Our SPEAKERS

Gian C. Piovanetti, CPA

is Managing Director of Popular Securities’ Investment Banking division and Co-Manager of the Popular Mezzanine Fund, a bank-sponsored debt fund focused on providing asymmetric debt investments, across a wide spectrum including leverage buyouts, asset backed debt, royalty financing, and direct purchase offers. Since joining the firm in 2008, Mr. Piovanetti has been involved in structuring and executing over $5 billion senior and co-senior managed financings by Puerto Rico municipal and corporate issuers.

As head of the department, Mr. Piovanetti transitioned the division from a public finance focus to corporate finance and mergers & acquisitions. He has been involved in a variety of transactions across many industries and is responsible for sourcing, structuring, and closing over $1B in commercial debt financings over the last two years.

Prior to joining Popular, he was an analyst at Lehman Brothers’ esoteric securitization division. Mr. Piovanetti graduated summa cum laude with a B.B.A in accounting from the Inter-American University of Puerto Rico and is a Certified Public Accountant. He resides in Old San Juan with his wife and son and is a board member of various non-for-profit organizations focused on entrepreneurial initiatives for Puerto Rico.

Richard Cooper

is a partner based in Cleary Gottlieb’s New York office. His practice focuses on international and domestic restructurings both in the private and public sectors. He has represented corporate, sovereign and municipal debtors; creditors, creditor committees, buyers and sellers of distressed assets and securities, DIP lenders, and other participants in out-of-court and in-court bankruptcy proceedings. Mr. Cooper led the team that advised the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico with the restructuring of approximately $73 billion of indebtedness prior to the change in administrations. He also played a lead role in the development and passage of the federal statute known as the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act, or “PROMESA”, which creates the first federal debt restructuring regime available to U.S. territories, including Puerto Rico. Additionally, Rich led the team that advised the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA), the largest municipal utility in the U.S., in its restructuring of over $9.5 billion of indebtedness and related matters, and the Government Development Bank of Puerto Rico in its negotiations with creditors.

In Latin America, Mr. Cooper has advised on many of the most high profile restructuring transactions in recent years, including OGPar, Oi, GVO, OAS, Odebrecht Oil and Gas, QGOG Constellation, Rioprevidencia, Embraport and Tonon in Brazil; ICA, GEO, Oceanografía, Oro Negro, Grupo R, Cemex, Comerci Mexicana and Vitro in Mexico; San Antonio Oil and Gas, Edenor, Metrogas, Telecom Argentina and Easa in Argentina; and Gildemeister and Alsacia and Express in Chile, among others.

Mr. Cooper has also worked on the U.S. restructurings of Aleris, America West Airlines, Circle K, Color Tile, Continental Airlines, Foxwoods Casino, Insight Healthcare, Lehman Brothers, Milagro Holdings, Pan American Airways, Revco and Van Camp Seafood, among others. Mr. Cooper was recognized by Law360 as an MVP in bankruptcy and restructuring, by TMA for each of the last two years as one of a handful of outstanding restructuring lawyers in the U.S., by Global M&A Network as a Top 100 Restructuring Professional and by the Financial Times in its fifth annual North America Innovative Lawyers Report for his role in representing a consortium of creditors in OGX’s bankruptcy. He is internationally distinguished as one of the world’s leading lawyers by The Legal 500 Latin America, Latin Lawyer 250, Latinvex’s Top 100 Lawyers, Global M&A Network, Chambers Global, Chambers USA, Chambers Latin America, The Legal 500 U.S., IFLR 1000, The Best Lawyers in America and Global M&A Network.

PETER MARBER PH.D

PETER MARBER PH.D has professionally invested billions of dollars for many of the world's largest corporations and financial groups since 1987. Dr. Marber is a founding member and portfolio manager at Aperture Investors, and has headed emerging market investments for Loomis, Sayles & Company, HSBC Global Asset Management, and he was a partner and president of the emerging market subsidiaries at Wasserstein, Perella & Co.

