The EDHEC Infrastructure & Private Assets Research Institute (EIPA) has announced the appointment of Tim Whittaker, PhD, to succeed Frederic Blanc-Brude, PhD, as director of the institute from January 1st, 2025.
Frederic Blanc-Brude, Founding Director of EIPA in 2016, stepped down to focus on his role as CEO of EIPA's sister organisation, Scientific Infra & Private Assets (SIPA), an ESMA-registered provider of infrastructure and private equities market indices and benchmarks. Since 2019, when he became its CEO, SIPA has been working with the world's largest financial institutions and now serves clients representing US$700bn of infrastructure AUM and US$1tr of PE AUM.
On his role at SIPA, Frederic Blanc-Brude said, "We have grown considerably, and SIPA now needs a full-time CEO to continue to transform private markets into a more transparent and well-understood investment opportunity. The benchmarking of risk and performance of private assets has become an increasingly important question for the market with events such as Covid-19 and the change in interest rate regime making risks that were always present more apparent. Investors and regulators need data about private markets and SIPA is here to provide it."
Commenting on his appointment as director of EIPA, Tim Whittaker said, "After ten years working together, it is an honour and privilege to be succeeding Frederic Blanc-Brude as director of EIPA. SIPA private market indices and benchmarks were born out of the R&D of the EDHEC Infrastructure & Private Assets Research Institute. We are extremely proud of our academic DNA and our EDHEC Business School and EDHEC-Risk Institute heritage. Going forward, EIPA will focus on the measurement and reporting of the fair market value of private assets. This is an essential question that has deep prudential and fiduciary implications for anyone involved in private markets. EIPA will develop research and analyses to foster better practices and help the market evolve towards a more robust understanding and reporting of risk and fair value in private assets."
About Tim Whittaker, PhD
Tim Whittaker is Director of the EDHEC Infrastructure & Private Assets Research Institute (EIPA). He was awarded his PhD in Finance from Griffith University in 2013. His research interests are infrastructure finance, public private partnerships, valuation and asset pricing. In addition to his PhD, Tim holds a Master of Business (Financial Management) from Queensland University of Technology and a Bachelor of Economics as well as a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Queensland and is a member of CPA Australia. |
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About Frederic Blanc-Brude, PhD
Frederic Blanc-Brude, PhD, is the CEO of Scientific Infra & Private Assets (SIPA), a provider of specialised data to investors in infrastructure and private equity. He is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Alternative Investments. He holds a PhD in Finance (King's College London) and degrees from the London School of Economics, the Sorbonne, and Sciences Po Paris. |
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