Simon has established and managed a number of global tax optimization businesses for major banks and insurers. He has nearly 30 years of directly relevant experience in the tax risk business and a wealth of leadership and management experience, having led high performance teams in the Royal Navy and at several investment banks. After gaining an MBA at Warwick Business School, Simon established the Tax Optimized Structured Products business at UBS. At ABN Amro he headed the European Financial Engineering team and was then recruited by RBC Capital Markets to build and lead the Global Strategic Transactions Group. In the immediate post-Enron era, Simon worked closely with RBC’s board to establish corporate governance, underwriting and risk monitoring procedures which became bank standard policies.
In 2004 he moved to AIG as a Managing Director of the Transaction Development Group, which developed, executed and managed a number of tax optimized structured transactions for the insurer. In 2011 Simon became co-head of the Portfolio Solutions Group to design, implement and manage tax optimised transactions which improved AIG’s RoC, liquidity and reduced its ETR. The group delivered $970 million of post-tax economic value for AIG via complex transactions spanning multiple asset classes and group entities across varying tax, accounting, and regulatory jurisdictions.