Dr. Marber has taught at Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Harvard and NYU. He has lectured at dozens of international conferences, and has been a market commentator for CNN, the Financial Times, CNBC, Barron’s, Reuters, Bloomberg, and the Wall Street Journal. He serves and/or has served on various boards for New America, St. John’s College, World Policy Institute, Columbia University, the Emerging Markets Traders Association, and is a Fellow of the RSA in London. Dr. Marber has authored more than 100 articles and columns on international finance and globalization and has published six books. He earned his bachelor’s degree from John Hopkins, his master’s from Columbia, and his PhD. from Cambridge.

David Itzkovits

is the CEO of Sanlam Global Investment Solutions, a division of Sanlam, a 100 year old financial institution with global reach. David has 20 years experience in the Financial Services industry and has worked in various positions with top international companies including at an entrepreneurial startup which was acquired by a $100 Billion global investment firm. Prior to this, David worked for the offshore arm of Old Mutual as Regional Director, Europe and Canada where he was responsible for all business development. Before that, he was Vice President, HSBC Private Bank in New York where he co-managed a $635 million portfolio of investment, credit and insurance for high net worth clients.

David is an acknowledged thought-leader in the use of Artificial Intelligence in the investments industry and is an international key-note speaker on the subject. He has been instrumental in driving the use AI in investment management, especially within the Sanlam Group, which also offers a UCITS fund utilizing AI in the decision making process. David is a CFA Charterholder, has a Bachelor of Science from McGill University and has an MBA from Ivey Business School at Western University.

Adam Braff

is Chief Data Acquisition Officer at Point72, L.P., where he leads efforts to provide differentiated, compliant data to investment professionals to improve their risk-adjusted returns. He was previously Executive Vice President, Global Head of Enterprise Data, Analytics & Architecture at Zurich Insurance, leading a hybrid team of IT and business professionals to create business value from data. Before joining Zurich he was Senior Vice President, Head of Business Analytics at DIRECTV (acquired by AT&T), where he oversaw analytics in support of customer loyalty, lifetime value, programming negotiations, and the optimization of DIRECTV mobile platforms; and Head of Customer Data and Analytics at JPMorgan Chase, where he built a team responsible for optimizing the use of customer data across all of Chase’s consumer businesses to enhance marketing, risk, anti-fraud, customer experience and operations decisions. He was a partner in the DC office of McKinsey & Company, where he co-founded the Customer Experience practice, and began his career as an attorney at Hogan & Hartson (now Hogan Lovells). He has a law degree from the University of Virginia, where he served as executive editor of the law review, and an undergraduate degree in linguistics from Brown. He lives in New York City with his wife and three children.

Sameer Gupta

is a Director in Market Intelligence at Point72 Asset Management where he is responsible for evaluation of alternative data sets and emerging tools and technologies in Data and Analytics. Previously, Sameer was the Chief Operating Officer (COO) at iSentium, an Artificial Intelligence start up that quantifies unstructured social media text for predictive analytics in stock market and brand marketing. In this role, Sameer led key business functions including Sales, Business Development, Fundraising, Engineering and Operations. Prior to this, Sameer was the COO for Global Electronic Trading and Americas Cash Equities business at JPMorgan. Sameer also served in Business Development and Product Management roles at NYSE Technologies. Before that, Sameer worked at Goldman Sachs in multiple roles including Software Development, and Technology Strategy working within Office of Chief Information Officer (CIO).

Sameer received his MBA from Harvard Business School, MS in Information Systems Management from Carnegie Mellon, and BS in Computer Science from National Institute of Technology in India. Sameer is passionate about role of education in democratization of opportunity. Recently, he spearheaded development of a job training initiative for students selected from 24 colleges in CUNY system. Kickoff workshop brought together investment, data science and technology professionals from Point72 and Google to introduce students to skills required for jobs in Data and Analytics.

