific Advisor to the Fondazione Ing. Rodolfo Debenedetti. He is a columnist for La Repubblica and has collaborated with Italian and foreign newspapers, including Il Sole24ore, La Stampa, the Financial Times and Le Monde. He is one of the founders of the economic information website www.lavoce.info and the federated English-language website www.voxeu.org. He is the scientific director of the Turin Festival of Economics.

Prof. Dr. h.c. Axel Börsch-Supan, Ph.D

Director emeritus, Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy

Prof. Axel Börsch-Supan is Director emeritus at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy and Director of the Munich Research Institute for the Economics of Aging and SHARE Analyses (MEA) in Munich, Germany. He is also Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) in Cambridge, Mass., USA. Börsch-Supan holds a Ph.D. in economics from MIT. He was Assistant Professor of Public Policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, then Professor at Mannheim University and finally Professor at the Technical University of Munich. Börsch-Supan is member of the German and Austrian Academies of Sciences. His policy consulting includes German Federal Presidents, the German Economics Ministry, German Pension Reform Commissions, French President Emmanuel Macron, Senate of the United States of America, EU Commission, OECD, WHO, WEF, Bundesbank, ECB and World Bank.

Robert C. Merton

Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences, Professor of Finance at MIT Sloan School of Management

Robert C. Merton is the School of Management Distinguished Professor of Finance at the MIT Sloan School of Management and John and Natty McArthur University Professor Emeritus at Harvard University. He serves as Resident Scientist at Dimensional Fund Advisors Inc.. Merton is Honorary Chairman of the Institute for Global Economics, Seoul.

Merton received the Alfred Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1997 for a new method to determine the value of derivatives. He is past president of the American Finance Association, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Merton received the 2021 - 22 James R. Killian Jr. Faculty Achievement Award, MIT; the Robert A. Muh Award in the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, MIT; Distinguished Alumni Award, California Institute of Technology; the Michael I. Pupin Medal for Service to the Nation, Columbia University; the Kolmogorov Medal, University of London; and the Hamilton Medal, Royal Irish Academy.

Merton has also been recognised for translating finance science into practice. He received the inaugural Financial Engineer of the Year Award from the International Association for Quantitative Finance (formerly International Association of Financial Engineers), which also elected him a Senior Fellow. He received the 2011 CME Group Melamed-Arditti Innovation Award, and the 2013 WFE Award for Excellence from World Federation of Exchanges. A Distinguished Fellow of the Institute for Quantitative Research in Finance ('Q Group') and a Fellow of the Financial Management Association, Merton received the Nicholas Molodovsky Award and the James R. Vertin Award from the CFA Institute. He is a member of the Halls of Fame of the Fixed Income Analyst Society, Risk, and Derivative Strategy magazines. Merton received Risk's Lifetime Achievement Award for contributions to the field of risk management and the 2014 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Financial Intermediation Research Society. He received the 2017 Finance Diamond Prize from Fundación de Investigación, IMEF, Mexico. Merton received the 2022 Plan Sponsor Council of America Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to retirement finance.

Merton received a BS in Engineering Mathematics from Columbia University, a MS in Applied Mathematics from California Institute of Technology, a PhD in Economics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and numerous honorary degrees from US and foreign universities.

Richard Robb

CEO, Christofferson, Robb & Company (CRC)

Richard Robb co-founded Christofferson, Robb & Company (CRC) in 2002 to invest in risk sharing transactions with European banks. With offices in New York, London and Milan, CRC now provides credit protection on 6% of all SME / midcap loans in Italy. Richard is also Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs where he teaches courses in economics and finance. He has a PhD in Economics from University of Chicago.

Aneta Wynimko

Portfolio Manager, Fidelity International

Aneta Wynimko has over 25 years' investment experience. She joined Fidelity in 2001 as a research analyst. Throughout her time with the company, she has covered European construction, house builders, motorways, EMEA banks and European media stocks. She has also managed the EMEA research and Pan-European pilot funds. In 2009, she assumed coverage for the European consumer discretionary sector as a senior analyst, effectively acting as European consumer team lead, with responsibility for managing the European consumer research pilot. Subsequently, she was appointed as Portfolio Manager for the FF - Sustainable Consumer Brands Fund and the Global Demographics strategy in February 2015.

