Keynote Speakers

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Jeffrey Tarrant | MOV37 | Founder, CEO

Jeffrey Tarrant has more than three decades of experience picking emerging talent. Prior to founding MOV37 and Protégé Partners, Jeffrey managed institutional size alternative investments for private family fortunes and was a member of the board of the Investment Fund for Foundations.

Jeffrey is known for investing in and seeding emerging managers, many of whom have become renowned names in the industry. During this time, Jeffrey also created Altvest (now a division of Morning Star), the hedge fund industry’s first Internet-based commercial database and analytics systems. Jeffrey was founder and director of ARK, (Absolute Return for Kids), a U.K. based charity with a mission to transform the lives of children. He is currently a director of WITNESS, a global human rights organization, and he is on the advisory board of The Angiogenesis Foundation. Jeffrey’s philanthropic efforts include active support for many award-winning social issue documentary films.

Jeffrey Tarrant is a graduate of Harvard Business School and University of California at Davis.

 
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Stephanie G. Braming | William Blair | CFA, Partner, Global Head of Investment Management

Stephanie Braming is the global head of William Blair Investment Management and serves on the firm's executive committee. She is responsible for leading and setting the strategic direction for Investment Management, including broadening, deepening, and evolving the firm's investment capabilities. Ms. Braming also chairs the leadership committee for Investment Management and serves on the firm's global  inclusion council. 

Before assuming leadership of William Blair Investment Management in 2017, Ms. Braming was a portfolio manager for the International Growth and International Small Cap Growth strategies. Joining the firm in 2004,  she was instrumental in portfolio construction and portfolio design and had a leadership role in the enhancement of the firm's systematic research tools. Ms. Braming also served as portfolio manager for the  Japan strategy  from inception in2013 to close in 2015. Before joining the firm, she was a principal at Mercer Investment Consulting. She also previously worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. She also serves on the board of Working in the Schools (WITS), the largest literacy organization serving Chicago Public School students.

Ms. Braming received a B.A. from DePauw University and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

 
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Jeremy Hosking | Hosking Partners | Senior Partner, Multi-Counsellor

Prior to founding Hosking & Co. Jeremy was one of the three founding partners and lead portfolio managers at Marathon Asset Management where he worked for 26 years. While at Marathon Jeremy helped to develop the “capital cycle” approach to investment. 

Mr. Hosking received a M.A. from University of Cambridge.

 
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Daron Acemoglu | MIT Economics | Economist, Professor

Daron Acemoglu is a Turkish-born American economist who has taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) since 1993. 

Mr. Acemoglu was educated in the UK and completed his PhD at the London School of Economics (LSE). He lectured at LSE for a year before joining the MIT. He was awarded the John Bates Clark Medal in 2005. Acemoglu is best known for his work on political economy. He has authored hundreds of papers, many of which are co-authored with his long-time collaborator James A. Robinson, a political scientist. With Robinson, he authored Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (2006) and Why Nations Fail(2012). The latter, an influential book on the role that institutions play in shaping nations' economic outcomes, prompted wide scholarly and media commentary. Described as a centrist, he believes in a regulated market economy. He regularly comments on political issues, economic inequality, and a variety of specific policies.

Acemoglu ranked third, behind Paul Krugman and Greg Mankiw, in the list of "Favorite Living Economists Under Age 60" in a 2011 survey among American economists. In 2015 he was named the most cited economist of the past 10 years per IDEAS/RePEc data.

 
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Shanta Puchtler | Man Numeric | President and CEO

Shanta Puchtler is President and CEO of Man Numeric (‘Numeric’). Formerly, he was Chief Investment Officer and Head of Research at Numeric, directing research efforts focused on new alpha sources, product design, and risk modeling. He joined Numeric in 1999 as a research analyst. Prior to joining Numeric, Mr. Putchtler was an electronic commerce technology analyst at Forrester Research. He also co-founded an electronic commerce company which focused on the analysis of on-line buying behavior. He received a B.A. in Computer Science from Dartmouth College, graduating Summa Cum Laude, and is a CFA charterholder.