david weild iv

is Founder, Chairman and CEO of Weild & Co. David is a former Vice Chairman and executive committee member of The NASDAQ Stock Market and spent years running Wall Street investment banking and equity capital markets businesses. The studies that he co-authored have documented the long-term decline in equity capital formation in the United States and provided the core arguments that gave rise to the JOBS Act and many of the specific provisions contained in the JOBS Act. For these reasons, he has been called “The father of the JOBS Act.” David has also called for a “JOBS Act 2” or “JOBS Act Part 2” - language increasingly heard on Capitol Hill. The work has been cited by a broad range of legislators, regulators, academics, the IPO Task Force and the White House Jobs Council leading up to the JOBS Act. David has testified in Congress (most recently in June 2013) and at the SEC (most recently at the Roundtable on Decimalization) on these and other market issues and attended the signing of the JOBS Act by President Obama in the Rose Garden on April 5, 2012. David was also recently asked to author a study for the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) which was entitled, “Making Stock Markets Work to Support Economic Growth” and presented in April 2013 in draft form to the 35 member nations of the OECD, IOSCO and the European Commission. The U.S. Treasury and SEC were in attendance. He later presented the final version at a meeting in June that included the CEO of the World Federation of Exchanges where it was generally agreed, as Weild and Kim have maintained, that structural changes to stock markets have caused the global decline in capital formation for small companies.

David holds an MBA from the Stern School of Business and a BA from Wesleyan University. He studied on exchange at The Sorbonne, Ecole des Haute Etudes Commerciales and The Stockholm School of Economics. He is also Chairman of the Board of Tuesday’s Children, the 9/11 charity.

MICHAEL TERPIN

is founder and CEO of Transform Group, whose divisions include Transform PR, a global public relations firm that has served more than 200 clients in the blockchain field and helped launch more than 100 ICO’s, including Aion, Aeternity, Augur, Bancor, Dent, Ethereum, Factom, Golem, Gnosis, Lisk, MaidSafe, Neo, Qtum, SALT Lending, VideoCoin, and WAX Token; CoinAgenda, an event series for cryptocurrency investors, and Transform Strategies, the company’s advisory division. Transform Group International, LLC, is headquartered in San Juan, Puerto Rico, with offices in Santa Monica, Las Vegas, Silicon Valley, New York, Toronto, and Denver. The Firm is also a partner in TokenMatch, the leading investor matching event series, presented across Asia, Europe and North America, 12-18 times a year.

Terpin also co-founded BitAngels (www.bitangels.co), the world’s first angel network for digital currency startups, in May, 2013, and he is co-founder of Aspire, a new asset creation blockchain platform scheduled to do its token generation event in 2018. Previously, Terpin founded Marketwired, one of the world’s largest company newswires, which was acquired in 2006 and later sold to NASDAQ for $200 million. He also co-founded Direct IPO, one of the earliest equity crowdfunding companies, and founded his first PR firm, The Terpin Group, which represented many of the early Internet leaders, including America Online, Earthlink, Match.com and the Motley Fool, as well as serving as AOR for divisions of Alpine, Fujitsu, JBL, Kawai, Konami, Playboy and TEAC. The Terpin Group was sold in 2000 to Financial Dynamics, now part of FTI Consulting (NYSE: FCN), the same year he received venture funding from Sequoia Capital and Hummer Winblad for Marketwired’s predecessor, InternetWire.

Terpin holds an MFA from SUNY at Buffalo and dual BA in journalism and English from Syracuse University, where he serves on the board of advisors at the top-ranked Newhouse School of Public Communications. Terpin is also an investor and advisor to many blockchain, media and technology companies, including Aion, Alpha Networks, Polymath, Purse.io, ShapeShift, VideoCoin and WAX. He is a general partner and heads up the ICO investment committee in Alphabit Fund (www.alphabit.fund), a Cayman Island registered digital currency fund with $400 million in AUM.

Bruce Fenton

is an experienced economic advisor and an active member of the blockchain industry. He is the founder of Atlantic Financial, the former Executive Director and a current board member of the Bitcoin Foundation, a co-founder of the Bitcoin Association, and the organizer of the first Dubai Bitcoin Conference. He is also the host and founder of the Satoshi Roundtable retreat, an exclusive, invitation-only retreat for leaders in the blockchain industry. Currently, Bruce is serving as a the Managing Director of Atlantic Financial which, in 1994, became the first full-service investment firm on the internet. Prior to Atlantic Financial, he was with Morgan Stanley and specialized in emerging technologies and emerging markets. Bruce has completed several significant transactions and served as a consultant to large investment funds, along with ultra high net worth individuals, and families. Bruce has served as an advisor to one of the world's largest charitable organizations for Gulf engagement and a top ten global private equity firm. He travels extensively, and has lived in the US and Asia, as well as Riyadh and Dubai. Bruce counts amongst his speaking credits numerous blockchain conferences, the MIT Enterprise Forum, Tony Robbins Wealth Mastery, DevCore, the Global Competitiveness Forum (GCF) Saud.