Lars Dijkstra

CIO Asset Management, PGGM

Lars Dijkstra is the Chief Investment Officer (CIO) and a statutory director on the Board of Directors of PGGM Vermogensbeheer BV. He currently leads front-office investment teams active in global public and private markets, managing assets for Pensioenfonds Zorg en Welzijn (PFZW).

Lars Dijkstra's primary responsibility is to further develop the '3D investment strategy' in collaboration with PFZW. This strategy aims to explain PFZW's entire investment portfolio in terms of financial returns, risks, and sustainability by 2030. PFZW and PGGM's Strategy 2030 requires a cultural transformation within PGGM Investment Management, a reallocation of capital, and an investment focus on climate and health - the two central impact themes of PFZW's investment policy.

Earlier in his career, Lars Dijkstra (58) was Chief Sustainability Officer at Van Lanschot Kempen and, before that, Chief Investment Officer at the same company. He also previously worked for Philips Pension Fund.

Manuela Soncini

Head of Wealth Advisory, UniCredit

Manuela Soncini holds degrees in Economics and Law from the University of Parma and is a qualified accountant and statutory auditor. She serves as Chair of the Board of Directors of CORDUSIO Fiduciaria S.p.A. and sits on the Board of Directors of Fondazione

Italiana per il Dono ETS.

She began her career as an auditor, later gaining extensive experience in the banking and financial sector. She currently leads the Wealth Advisory division within UniCredit Wealth Management and Private Banking, where she has developed an integrated service model that covers all aspects of wealth planning and protection - including real estate, business and art assets - as well as the more personal and emotional dimensions of family dynamics, such as succession planning, protection of vulnerable individuals, strategic philanthropy and impact investing.

She is also a member of the Wealth Advisory Technical Committee at AIPB (Italian Private Banking Association).

Katie Hart

Neuromarketer

Katie has always been fascinated by people, and in particular, why we do the things we do. She studied and taught Psychology early in her career, before exploring more specialist areas such as Consumer Psychology and Behavioural Economics. With a Master's Degree in Applied Neuroscience, she now applies insights from her knowledge and research, to allow organisations to better understand and engage with their customer base.

Since setting her own business up, Katie has worked with organisations such as Honda, Unilever and Trustpilot, delivering innovative and beneficial content for their marketing teams to implement. Katie regularly appears in the press and on podcasts as an expert in her field, and is currently writing her first book on neuromarketing in the digital age.

Motivated by making neuroscience insights accessible to all, Katie's sessions are renowned for being educational and informative, but also very entertaining.

Michael Spence

Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences, Professor and Dean Emeritus, Stanford Graduate School of Business, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford

He is the Philip H. Knight Professor Emeritus of Management in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford and a Distinguished Visiting Fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is a Senior Professor at Bocconi University in Milan, and an Honorary Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford University, and a Distinguished Academic Visitor at Queens' College, Cambridge.

In 2001, he received the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his work in the field of information economics.

He is the author of "The Next Convergence: The Future of Economic Growth in a Multispeed World", Farrar, Straus and Giroux (May 10, 2011). His new book, written with Gordon Brown, Mohamed El-Erian and Reid Lidow is "Permacrisis: How to Fix a Fractured World," Simon and Schuster, Sept 2023.

He is a Senior Advisor to Jasper Ridge Partners and a Senior Advisor to General Atlantic Partners. He chairs the Advisory Board of the Asia Global Institute and was the Chairman of The Independent Commission on Growth and Development (2006 - 2010). He is a member of the Advisory Council of the Luohan Academy in Hangzhou. He served as Dean of the Stanford Business School from 1990 to 1999 and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University from 1984 to 1990. He was awarded the John Kenneth Galbraith Prize for excellence in teaching and the John Bates Clark Medal, awarded to American economists under age 40 for a "significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge".