 
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Steven Bregman | Horizon Kinetics | President, Co‐Founder

Steven Bregman is the President of Horizon Kinetics, a co‐founder of the Firm, and Head of Research. As one of the largest independent research firms, Horizon focuses on structurally inefficient market sectors, including domestic spin‐offs, global spin‐offs (The Spin‐Off Report and Global Spin‐Off Report), distressed debt (Contrarian Fixed Income) and short sale candidates (Devil’s Advocate), among others. Horizon Kinetics has also taken an interest in creating functionally improved indexes, such as the Spin‐Off Indexes and the Wealth Indexes (which incorporate the owner‐operator return variable) and effective, noncorrelated alternative asset classes. Steve is also the President and CFO of FRMO Corp., a publicly traded company with interests in Horizon Kinetics.

He received a BA from Hunter College, and his CFA® Charter in 1989. Steve has authored a variety of papers, notably “Spin‐offs Revisited: A Review of a Structural Pricing Anomaly” (1996) and “Equity Strategies and Inflation” (2012).

 

 

Distressed & Turnaround Fireside Chat

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Jeff Robinson | Bain Capital | Head of Distressed and Special Situations Group

Mr. Robinson joined Bain Capital Credit in 2002. He is a Managing Director, Head of the Distressed and Special Situations Group, the Portfolio Manager of the firm’s Distressed and Special Situations funds and a Credit Committee member. Prior to his current role, he covered the Metals & Mining and Gaming & Leisure sectors and also led several of the Firm’s large portfolio purchases. Previously, he was a Senior Manager of Corporate Development at RSA Security where he led the strategic planning efforts of the company, oversaw four acquisitions during his tenure and co-managed the company’s venture investment portfolio. Before RSA, Mr. Robinson was a Senior Consultant at Strategic Decisions Group where he led case teams in the Private Equity, Energy, Insurance and Industrial Goods industries. 

Mr. Robinson received an MBA from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University and a B.S. from Cornell University.

 
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Eric Costa | Cambridge Associates | Managing Director, Head of Hedge Fund Research

Eric Costa is a Managing Director and the Head of Hedge Fund Research at Cambridge Associates. He is responsible for a team of fourteen performing due diligence on hedge fund managers across all strategies and geographies. Cambridge Associates clients have over $50b of capital invested in hedge fund managers.

Prior to joining Cambridge Associates in 2010, Eric spent eleven years as a partner and portfolio manager with Ramius Fund of Funds Group. In his role, Eric led the firm's event-driven research and managed event-driven fund of funds portfolios, focusing on distressed securities, activism, and merger arbitrage. He was also the co-head of long/short equity research and managed global long/short equity fund of funds portfolios.

Eric graduated from the University of Massachusetts and is a CFA Charterholder. He serves as a co-chair for the Boston Investment Conference.

 

 

Search for Value Panel

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Miguel Fidalgo | Triarii Capital Management | Founder

Miguel Fidalgo is the Founder and Portfolio Manager of Triarii Capital Management. Triarii Capital employs an opportunistic, value-oriented special situations strategy across the capital structure.

Prior to founding Triarii Capital in 2015, Mr. Fidalgo was a Managing Director at The Baupost Group, LLC, where he worked for seven years. While at Baupost, Mr. Fidalgo spearheaded the Firm’s investments in the Icelandic banks, SwissAir, Greece, and Argentina, amongst others.

From 2004 through 2008, Mr. Fidalgo was an Investment Professional at Farallon Capital Management, LLC and its affiliate Noonday Asset Management, L.P. Prior to Farallon/Noonday, Mr. Fidalgo worked at Salomon Smith Barney/Citigroup as an Investment Banking Analyst in the Financial Institutions Group from 2002 through 2004.Mr. Fidalgo received a B.A. in Economics and Computer Science from Macalester College.

 
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Kenneth Little | Brandes Investment Partners

Ken Little, a limited partner of the firm’s parent company, serves as Managing Director, Investments with responsibility for the securities research efforts of the firm and oversight of the product investment committees.  In addition, he is a voting member of the firm’s Global Large Cap and All Cap Investment Committees. Mr. Little is also a member of the firm’s Corporate Governance Committee, which establishes proxy voting policies and provides assistance to the firm’s research teams and investment committees on controversial corporate governance issues. Before joining Brandes, Mr. Little worked as a Senior Accountant with KPMG.

He earned his MBA from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University and his BS in accounting from the University of La Verne. Mr. Little is a Certified Public Accountant (inactive status) and a member of the CFA Society San Diego. He has 21 years of investment experience.