Pavle Sabic

is thought leader and a business head, currently responsible for the Professional Services business at S&P Global. Leading the operations from the New York office, Mr. Sabic manages the overall strategic and international expansion objectives servicing audit/accounting, consulting and law firm clients. He has lived and worked in Edinburgh, London, Croatia, Madrid, Andorra and Dubai, helping to grow businesses in developed and emerging markets.

He joined the firm’s London office in 2011, where he worked extensively on business development, thought leadership, and Go-to-Market strategies in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Prior to joining S&P Global, Mr. Sabic was a consultant in the risk management division of State Street Bank, and worked at Kames Capital – formerly AEGON AM – where he was as a Fixed Income Analyst.

With over 10 years of industry experience, Mr. Sabic is regularly published in the media (WSJ, Forbes, Barron’s, FT etc.), and is a regular broadcast contributor to CNBC (USA, Europe, Arabia), BNN and Radio. He is also an official Associate Partner of University of Edinburgh Business School conducting joint research and business development efforts.

Mr. Sabic graduated ‘summa cum laude’ BSc in Mathematics and Economics from Herriot-Watt University in Edinburgh and holds an MSc in Finance and Investment from the University of Edinburgh. He also holds the Financial Risk Manager certification from the Global Association of Risk Professionals and was awarded the "40 Under 40" award from Global M&A Advisor Association for his cross-border research in the global M&A markets.

Philip Brittan

is the CEO of Crux. Philip has nearly 30 years experience as a technology and business leader, primarily in FinTech. In addition to founding three start-ups, he has held significant roles at Bloomberg, where he was head of foreign exchange trading, Google, where he headed up Google Finance, and Thomson Reuters, where he was CTO and Global Head of Platform of the Financial and Risk Division, and successfully turned around their flagship financial desktop, Eikon. Philip currently manages Crazy Peak LLC, a technology business investment and advisory firm, and holds a degree in Computer Science from Harvard University.

Barry Barovick

is a Senior Managing Director at Ankura. Mr. Barovick is a recognized executive and business leader with a rich history of advisory, transaction, and management experience, and thorough understanding of the intersection of business strategies, finance, technology, and human capital in the infrastructure and real estate sectors. For more than 40 years he has converged contemporary viewpoints, exceptional judgment, and world-class valuation models to guide the successful transformation and rapid growth of global enterprises. His experience spans numerous industries where he has earned an exceptional record of translating thought leadership into actionable and financeable strategies that have delivered impressive results to stakeholders in revenue, earnings, reputation, and value.

Prior to joining Ankura, Barry was global director of FTI Consulting’s real estate advisory practice, and formerly was partner and global director of real estate advisory services at EY, where he built the consulting, transaction and implementation services platforms , and increased global market presence through acquisitions and growth. He is widely regarded as an innovator and visionary in the real estate industry, where while CEO of Grubb & Ellis, he is credited with creating the universally adapted integrated services model of brokerage, management, and capital markets. Barry is an accomplished public speaker, published author, and contributor to leading business media, industry organizations, and government agencies.

Elizabeth Smith Kulik

is a Senior Managing Director at Ankura. Liz is a dynamic results driven business leader distinguished by broad and deep experience as a corporate leader, executive advisor, entrepreneur and change agent. For over 35 years she has consistently created financeable value in large and small enterprises with financial, business and social interests in real estate and infrastructure assets, operations and investment. Liz has a rich history of client service, corporate leadership and as an entrepreneur. She has brought extensive strategic thinking and a keen eye for value creation to her senior leadership roles in public and private real estate investment funds, property companies and advisory services companies, including: FTI Consulting, Grubb & Ellis, BGK Management, Inc., Glenborough Real Estate Investment Trust, and Aetna Realty Investors. One of Liz's notable highlights is development and execution of commercial real estate property and asset management operating platforms for +$100B of REIT, Syndication and Institutional investment in real estate portfolios in multiple global geographies and in all major product types.

