Howard Covington

Howard is a graduate of St John’s College, Cambridge. He has a double first in theoretical physics and a distinction in post-graduate maths. His first career was in the City as an investment banker and asset manager. He became a director of SG Warburg and then European chief executive of Wasserstein Perella, a US investment bank. He co-founded New Star Asset Management and was its chief executive until it was sold to Henderson in 2009. In 2014 he cofounded Greenrock Homes, a property developer. His second career is in promoting mathematical sciences and action to reduce climate change. He has been a trustee of the Science Museum, is chair of the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences, the UK’s national maths research institute at Cambridge, and is the inaugural chair of The Alan Turing Institute. He is vice-chair of ClientEarth, an environmental law firm, and an adviser to Preventable Surprises, a think-tank. He has written on the response of the investment industry to climate change for the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times and Nature.

Howard joined a panel discussion (in June 2020) hosted by Mark Carney, the United Nations Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance and former Governor of the Bank of England to explore the need for a whole economy transition to achieve net zero.