Erica Alessandri

Member of the Board of Directors, Technogym

After several working experiences in various countries and an MBA at INSEAD, Erica joined Technogym, the family company, both as a member of the Board of Directors and by covering various managerial positions, first in the digital development of the new Technogym app based on Artificial Intelligence and today as head of the sustainability project. Erica is also actively involved in the Board of Directors of the Wellness Foundation, the Alessandri family's non-profit organisation, which aims to promote Wellness as a social opportunity for all stakeholders: governments, businesses and citizens. In this role, Erica has been taking part in numerous international events such as the World Economic Forum for several years and, thanks to her contribution in carrying forward the wellness legacy, in 2021 she was nominated Young Global Leader, the community of young leaders from all over the world able to make a concrete contribution to the creation of a new leadership model for the future based on sustainability.

Mario Abbadessa

Senior Managing Director, Head of Transactions Europe & Country Head Italy, Hines

Mario Abbadessa is Senior Managing Director, Head of Transactions Europe & Country Head Italy of Hines.

He began his career at Hines in 2010 and since 2016 he has been responsible for all Hines' activities in Italy.

Under his leadership, Hines Italy has completed high value real estate investments of almost EUR 8 bn in Milan, Florence and the North Italy area, focusing on a long-term vision and creating an extensive portfolio of acquisition, urban regeneration and asset management projects across residential - including student housing, BTR, BTS, senior living and hospitality open-air - office, trophy asset and high-street retail, logistics and datacenters.

Formerly, he served as fund manager and investment analyst at Hines Italia SGR and as investment analyst at Generali Immobiliare Italia SGR.

Abbadessa holds a bachelor's degree in business administration from Bocconi University and a Master of Science in Finance with electives in Real Estate Finance from the University of Amsterdam.

Fiona Melrose

Head of Group Strategy & ESG, UniCredit

Fiona started her career at the Bank of England in Banking Supervision in 1992. She moved into European bank equity research at NatWest Markets (became Bankers Trust and then Deutsche Bank) where she worked from 1994 - 1999. She moved to Morgan Stanley in 2000 and then Lehman for three years until 2003 where she covered German, Nordic and Swiss banks. She then joined Execution Noble, where she built the European banks research product, and was also co-head of equity research until 2011. Fiona then led the development of a new bank equity research team and covered Global Investment and Private Banks at RBC Capital Markets from 2011 - 2017. Fiona joined UBS in 2017 as Global Head of Strategy for the Investment Bank. In 2019 she moved to Grupo Santander in Strategy & Corporate Development. More recently she has worked at Bankers without Boundaries, a social enterprise that mobilises private capital to invest in projects that benefit the environment, nature and social good. In May 2021, Fiona is appointed Head of Group Strategy & Optimisation. In February 2022, Fiona is appointed Head of Strategy and ESG.

Annie Coleman

Ambassador, Stanford Center on Longevity

Annie is an Ambassador for Stanford University's Center on Longevity, which aims to accelerate and implement scientific discoveries, technological advances, behavioural practices, and social norms so that century long lives are healthy and rewarding. Annie is also the founder of RealiseLongevity, providing a strategic advice to forward thinking organisations seeking to capture the trillion-dollar longevity opportunity by integrating age diversity into their growth strategies, talent management, and market approach. Annie has over 40 years' experience working in complex, matrix driven financial services organisations and has held global leadership roles with top tier banks including UniCredit, UBS and Goldman Sachs. Expert in both organisational culture and branding, she has spent decades guiding senior leadership through transformational change, helping to develop engaged and motivated employees, coupled with strong brands and loyal customers. She currently sits on the board of Strategic Equity Capital plc, an investment trust and Lymearts Community Trust. She is a sought-after speaker and published writer on longevity, the future of work and organsational culture.