 
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Matt Adams | Orbis Investment Management | Investment Analyst

Matt Adams is a senior investment analyst at Orbis Investment Management, a $38 billion active global equity manager employing a long-term, fundamental, contrarian investment philosophy. With a focus on continuity, Orbis’ track record has been built by multiple generations of stock pickers across five investments offices around the world. Orbis’ long-only equity strategies include: Global, International, Emerging Markets, and Japan. Their flagship strategy, Global Equity, has exceeded the MSCI World Index in excess of 5% per annum, net of fees, since 1990. Matt co-leads the firm’s US investment team and is a director of the firm’s US business.       

Matt has an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Washington, a Masters of Philosophy from Cambridge University, where he was Gates Scholar, and a B.S. from West Point, where he graduated second in his class.  Prior to joining Orbis, Matt served as an officer in the United States Army.  Matt is a Trustee of the Yosemite Conservancy and passionate conservationist. 

 
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Barry Ritholtz | Ritholtz Wealth Management | Chairman & Chief Investment Officer

Barry Ritholtz has spent his career helping people spot their own investment errors and to learn how to better manage their own financial behaviors. He is the creator of The Big Picture, often ranked as the number one financial blog to follow by The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and others.

Barry is the creator and host of Bloomberg’s “Masters in Business” radio podcast, and a featured columnist at the Washington Post. He is the author of the Bailout Nation: How Greed and Easy Money Corrupted Wall Street and Shook the World Economy (Wiley, 2009). In addition to serving as Chairman and Chief Investment Officer of Ritholtz Wealth Management, he is also on the advisory boards of Riskalyze, and Peer Street, two leading financial technology startups bringing transparency and analytics to the investment business.

Barry has named one of the “15 Most Important Economic Journalists” in the United States, and has been called one of The 25 Most Dangerous People in Financial Media. When not working, he can be found with his wife and their two dogs on the north shore of Long Island.

 

Reality and Dreams - Big Data and AI in the Quant Investment Process Panel (Off the Record, No Media)

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Matthew Rothman | Managing Director | Goldman Sachs

Matthew leads the Data as a Client Service initiative for the Securities Division. He joined Goldman Sachs as a managing director in 2018.

Prior to joining the firm, Matthew was global head of Quantitative Research at Credit Suisse. Earlier in his career, he was director of Quantitative Global Macro Research at Acadian Asset Management. Prior to that, Matthew was global head of Quantitative Equity Research at Lehman Brothers.

Matthew serves on the Finance Faculty at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Matthew earned a degree AB in Philosophy from Brown University, an MA in Statistics from Columbia University and a PhD in Finance from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

 
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John Fawcett | CEO & Co-founder | Quantopian

John Fawcett is the CEO and co-founder of Quantopian, an investment management firm that provides an online platform to crowd-source investment algorithms and apply the best of those strategies to manage investors’ money. Fawce has spent the last 15 years creating new businesses and product categories within FinTech. In 2002, he co-founded the first research management company, Tamale, where he was CTO. Fawce is also a founding board member of the FinTech Sandbox, a non-profit dedicated to connecting startups with the data they need. Fawce grew up in Lowell, Mass. He was awarded academic scholarships to attend Andover and Harvard. The motivation for creating Quantopian began with Fawce's gratitude for the financial planning that provided for his education. Since its founding in 2011, Quantopian’s platform has attracted more than 180,000 members from 190 countries working to create institutional-quality investment algorithms and nearly $50 million in equity investments from leading venture capital firms. Fawce and his wife, Caitie, are raising three boys who want to be a doctor, dad, cartoonist, Bruin, archaeologist, marine biologist, and teacher.

 
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Stephen Cash | Co-founder | Seven Eight Capital

Stephen co-founded Seven Eight Capital, a quantitative investment firm focused on systematic trading strategies. Prior to Seven Eight, he co-managed the Statistical Arbitrage Group at IVC Americas. Stephen has also worked as a quant trader on the Proprietary Trading desk at Lehman Brothers and at Bank of America Merrill Lynch and as a Portfolio Manager at WorldQuant. He has an extensive background in applied mathematics and finance, completing his BS in Finance with a minor in Mathematics at Fordham and his MS in Computational Finance from Carnegie Mellon University.