At Ankura, Liz works closely with public and private enterprises, investors, boards and decision makers to solve the challenges of start-up, transformation, growth, and restructuring in rapidly changing financial markets. Liz is recognized for developing and executing innovative and scalable business strategies that optimize the overlapping relationships between operations, technology, IP, production, human capital, their respective connecting markets, capital formation and transaction structuring. This has enabled her to delineate innovative valuation models and risk aligned solutions for complex real estate, infrastructure and business transactions including; public/private partnerships, partnerships/joint ventures, private equity/debt and alternative financings. Liz graduated from Trinity College with BA in Economics.

Bill Pecoriello

founded Consumer Edge in 2009 and has been CEO since its founding. He was previously a Managing Director at Morgan Stanley covering the Beverages and Household/Personal Care sectors for over 7 years. He also spent 5 years at Sanford Bernstein covering Beverage and Tobacco. Prior to Wall Street, Bill was a Project Manager and Strategic Management Consultant at Mars & Co. for 5 years where he consulted Senior Management Teams of consumer product companies. He was a top ranked Beverage Analyst by Institutional Investor for 11 years and held the #1 position from 2003-2008. Bill has also been top ranked in other surveys such as Greenwich Associates, Wall Street Journal, Forbes and Reuters.

Tharsis Souza

Tharsis Souza is Vice President of Product Development at Yewno Finance, which leverages Yewno’s proprietary Knowledge Graph to offer a variety of AI-augmented products and solutions including index strategies, alternative data feeds and an AI platform for financial services professionals. Before joining Yewno, Tharsis earned his Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Financial Computing and Analytics from the University of London. Tharsis is a product leader with 10 years of experience in technology, quantitative finance, and data science. Tharsis built teams and delivered new products across companies in Latin America, Europe, and the US. Prior to Yewno, Tharsis worked with Product Development and Quantitative Finance in the banking and stock exchange industries, consulted for Hedge Funds and developed research at the financial computing research group at the University College London in the UK. Tharsis is an author of scientific publications in financial computing and analytics and is an adhoc reviewer of scientific journals such as Science Advances (AAAS) and The Journal of Network Theory in Finance. Tharsis also speaks in various academic and industry conferences on computer science, fintech, artificial intelligence, and data science.

Lawrence Newhook

serves as the President & Chief Investment Officer of Alpha Innovations, where he oversees all facets of the business, including product innovation, alpha identification, and risk management. He also leads Laureate Digital Securities, a blockchain ecosystem engineered to facilitate the creation, administration and secondary market trading of funds issued as digital securities. Mr. Newhook is a veteran investment professional with a 20+ year track record investing globally across all asset classes. He has built successful investment and hedge fund portfolios for the pension, family office, and high net worth investor communities, with a particular focus on identifying and extracting sources of alpha from both public and private markets.

Prior to launching Alpha Innovations and Laureate Digital Securities, Lawrence was a member of the management team at Point72 Asset Management LP for twelve years, where he managed the team responsible for the firm’s external investments in hedge funds, private equity, venture capital and real estate. His team was also responsible for evaluating all discretionary and quantitative PMs, analysts and traders to ensure the standard of only hiring best in class investment talent. Earlier in his career, Mr. Newhook was the Portfolio Manager of Alternative Strategies for OMERS, one of the largest Canadian pension plans, where he designed, developed, and managed its hedge fund and active currency programs. Prior to this, he traded international OTC and listed derivatives and cash markets, and helped manage global derivatives and FX portfolios for both the pension fund and large banks. Mr. Newhook holds a Masters degree in Financial Economics from the University of London and is a CFA Charterholder.

