Benno is a Visiting Fellow with expertise in financial risk management, behavioural economics, and international voluntary carbon markets. With over a decade of experience as a trading executive at top investment banks like J.P. Morgan and BNP Paribas—where he held the role of Vice President and Head of EMEA Power and Gas Structured Products and Options Trading—Benno brings both deep practical knowledge and academic insight to his work.

Benno advises corporations, supranational organisations, and hedge funds on behavioural economics and carbon markets through his own advisory firm, Blue Guardian. His research at LSE has focused on risk-taking during crises, particularly on how various types of background risk influence risk tolerance in high-stakes decision-making. Benno has published numerous articles in top tier journals on topics like the disposition effect and risk-taking in times of crisis.

He holds an MSc and a PhD in Behavioural Science from the LSE as well as a Master’s in Mathematical Finance from the University of Konstanz, Germany. Benno is also a Lecturer at the University of Cape Town, where he teaches financial risk management and conducts mathematical climate finance research.