 
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Shane Haas | Signition LP | Founding Principal

Shane Haas has managed systematic portfolios for the past fifteen years.  He is a founding principal of Signition LP which uses techniques from the evolving fields of statistics, signal processing, and machine learning to discover and exploit market inefficiencies.  Prior to forming Signition, he managed systematic trading at Moon Capital.   Previously, he was co-head of Systematic Trading, a proprietary trading desk within Goldman Sachs, managing a portfolio of equities, currencies, and commodities.  Before joining Goldman Sachs, Mr. Haas was a partner at the AlphaSimplex Group, managing a quantitative global macro portfolio.  He holds a PhD from MIT in electrical engineering and completed the Financial Technology Option at the Sloan School of Business.  He received his bachelor's and master's degrees in both electrical engineering and mathematics from the University of Kansas.

 

 

 
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Darby Nielson | Managing Director of Research | Fidelity

Darby Nielson is a managing director of research at Fidelity Management & Research Company (FMRCo), the investment advisor for Fidelity’s family of mutual funds. Fidelity Investments is a leading provider of investment management, retirement planning, portfolio guidance, brokerage, benefits outsourcing and other financial products and services to more than 20 million individuals, institutions and financial intermediaries. In this role, Mr. Nielson leads a team of analysts conducting quantitative research in alpha generation and portfolio construction to enhance investment decisions impacting Asset Management’s Equity and High Income funds.

Prior to assuming his current role in early 2011, Mr. Nielson worked as a quantitative analyst. Before joining Fidelity in 2007, Mr. Nielson was an analyst for Putnam Investments from 2002 to 2006. He was also an infantry officer in the U.S. Army for five years prior to attending business school. He has been in the investments industry since 2002.

Mr. Nielson earned his bachelor of science degree in civil engineering from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and his master of business administration degree from the Sloan School of Management at MIT. He is also a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA®) charterholder.

 

Sustainable Investing and Shareholder Engagement Panel

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Mike Lubrano | Cartica | Co-Founder and Managing Director, Corporate Governance and Sustainability

Mr. Lubrano is internationally recognized as a leader in fostering good corporate governance practices in Emerging Markets and was named one of the ten most influential people in international corporate governance in 2006 by Global ProxyWatch. He is a member of the team that developed and delivers the ESG Integration program sponsored by the International Corporate Governance Network and the U.N. Principles of Responsible Investment. He serves on the Corporate Governance Advisory Council of the U.S. Council of Institutional Investors and on the Advisory Board of the Mexico Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Prior to joining Cartica, Mr. Lubrano serves as the first Manager of IFC’s Corporate Governance Unit. He developed the IFC Corporate Governance Methodology to assess the quality of governance. During his ten years at IFC, he designed governance turnaround programs for numerous companies in Latin America, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa. He was advisor to Chile’s Ministry of Finance in drafting that country’s corporate governance reforms, assisted the São Paulo Stock Exchange in designing the Novo Mercado and was the co-organizer of the Latin America Corporate Governance Roundtable from 2000 – 2007. Prior to joining IFC, Mr. Lubrano worked for the World Bank on the 1995 Mexican financial crisis and was an international securities lawyer with Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, helping Latin American companies access international capital markets.

Mr. Lubrano earned his AB magna cum laude from Harvard College; his JD cum laude from New York University School of Law, and his MPA from Princeton University.

 
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Steve Boxer | FCLTGlobal | Managing Director

Steve Boxer joined FCLTGlobal in 2017 after nearly eleven years of working for Wellington Management in Fixed Income Product Management in Boston and London. While at Wellington, Steve focused on credit investing, including High Yield Bonds, Structured Finance and Leveraged Loans. Prior to Wellington, Steve worked at Babson Capital (now Barings) and in sales roles at Fannie Mae and an internet startup, Visible Markets. Early in his career, Steve was a fixed income portfolio manager at State Street Global Advisors. He has over 30 years of investment experience. Steve is also a volunteer mentor at Year Up in Boston.

Steve holds a BA degree in Philosophy from Middlebury College and two master’s degrees - from the University of Cambridge (International Relations) and the MIT Sloan School of Management. 

