Keynote speakers

Henry Christensen III, partner, McDermott Will & Emery, USA
CLICK HERE to listen to conference chairman, Terry Christensen, introducing Private Client Forum 2011.

Henry Christensen III is a member of the international law firm McDermott Will & Emery, where he is the managing partner of the firm's private client practice group in New York City and its international private client practice. He conducts an active practice advising clients in connection with their tax and estate planning and in tax and probate dispute work, and has an extensive international practice advising multinational families, family offices and trustees. He is the former chair of the International Committee of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC) and is the immediate past president of the International Academy of Estate and Trust Law (IAETL). He often meets with the US Treasury on behalf of ACTEC and other professional organisations regarding tax policy. He is an honours graduate of Yale College and Harvard Law School. Mr Christensen teaches courses in International Estate Planning in the graduate estate planning programme at the

University of Miami Law School and in the graduate tax programme at New York University Law School. He has written and lectured widely on various tax and estate planning subjects, including at the Heckerling Institute, ALI-ABA, ACTEC, the IAETL and PLI. He is the author of the treatise, International Estate Planning, published by Matthew Bender & Co (2nd edition, Sept 1999), updated annually.



Robert K Hamshaw, executive vice president, Quadrant Capital Advisors Inc, New York
After military service in Vietnam and San Francisco (1968-1971), Robert spent three years in television, two years in shipping and finally three years in public accounting. Along the way he earned an MBA in accounting from NYU Stern. Following that, Robert spent a few years in a partnership specialising in finding investment opportunities in the US for international clients. In 1981, Robert began working for the Santo Domingo family of Bogota, Colombia, then the owners of Bavaria, SA, the largest brewery in Colombia. At first Robert managed a procurement office and on the side he oversaw the offshore investment operation. In between, Robert became the president of a multi-family office serving mostly US families. When Robert's duties to the Santo Domingo family expanded, he made the decision to focus his efforts on their needs. In 2005, Bavaria SA, by then the 2nd largest brewery in South America and the 11th largest in the world was sold/merged into SABMiller. At that point they expanded the family office function, adding professionals and infrastructure. Today, Robert is the chief operating officer of Quadrant Capital Advisors, Inc. which advises a series of trusts of which the Santo Domingo family are the principal beneficiaries.



Henk Potts, equity strategist, Barclays Wealth
Henk Potts joined Barclays Bank in 1998 as a graduate and worked as a Stock Market Analyst for Barclays Stockbrokers, focusing on UK equities. In 2001 he was appointed as Equity Strategist for Barclays Wealth, where he works as part of a team formulating and communicating investment strategy to internal and external clients. In his current role, Henk analyses a wide variety of asset classes, including equities, currencies and commodities, as well as ascertaining and explaining the effects of macro economic changes on financial markets. Based in London, he works in the UK and across a wide range of other jurisdictions including Monaco, Geneva and South Africa, where he interacts with private banking and intermediary clients. Henk is very well known in the media and regularly appears on Sky News, BBC, Bloomberg, CNBC, Channel 4 and CNN. In addition to television appearances, Henk has numerous radio commitments as an in-house stock market expert, with regular slots on Talksport, LBC, Riviera Radio (Monaco) and World Radio Switzerland. He also writes regular columns for national UK newspapers and personal finance magazines.

H E Juan Manuel Prieto, Columbian Ambassador to Italy
Juan Manuel Prieto is the Ambassador of Colombia to Italy. Mr Prieto graduated with honours from the Universidad del Rosario and was admitted to the London School of Economics. He began practising law in Colombia in 1974 and is regarded as one of the leading lawyers in the country. He was the senior partner and founder of the firm Prieto & Carrizosa in Bogotá, Colombia, with ample experience in mergers and acquisitions. He was recognised as an expert in international and domestic estate and tax planning for national and foreign clients with interests and/or heirs in more than one jurisdiction.

Jackson P Tai
Jackson (Jack) Tai was vice chairman and chief executive officer of both DBS Group Holdings and DBS Bank between June 2002 and December 2007. Jack joined DBS as chief financial officer in July 1999 and was president and chief operating officer of DBS Bank from January 2001 to June 2002.

Prior to his appointment at DBS Bank, Jack was an investment banker for 25 years with JP Morgan & Co. Incorporated. During that time, Jack held senior management positions in investment banking including, senior regional officer for Asia-Pacific based in Tokyo, global head of real estate investment banking,based in New York, and senior regional officer for the Western United States, based in San Francisco.

Jack serves on the boards of Bank of China Limited, NYSE Euronext, MasterCard, Royal Philips Electronics NV, and Singapore Airlines. He is non-executive chairman of privately-held Brookstone, Inc. He also serves as a trustee of Asian Art Museum of San Francisco and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He is a member of the Harvard Business School Asia-Pacific Advisory Board, the Harvard China Fund Advisory Board, and the Committee of 100. Previously, Jack was a director of CapitaLand, ING Groep NV, DBS Group holdings, DBS Bank, the Islamic Bank of Asia, Singapore Telecommunications, and Jones Lang LaSalle. He was also a member of the Bloomberg Asia Pacific Advisory Board.

Jack received his MBA from Harvard University in 1974 and his bachelor of science degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1972.