Christopher Kulick

joined Analytical Research in May 2018 as its Chief Strategist. Previously, he was a Senior Vice President in the Investment Strategy Group at Permal Group after joining the firm in 2007. His responsibilities included customized portfolio solutions, client relationship management, portfolio management as well as investment and operational due diligence expertise. Prior to Permal, he worked at CIBC Oppenheimer from 2000 to 2005 where he performed due diligence on mutual funds, managed a non-discretionary brokerage platform, and expanded the firm’s 3rd party investment platform. Mr. Kulick began his career in Washington DC in 1998 with Callahan & Associates managing a software solution for small/medium sized financial institutions. He earned an MBA from Wake Forest University with a concentration in Finance in 2005 and a BBA in Marketing from The University of Iowa in 1998.

Robert fagin

is Head of Research at Cowen and Company. He also heads Kyber Data Science, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cowen Inc. Kyber is focused on developing and selling unique and proprietary datasets across a variety of sectors to institutional investors and corporations. Robert joined Cowen from Jefferies, where he was Co-Head of US Equity Research and the global coordinator of Technology, Media and Telecom (TMT) Research. Prior to joining Jefferies, Robert was the president of Darga Consulting, which provides strategic consulting services to high- profile private companies, including business planning, capital introduction, M&A analysis, and board constitution, and served on a variety of private company boards, such as Brightwire. Before founding Darga, Robert was a managing director in Bank of America’s equity research department for five years, where he had senior managerial responsibilities including management of the firm’s TMT, financials, and energy research practices. He also established Bank of America’s Taiwan-based TMT equity research effort. Prior to coming to Bank of America, Robert was a senior equity research analyst at Bear Stearns, where he was responsible for stock coverage of the Internet Infrastructure Services sector (1999 –2002) and U.S. telecommunications sector (2002 –2004). He was recognized as a member of Institutional Investor’s All-America Research Team for coverage of both sectors and was named by Forbes/Starmine as one of the top 5 earnings estimators in the US across all industries. Robert’s equity research experience also includes three years as an analyst at Oppenheimer, where he covered software stocks.

Before his Wall Street career, Robert was a research analyst at IDC, the world’s leading technology market research firm, and before that worked in the National market analysis group of Coopers & Lybrand (now PricewaterhouseCoopers), where he was responsible for analyses of high- technology clients and potential clients, and supported consulting engagements and due diligence for several large M&A transactions in technology sector. At Coopers he also served as a member of the firm’s 8-person national technology planning team.

DAVID WOLF PH.D

is President / Chief Medical Officer at Spektron Systems, LLC. Directs and manages a Machine Learning/AI directed drug design company intending to be an integral part of the disruptive change in the global drug pipeline. Dr. Wolf served a chief of the Astronaut Office Extravehicular Activity (EVA “Spacewalk”) Branch for much of the International Space Station (ISS) construction, completing six spacewalks personally (on ISS) - all with rookie Astronauts, serving as a mentor/instructor. He led the Astronaut team responsible for development, test, and execution of spacewalks during the “Wall of EVA” necessary to complete the ISS. Dr. Wolf has logged 168 days, 12 hours, 56 minutes and 0.4 seconds in Space over four separate missions, including a long-duration 128 day mission as flight engineer of the Russian MIR space station which has trained and conducted completely in Russian language. He has conducted a total of seven spacewalks, using both the Russian and American spacesuits, and has logged 47 hours and 05 minutes of extravehicular activity. He is an active speaker and advocate for spaceflight. Dr. Wolf is called upon to represent NASA in a wide variety of venues including Commercial and scientific. Dr. Wolf is a private consultant, professional speaker, and professor at Purdue University. He has never lost his passion for “Space.”

eric yu

is the Founder & CEO of Global Tone Communication Technology Co., Ltd. (GTCOM). GTCOM is a world-leading big data and artificial intelligence company. With advanced NLP and sematic computing technologies, it collects, mines and analyzes massive global data, builds industrial knowledge graphs, algorithm models and visualization platforms for finance, technology, industry, smart city, national security, consulting and multiple other sectors, and provides global corporate users with comprehensive cutting-edge scenario-based solutions powered by big data and AI.