 
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Karina Funk | Brown Advisory | Portfolio Manager

Karina Funk, CFA, is portfolio manager of the Brown Advisory Large-Cap Sustainable Growth strategy, and Head of Sustainable Investing at Brown Advisory. Karina joined Brown Advisory in 2009 and has extensive investment experience spanning early-stage ventures to debt and public equities. She was previously an equity research analyst for Winslow Management Co, a principal at Charles River Ventures, and an investment manager at the Massachusetts Renewable Energy Trust.

Karina receives a BS in Chemical Engineering from Purdue University, and an MS in Technology & Policy and MS in Civil & Environmental Engineering from MIT.

 
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Gita Rao | Senior Lecturer | MIT Sloan School of Management

Gita R. Rao is a Senior Lecturer in Finance, and Associate Faculty Director of the Master of Finance program at the MIT Sloan School of Management.  She has over two decades of experience in global investing, asset allocation, risk management, and client service.  In addition, she has managed socially responsible portfolios and teaches a course on social impact investing at MIT Sloan.  Dr. Rao is the founder and president of Aspari Capital, a consultancy focused on quantitative research and portfolio strategies for institutional investors.  Her previous roles include: portfolio manager at MFS Investment Management, managing global long-short portfolios and co-director of quantitative equity research; associate partner and director of quantitative equity research at Wellington Management Company, managing over $4 billion in global equity portfolios on a team responsible for $15 billion in client assets; senior vice president at Liberty Financial Companies, managing over $1 billion in global and international equity/balanced mutual funds and serving on the firm’s investment policy committee; senior research analyst at Fidelity Management & Research Company and vice president at Kidder, Peabody & Co. in New York. 

Dr. Rao has served as a president of the Society of Quantitative Analysts, on the editorial board of the Financial Analysts Journal, on the board of trustees of the Research Foundation of the CFA Institute, and as Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  She holds a Ph.D. in Finance and Accounting from the University of Rochester, an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and a BA in Economics from Delhi University’s St. Stephen’s College in India.

 

Crypto Investing Debate

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Dave Balter | Flipside Crypto | Founder, Partner

Dave has been active in the cryptocurrency space for years, and has learned invaluable lessons from not buying during crypto winters and at least one wallet loss.

Previously, Dave was the CEO and co-founder of Smarterer, a machine-learning skills assessment company acquired by Pluralsight in 2014.  Post-acquisition, Dave was the Head of Transactions at Pluralsight, while also serving as a Board Observer.  Before co-founding Smarterer in 2010, Dave founded and was CEO of BzzAgent, a social media marketing company, which was acquired by dunnhumby, a division of Tesco (PLC) in 2011.  From 2011-2014 Dave sat on the Global Executive Team at dunnhumby, where he led all venture investments and M&A activity.  

Dave is Chairman of Mylestone, a company that assigns a personal biographer to your digital photo library, to generate your life story, which he founded in early 2016.

Dave shares his drive for technology with his local Boston community as an investor and advisor to dozens of startups, including acting as Venture Partner Emeritus in seed-stage investment firm Boston Seed Capital. Personal investments include Promoboxx, Help Scout, Kettle & Fire, Turo, NRG, AdHawk, and Fortified Bike.   Dave sits on the Board of Directors of tech-enabled startups Grapevine, and Kindara, and is Vice Chairman of Boch Center for the Performing Arts, a nonprofit steward of iconic venues, providing arts, entertainment, cultural, and educational experiences to the greater Boston community.

 
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Matt Walsh | Fidelity Investments | Vice President

Matt Walsh is a Vice President at Fidelity Investments, where he manages a venture fund focused on opportunities in the cryptoasset and blockchain space. Previous to his current role, he worked in the firm’s strategy group, where he focused on the firm’s efforts in emerging technologies, including blockchain. Prior to joining Fidelity, Matt worked as a management consultant in the private equity practice at Arthur D. Little, and later in the strategic initiatives group at Clear Channel (now iHeartMedia).

Matt holds a B.S. from Babson College and an M.B.A. from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.

 
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Cory Fields | MIT Media Lab | Digital Currency Developer

 

Frontiers of FinTech Panel

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Sumedh Mehta | Putnam Investments | Chief Information Officer

Mr. Mehta is Chief Information Officer for Putnam Investments. He is responsible for the overall strategic direction and execution of Putnam’s global technology solutions. In addition, he is a member of Putnam’s Operating Committee. Mr. Mehta has over 20 years of experience in managing information technology systems in the investment industry, where he has led transformational change in the areas of software development, information technology, and business operations. Mr. Mehta joined Putnam in 2015 and has been in the investment industry since 1988.

