Mr Mark Ebert, Executive Director of the Three Faiths Forum and Chairman of the Fortune Group, told the conference that, in the post-crisis world, the balance of economic power will slowly shift from the secular West to become more widely shared, geographically and culturally, with one major consequence being that principles of faith and social exigencies will play a much bigger role in investment management,” he said.  Exploring the direction of the new demands of “thoughtful investors” was the focus of the conference, entitled, “Faith in Capitalism”.

The venue itself, the Islamic Cultural Centre of the London Central Mosque, was highly symbolic as the participants debated new paradigms for investment in the post crisis world.   They looked toward faith-based institutions for guidance in establishing thoughtful criteria for investing, searching for better, longer-term solutions in the wake of the poor performance of traditional and even “alternative” investments during the crisis.