Prof. Dr. Phoebe Koundouri

Professor in Economics Athens University of Economics and Business & Technical University of Denmark, Chair World Council of Environmental and Resource Economists Associations (EAERE), Chair AE4RIA, Director SDU ATHENA RC, Chair UN SDSN Global Climate Hub

Professor Dr. Phoebe Koundouri is a world-renowned pioneer in innovative, human-centric, interdisciplinary systems for the sustainable interaction between nature, society, and the economy, included in the Stanford University list of Top 2% world scientists. She is Professor at the School of Economics, and Director of ReSEES Laboratory, at the Athens University of Economics and Business. She is also Research Professor at the Technology, Management, and Economics Department, at the Technical University of Denmark. She is the Director of the Sustainable Development Unit (SDU) at ATHENA Information Technology Research Center. In 2019, she was elected President of the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (EAERE) the biggest scientific association in the field, with more than 1,500 member institutions, from more than 75 countries and she is now chairing the World Council of Environmental and Natural Resource Economists Associations (WCERE). In 2020 she received the prestigious European Research Council Synergy Grant, and in 2023, she was awarded the Academy of Athens Award for Scientific Excellence. 

Prof. Dr. Koundouri acts as an advisor to the UN, World Bank, European Commission, EIB, EBRD, OECD, WHO, and many others, including public and private international and national companies. She holds an MPhil and a PhD in Economics from the University of Cambridge. 

Dr. Arne Holzhausen

Head of Insurance, Wealth and ESG Research, Allianz SE

Arne Holzhausen is head of Economic Research's Insurance, Wealth & ESG team at Allianz SE, Munich. He is responsible for analysing and forecasting global insurance and pension markets, monitoring worldwide private assets and liabilities and assessing the impact of ESG issues on economic and capital market outcomes. He regularly writes on economic trends impacting insurance including low yields, regulation, technology, and demographics.

Before joining Allianz in 2009, Arne has spent almost eight years with Dresdner Bank's Economic Research, lastly as head of banking markets. From 1995 to 2000, he was Assitant Professor at the Centre for East Asian Studies of the Free University of Berlin.

Arne holds a doctorate in Japanese studies and a diploma in Economics.

Stefano Bison

CEO, Humanitas Medical Care 

Stefano is the CEO of Humanitas Medical Care, the network of outpatient diagnostic centres and business innovation hub of Humanitas Group.

Previously, he held the role of Group Head of Business Development, Partnerships & Innovation at Assicurazioni Generali, where was globally responsible for identifying and launching new business initiatives and strategic partnerships with startups or other leading companies (e.g., Big Techs), driving innovation and digital transformation of the Generali Group. There, he was also in charge of Generali Ventures (EUR 250 M Venture Capital Fund of Funds) and served as Vice Chairman of the Board at Generali HITS (House of InsurTech Switzerland). A former strategy consultant (The Boston Consulting Group, and previously at Oliver Wyman) and, earlier, an investment banker (Lehman Brothers, later Nomura), Stefano is also an equity partner and NED at Moffu (an Italian early-stage VC fund) as well as a serial angel investor in StartUps. Stefano earned an MSc magna cum laude from Bocconi University, with study experiences at CBS-Copenhagen, IESE-Barcelona, IMD-Lausanne, and MIT.

Andrea Celli

Managing Director, Philips Italy, Israel and Greece 

Starting 2022, Andrea Celli is Managing Director of Philips Italy, Israel and Greece with a full responsibility on commercial operations and on strengthening the company's positioning as health-tech leader, within his geographies. In Philips since 2011, Celli has been holding roles with increasing responsibility: in recent years he was appointed Health Systems Sales Leader, also overseeing the Service & Solution Delivery department. Before that, he was responsible for Strategy and B2G (Business to Government), with the task of building high-level institutional relations, managing long-term strategic partnerships, and consolidating Philips' positioning in the multivendor service business. Previously, from 2011 to 2014, Celli was Head of the Lighting Solutions Centre for Philips Italy, Israel and Greece. Graduated in electronic engineering at La Sapienza University of Rome and with a MBA degree from SDA Bocconi, Andrea Celli gained, before joining Philips, substantial management expertise within leading multinational companies in ICT and TLC, such as Italtel, Wind and Lucent Technologies. In 2018 Andrea Celli was appointed President of the electromedical association within Confindustria Dispositivi Medici, role he held until 2020.