 

 
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Alex 'Sandy' Pentland | MIT | Professor, Information Technology

Alex `Sandy’ Pentland directs MIT’s Human Dynamics Laboratory and the MIT Media Lab Entrepreneurship Program, co-leads the World Economic Forum Big Data and Personal Data initiatives, and is a founding member of the Advisory Boards for Nissan, Motorola Mobility, Telefonica, and a variety of start-up firms. He has previously helped create and direct MIT’s Media Laboratory, the Media Lab Asia laboratories at the Indian Institutes of Technology, and Strong Hospital’s Center for Future Health. 

In 2012 Forbes named Sandy one of the `seven most powerful data scientists in the world’, along with Google founders and the CTO of the United States, and in 2013 he won the McKinsey Award from Harvard Business Review.  He is among the most-cited computational scientists in the world, and a pioneer in computational social scienceorganizational engineeringwearable computing(Google Glass), image understanding, and modern biometrics. His research has been featured in Nature, Science, and Harvard Business Review, as well as being the focus of TV features on BBC World, Discover and Science channels.  His most recent book is `Honest Signals,' published by MIT Press. 

'Sandy's research group and entrepreneurship program have spun off more than 30 companies to date, three of which are publicly listed and several that serve millions of poor in Africa and South Asia. Recent spin-offs have been featured in publications such as the Economist and the New York Times, as well as winning a variety of prizes from international development organizations.

 
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Mihir Shah | Fidelity | Chief Technology Officer, IT Fellow

Mihir Shah is the Head of Technology & Architecture Group for Fidelity Investments. His current areas of focus are AI & Data Strategy, Internal & External API strategy & Digital Transformation across Fidelity Investments. 

Prior to this, he was the Chief Technology Officer for Fidelity’s Asset Management (AM) Group. The asset management group at Fidelity has $2 Trillion client assets under management and is the leading provider of active investment products including mutual funds, managed accounts and institutional money management portfolios. During his tenure, Mihir led a multi-year modernization and digital transformation of AM technology supporting research, portfolio management and trading functions by creating an Agile organization driven by an enterprise wide PaaS platform and a shared Data platform. The AM transformation journey is documented as a MIT Sloan School case study and taught at the business school. 

Previously with Fidelity, Mr. Shah was vice president, Data Engineering & Data Warehousing with Fidelity Brokerage Company (FBC). His team build most of the Data and Analytics capabilities for Fidelity eBusiness (FeB) and enabled the migration of the business to the Internet. He joined Fidelity in 1994 as a senior technical advisor for Fidelity Investments Systems Company (FISC). 

Prior to his 20-year tenure with Fidelity, Mr. Shah had worked internationally on large complex projects including Supply Chain Re-Engineering for Coors Brewing Co in Denver, Insurance system in Argentina, Credit card optimization in Hong Kong, manufacturing automation in India. Mihir was also part of the founding team that launched Churchill Insurance, London. Churchill was a ground breaking digital startup that successfully disrupted the Insurance industry in UK. Mihir started his career in TCS (when TCS was a startup) and successfully grew the company in its formative years. 

Mr. Shah received his bachelor of engineering degree in mechanical engineering from Karnataka University in India. He earned his MBA in marketing and finance from Bombay University.

 
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Ian Sheridan | Vestigo Ventures | Co-Founder

Ian Sheridan’s sharp vision and entrepreneurial instincts have ignited rapid and continuous growth for the host of companies he’s spearheaded to success. His career has been built on a long record of delivering strong and sustainable results. At MassMutual Financial Group, he was instrumental in creating a plan that nearly tripled assets and invented the industry’s first wireless retirement plan enrollment technology. At DST Systems, he launched the industry’s first middleware solution for retirement income. While at ADP, Sheridan created a plan that grew assets under management tenfold.

 

Risk in Fixed Income: ESG, Credit, and Rates Panel

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Sean Cameron | MFS Investment Management | Research Analyst

Sean Cameron, CFA, is an investment officer and research analyst with the Fixed Income Strategic Solutions Group at MFS Investment Management (MFS). He provides quantitative research with economic and investment insights and works with MFS' Global Product team to develop and manage custom fixed income client portfolios. Sean joined the firm in 2014 as a quantitative research analyst. Previously, he was a vice president and portfolio manager at PIMCO for three years. He also spent three years as a financial analyst at Goldman Sachs. Sean earned a bachelor's degree from Princeton University and a MBA degree from Harvard Business School. 

