The new Honorary Fellows are Farmida Bi CBE, Stella Cox CBE, Karina Robinson, Alastair King, Prof Sir John Kay CBE and Prof Russell Napier.

Honorary Fellowships are awarded annually by the CISI’s board of trustees and carry the designatory letters FCSI (Hon).

CISI chair, Michael Cole-Fontayn MCSI, said: “Six outstanding individuals have received our highest accolade this year. We commend each of them for their contribution to the financial services sector and to CISI. All have shown a commitment to professionalism, life-long learning and the CISI community.”

The six new Honorary Fellows are:

Farmida Bi CBE

Farmida Bi CBE is chair (Europe, Middle East and Asia) of global law firm Norton Rose Fulbright and undertakes transactional work advising on multi-billion dollar transactions (debt capital markets, securitisation and corporate trust) in conventional/Islamic finance for sovereigns and corporates. She is also chair of the International Regulatory Strategy Group (IRSG) Council, chair of the Barbican Centre Trust, chair of the Patchwork Foundation and vice chair of the Disasters Emergency Committee. She is an honorary fellow of Downing College, Cambridge. For her services to the law and charity, Farmida Bi was made a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours 2020. 

Stella Cox CBE

Stella Cox CBE has worked within the Islamic financial marketplace for more than 30 years. ‎ Since 1998, she has been managing director of DDCAP Group, which provides capital market intermediary services and technology solutions to Islamic financial market institutions. Stella Cox was a member of the Islamic Finance Task Force convened by UK Government and acted as practitioner lead for the regulatory work stream leading to the inaugural UK sovereign Sukuk issuance in 2014. Since then, she has been chair of the Islamic Finance Market Advisory Group for TheCityUK. In June 2016, Stella was appointed a CBE for her services to the economy and, specifically, as a champion for the development of Islamic finance in the UK. ‎Stella Cox was appointed patron-in-chief of WOMANi in 2019, when she also became a freeman of the City of London.

Karina Robinson

Karina Robinson is the chief executive of Redcliffe Advisory, which advises CEOs and chairs. She is the founder of The City Quantum & AI Summit, a senior advisor to Multiverse Computing, a European quantum software firm, and NED on the board of Anglo-Swiss asset manager Atlanti. She is an emeritus governor of the London School of Economics and co-founder of The Inclusion Initiative, an LSE institute tasked with creating diverse and inclusive cultures in firms. She is a past master of the Worshipful Company of International Bankers and was chair of the Lord Mayor’s Appeal Advisory Board. She was formerly a financial and political journalist.

Alastair King

Subject to election, Alderman Alastair King DL is likely to become the 696th Lord Mayor of London in November 2024. The principal role of Lord Mayor is as a global ambassador for UK’s financial and professional services, alongside championing charitable interests for the Lord Mayor’s appeal and the wider community. Following his early career as a City of London lawyer, Alastair King is on the board of five City of London-based financial services companies, four of which he chairs (and is the founder of two of them). He is also chair of the advisory board of Urbium Capital. Alastair King is chair of the British Liver Trust and supports other charitable interests. He also serves as a deputy lieutenant for Greater London. 

Professor Sir John Kay CBE

Sir John Kay is one of Britain’s leading economists. His interests focus on the relationships between economics and business. His career has spanned academic work and think tanks, business schools, company directorships, consultancies and investment companies. For 20 years, he wrote a regular column for the Financial Times. He was awarded a knighthood in the Queen’s 2021 Birthday Honours List for services to economics, business and finance. His style has won a wide following for his books and articles, which have been recognised by numerous awards and prizes. 40 years after he co-authored The British Tax System (a book which went through five editions) with Mervyn King (who would later become Governor of the Bank of England and Lord King of Lothbury). The two authors came together again to publish Radical Uncertainty in March 2020. Greed is Dead, written jointly with Sir Paul Collier, was published by Penguin Books in July 2020. His next book, Real Business, will be published by Profile Books in 2024.

Professor Russell Napier

Professor Russell Napier has been an advisor to investment institutions on asset allocation for almost thirty years. Some 20 years ago he launched the practical history of financial markets course at The Edinburgh Business School and the course now runs on campus, online and in a two-and-a-half-day executive education format. Russell is the author of two books on financial history- Anatomy Of The Bear: Lessons From Wall Street’s Four Great Bottoms and The Asian Financial Crisis 1995-98: Birth Of The Age of Debt. In 2014 Russell Napier opened a new public business and financial history library in Edinburgh called The Library of Mistakes. Russell is a visiting professor at Heriot-Watt University and an honorary professor at The University of Stirling. He has degrees in law from Queen’s University Belfast and Magdalene College Cambridge.