Bob Serhus

is a Senior Investment Strategist at Wells Fargo and former Partner and Chief Investment Officer of Cantor Fitzgerald Wealth Partners. Previously, Mr. Serhus served as founder and Chief Investment Officer of Serhus Capital Management, where he provided customized client solutions through comprehensive and in-depth analysis, risk management and thorough due diligence. Earlier, he served as Director of Research and Head Portfolio Manager at Attalus Capital, and Chief Investment Officer of Alternatives at Julius Baer. In addition, he has held senior positions at Alpha Investment Management and J.P. Morgan. Mr. Serhus holds an M.B.A. in Finance from the University of Florida’s Warrington College of Business.

Evan A. Schnidman, Ph.D.

is the Founder of Prattle Analytics, LLC and serves as its Chief Executive Officer. Dr. Schnidman's financial research has been featured in Bloomberg News and Seeking Alpha while his academic research has been published in journals and edited volumes. He has vetted the political, economic and financial risks of major infrastructure investments for large corporations. He has also vetted finances, management structures and community engagement of small and midsize financial institutions to maximize relationships, tax status and grant opportunities from the government. From 2010 to 2014, he taught courses in economics, public policy and political science at Harvard University and Brown University. Notably, his first article in Bloomberg, “Strong Dollar Advocates Make a Weak Case” (Jan. 25, 2012), showcased a mathematical model he designed to successfully predict every intermediate S&P 500 market bottom and top since 2008. Dr. Schnidman holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University as well as Bachelors and Masters Degrees from Washington University in St. Louis.

Joe Rothermich, CFA

is a Sr. Director of Quant Research and Data Science for Applied innovation at Refinitiv (formerly the Finance and Risk business of Thomson Reuters). He heads Refinitiv Labs in North America and StarMine Research, a provider of quantitative models to institutional investors. The lab is applying emerging technologies such as machine learning, AI, and alternative data to create new tools and sources of insight for the financial markets.

Prior to Thomson Reuters, Joe was a quantitative portfolio manager at a Lincoln Vale LLC, a Fintech startup founder, and a consultant at Accenture and data science consulting firms. Joe received an M.Sc. in Natural Computation from the University of Birmingham, UK, and a B.S. in Systems Analysis from Miami University. He holds the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation and is a member of the CFA Institute.

David Carter

CIO of Lenox Wealth Advisors, David sets the investment philosophy and process for Lenox Wealth Advisors. He brings over 20 years of experience to leading our Investment Committee — overseeing the strategic and tactical asset allocation decisions of each portfolio through changing market cycles. Prior to joining Lenox Wealth Advisors, he served as CIO of Spinnaker Trust and before that, as an analyst at JP Morgan. David is regularly sought out by the Wall Street Journal and other publications for his insights and commentary on market conditions. He’s also a frequent speaker at industry conferences on topics ranging from risk and investment management, to asset allocation strategies and investment portfolio design. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Finance from Northeastern University, an MBA from the University of Chicago, and holds the Chartered Financial Analyst® designation.

Barry L. Star

founded Wall Street Horizon in 2003 and today is leading the company through a phase of accelerated product enhancement and growth. He originally developed Wall Street Horizon’s highly accurate event data feeds to meet the extreme tolerances of options traders and market makers, allowing them to take advantage of or avoid event-driven volatility.

Formerly an executive at Fidelity, Barry developed the highly successful Fidelity Investments Advisor Group, which provides brokerage services to independent money managers; and Fidelity On-line Xpress, the first PC-based brokerage trading and accounting system.

Barry was fortunate to be a witness to the birth of the personal computer industry, having worked with Steve Jobs when he was at Apple Computer the FIRST time and even wrote and sold Apple software in little plastic baggies near the beginning of time.

Nathan Vardi

is a Senior Editor at Forbes Media, helping lead Forbes’ Wall Street and investment channels. He is responsible for Forbes’ coverage of hedge funds, private equity and other big investors, and writes regularly for Forbes Magazine. Nathan helps edit the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans and Forbes’ list of billionaires. He also manages projects like the Forbes 30 Under 30 Finance list. An 18-year veteran of Forbes, Nathan has written profiles of big investing personalities like Andy Beal, Robert Smith, David Rubenstein, Carl Icahn, John Grayken, and Harold Hamm, and conducted investigative work on topics like Valeant Pharmaceuticals, the 2008 cash crunch at Harvard’s endowment, Bernard Madoff, Yasser Arafat’s money, Iraq and Afghanistan reconstruction, terrorism funding, failed fintech unicorn Mozido, and Intellectual Venture’s patent investing model.