 

 
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Robert Fernandez | Breckinridge Capital Advisors | VP, Director of ESG Research

Rob is Breckinridge’s director of environmental, social and governance (ESG) research. In his role, Rob leads Breckinridge’s ongoing ESG integration efforts, regularly contributes thought leadership and performs corporate credit analysis. Rob has been with the firm since 2010 and has over 18 years of research experience.

Prior to Breckinridge, Rob was a senior research analyst at Opus Investment Management. Rob began his career in credit research at State Street Bank & Trust Co. as a participant in its commercial loan officer development program. He has also held commercial credit analyst positions at Cambridge Savings Bank and Eastern Bank. Rob serves as treasurer and board member of the CFA Society Boston, Inc., as a member of the Investment Committee for the United Way of Massachusetts Bay and as a member of the advisory board for the CECP Strategic Investor Initiative.

He holds a BS from Boston College and an MBA from the Boston University School of Management. He is a CFA® charterholder and is an FSA Credential holder.

 
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Alessia Falsarone | PineBridge Investments | Managing Director, Portfolio Strategy and Risk

Alessia Falsarone is a Managing Director in the Global Fixed Income team at PineBridge Investments in New York, a private asset manager with over $85 billion in alternative and traditional assets as of 31 December 2017.  She joined the company in a strategic role as the firm was being launched in the aftermath of the Financial Crisis from the office of the CIO of AIG, after having spent the prior decade with the investment teams of Citigroup and Credit Suisse in various geographies.  

An NACD Corporate Governance Fellow and a Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) FSA credential holder, Alessia serves on the board of the International Education Resource Network (iEarn-USA) and as a mentor in the Stanford IGNITE program.

Alessia holds an MSc. degree in Financial Mathematics from Stanford University, an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Business, and a BS in Financial Economics from Univ. Bocconi, Milan, Italy.

 
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Lacey E. Greenwalt, CFA | Fiera USA | Assistant Vice President

Lacey is a Portfolio Manager and provides sector and corporate bond analysis and generates trade ideas for the firm's Taxable Fixed Income Investment Strategies. She is also responsible for portfolio structuring of the Deployment Capital Strategy and monitoring and structuring the inflation portfolio for the Tax Efficient Inflation Protection Strategy.

Lacey joined Samson Capital Advisors LLC in 2011. Samson was a privately-owned investment management firm that was founded in 2004 by senior investment professionals from OFFITBANK, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan. Prior to its acquisition by Fiera Capital, Samson managed over $7 billion in assets in customized fixed income for affluent families and their foundations, endowments and corporations. As a Portfolio Analyst at Samson, Lacey helped develop the firm’s Deployment Capital Strategy and was responsible for research and analysis within the High Grade and Tax Efficient Inflation Protection Strategies.

Prior to joining Samson, Lacey spent two years at Lehman Brothers Holdings, where she worked as an Analyst in the Interest Rate Derivatives group. Prior to joining Lehman, Lacey was an Investment Banking Analyst in the Leveraged Finance Origination & Restructuring Group at Credit Suisse. 

Lacey graduated from Duke University in 2008 with a BS in Economics and Political Science. She is a CFA charterholder, and a member of the New York Society of Security Analysts (NYSSA). She is an active member of the New York Junior League and served as a committee vice-chair in 2014-2015.

 

Adrien Verdelhan | MIT | Associate Professor

Adrien Verdelhan is the Class of 1956 Career Development Professor and an Associate Professor of Finance at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

His research focuses on measures of systematic risk in financial markets, particularly in currency and sovereign bond markets. Verdelhan’s work in international finance shows when and why exchange rates are risky, thus shedding light on the most well-known and puzzling currency trading strategy:  the carry trade. His research has been published in the American Economic ReviewThe Journal of Finance, and The Review of Financial Studies, among others.

He is currently a Research Fellow of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Verdelhan was elected Teacher of the Year in 2011 by MIT Sloan students and received the Jamieson Prize for Excellence in Teaching in 2016.

He holds a PhD in economics from the University of Chicago.