Leading on the management and investment of £50bn of client capital would be responsibility enough to occupy many of the most competent professionals within the investment world, but not for Neo Mooki, investment director at Aberdeen Standard Investments (ASI).
In the hours when she wasn't developing innovative and efficient capital solutions for Aberdeen Standard Investments' key client Phoenix Group, she was putting the finishing touches on an MBA from Oxford University, where she was awarded a distinction in 2018.
Establishing and implementing a fund financing solution for Phoenix over the course of 2018, she pushed the envelop further to introduce an investment vehicle that gave retail investors access to private markets aligned to the UN sustainable development goals, and is continuing to identify further opportunities to develop impact investing.
With a passion for making investments deliver benefits beyond financial returns, She has also played an advocacy and advisory role with start-ups, governments and development institutions.
In 2018, she was invited to deliver the keynote address at the Global Expo Botswanna, a business to business multi -sectorial expo, which the year before had been bestowed upon Sir Richard Branson.
Drawing on her many and varied achievements over the course of the year, Stephen Acheson, global head of insurance at Aberdeen Standard Investments, said: "None of these innovations would have happened without Neo's ability to reconfigure roles and relationships in order to mobilise value creation. Neo is a credit to ASI and to the wider industry."
Described by the judges as very impressive and a leading figure within the investment world, Mooki, who became the first black woman to hold a lead investment relationship role for strategic clients at ASI, is clearly on her way to even more impressive achievements.