Management team

 

Our Founder and Chair

Tim Congdon

Tim Congdon is one of the world's leading monetary analysts. He advised the UK's 1979-97 Conservative government on economic policy, serving as a member of the Treasury Panel (the so-called 'Wise Men' ) from 1992 to 1997. He is usually regarded as the UK's leading exponent of the 'monetarist' school of thought, and was influential in the late 1970s and early 1980s in the defence of 'Thatcherite monetarism'.

After starting his career as a journalist on The Times, he became an economist in the City of London in 1976. He founded the research consultancy, Lombard Street Research, in 1989 after correctly warning that the excessive money growth during the Lawson Chancellorship would lead to double-digit inflation. In his period on the Treasury Panel, he emphasised the importance of monetary variables in determining macroeconomic outcomes, and the difference between his approach to forecasting and that of other Treasury Panel members.

He left Lombard Street Research in 2005, to create more time to write about monetary theory and practice. Four significant works have appeared since then. In 2005 he published a long pamphlet on Money and Asset Prices in Boom and Bust and in 2009 a critique of the Bank of England's conduct in the Northern Rock affair called Central Banking in a Free Society. In 2007 a collection of essays on Keynes, the Keynesians and Monetarism appeared in the UK and in 2011 another collection with the title Money in a Free Society was published by Encounter Books in New York.

In the macroeconomic bedlam of early 2009, he set up International Monetary Research Ltd. as a vehicle for commenting regularly on monetary developments and banking. Tim Congdon has been a successful businessman and investor, and is the founder and main patron of the Institute of International Monetary Research, as well as being its first Director. In January 2016, he handed over the Directorship to Dr Juan Castañeda.

 

Director

Damian Pudner

Before being named Director of the Institute in February 2023, Damian was founder and CIO of Pudner Capital Management, a family office. Prior to this, Damian enjoyed a successful career spanning 25 years in the City of London, holding several senior roles at leading investment banks and financial institutions related to fixed income relative value and macro trading strategies. These roles included Head of Hedge Fund Rate Sales for EMEA at UBS AG, and Treasurer of Endeavour Capital Management, a hedge fund.
 
Damian holds an MSc (with distinction) in Money, Banking, and Central Banking from the University of Buckingham, and a first-class honours degree in Business Management and Economics from The Open University. Damian has a particular interest in monetary policy, and is currently researching his PhD thesis on the relationship between the use of unconventional monetary policy and the quantity of money to output and inflation.     
 

Damian can be contacted at  damian.pudner@buckingham.ac.uk

 

Deputy Director

Juan Castañeda

A Doctor of Economics since 2003 (UAM University at Madrid) and lecturer in Economics at the University of Buckingham since 2012, Juan Castañeda has experience working and researching in monetary policy and central banking. Director of IIMR from January 2016 to February 2023 and Director of the Vinson Centre at the University of Buckingham since September 2022.

He has worked with the European Parliament's Committee of Economic and Monetary Affairs and submitted written evidence for a UK Parliament report on the euro. He has been an Honorary Senior Visiting Fellow in Cass Business School (London) and a visiting researcher at the Centre of Monetary and Financial Alternatives at Cato (Washington, DC) and at UFM university in Guatemala. Before moving into the UK in 2012, he worked for 14 years as a lecturer in Economics at UNED University in Madrid. He has been awarded a Bank of Spain annual scholarship to develop research on monetary history, in particular on monetary policy and deflations in historical perspective, and has authored and edited academic books and research articles on the economic crises, monetary policy and central banking. He is the review editor of Economic Affairs, and has been a columnist of Expansion and of several online papers and sites. 

Juan can be contacted at juan.castaneda@buckingham.ac.uk

 

Senior Administrator

John Petley

John Petley joined Tim Congdon at International Monetary Research Ltd in 2011 after working as a political researcher in the European Parliament.

He read music at Oxford and has written two books on political issues. He is responsible for updating the money numbers on the website.

 

Operations Manager

Gail Grimston

Gail has held a number of administrative management positions both in the educational sector and other sectors, such as telecommunications and PR. As Operations Manager she is responsible for the general day-to-day running of the Institute's office, organisation of events and is PA to Tim Congdon, Damian Pudner and Juan Castaneda. 

Gail can be contacted by telephone, 01280 827524, or by email on gail.grimston@buckingham.ac.uk

 

Social Media & Website Manager

Susanna Booth

Susanna joined the Institute of International Monetary Research in 2022. 

A former journalist and business news editor, she has many years of experience in website management, digital marketing and event management.

Susanna can be contacted at susanna.booth@buckingham.ac.uk

 

Academic Fellow

Andrew Dowie

Andrew's career as an economist, investment manager and debt capital market specialist led him to believe that changes in monetary conditions are a key driver of both the economic cycle and movements in financial markets.

The work of Professor Tim Congdon has influenced much of his thinking and consequently his approach to economic and financial market forecasting places particular emphasis upon analysis of the broad money supply. He now writes and produces accredited online lectures for the Institute of International Monetary Research.

Andrew can be contacted at andrew.dowie@buckingham.ac.uk