Alan C. Snyder

is the Managing General Partner of Shinnecock Partners, a 29-year-old family office investment boutique, and its investment funds, General Partner of Shinnecock Group. Alan was the Founder and non-Executive Board Chairman of Snap Insurance LLC; the Founder, CEO, President, and Chairman of the Board of Answer Financial Inc. and the Insurance Answer Center; CEO of Aurora National Life Assurance; Executive-in-Charge of Executive Life Insurance Company on behalf of the California Department of Insurance; President and COO of First Executive Corporation, a $20 billion life holding company; and Executive Vice President and member of the Board of Directors at Dean Witter Financial Services Group (a predecessor firm to Morgan Stanley). He managed most of the product areas and as part of a three-person team undertook the development of the Discover card. He is the former Chairman, President and Board Member of the Western Los Angeles Boy Scout Council. Mr. Snyder is a graduate of Georgetown University (WSJ Scholar) and Harvard Business School (Baker Scholar).

TIM BAKER

is the Global Head of Innovation, Financial & Risk at Thomson Reuters. Mr. Baker provides the strategic direction across the large portfolio of content assets and is also involved in innovation and new business development. Prior to Thomson Reuters, Tim was a Managing Director at UBS occupying a variety of analytical and supervisory positions and boards. He originally trained as an electronics engineer at Rolls-Royce. Baker has an MBA from Bath University, and is a CFA Charter Holder.

Vinod Raman

is Vice President, Digital Advice Solutions at Fidelity Institutional (division of Fidelity Investments), which offers clearing, custody and investment management products to help financial professionals, institutions and other intermediaries service their clients and grow their businesses. Mr. Raman is responsible for leading the product team and driving strategic planning, development and execution of digital advice solutions for institutional clients. Prior to this role, Mr. Raman was Vice President, Strategy at Fidelity Business Consulting, which is an internal strategy consulting group within Fidelity Investments. In this role he led a wide range of strategic initiatives across the enterprise. Prior to joining Fidelity Investments, Mr. Raman worked within the IBM Strategy Group, with past work experience at Manhattan Associates and Hewitt Associates. Mr. Raman received an MBA degree from Darden Business School in 2009. He also holds a Master of Science degree in Information Sciences from Penn State and an undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Madras in Chennai, India.

ARNAUB CHATTERJEE

is a Senior Expert in the Pharmaceutical and Medical Products group at McKinsey & Company. Additionally, he serves as Teaching Associate in the Department of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School and Lecturer in the Department of Policy Analysis and Management at Cornell University.
At McKinsey, he advises pharmaceutical and biotech companies on a range of topics, including digital transformation, utilizing novel data and analytics for product positioning and preparing for launch. He also works with leading technology companies who are entering the healthcare sector on a range of go-to-market issues. Prior to McKinsey, he served as Director of Business Development and Strategic Partnerships at Merck where he led ventures and partnerships with academic medical centers, payers and technology companies to power R&D and commercial activities.Previously, he served in the Obama Administration as an advisor to former Chief Technology Officers Todd Park and Bryan Sivak at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). At HHS, he co-led efforts for the Health Data Initiative, designed the www.healthdata.gov platform, and launched the Innovation Fellows Program. At HHS, he also worked in the Secretary's Office as a lead policy analyst on healthcare fraud and abuse policy initiatives around the Affordable Care Act. Prior to government service, he spent a number of years as a strategy consultant at Deloitte Consulting, supporting pharmaceutical companies on M&A strategy. He holds graduate degrees in health administration (MHA) and public administration (MPA) from Cornell University and received his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan.

Sourav Mazumder

Sourav is Data Scientist Thought Leader at IBM Analytics working in the area of Artificial Intelligence, Data Science and Big Data for last 10 years with over 22 years of total IT experience. Sourav has consistently driven business innovation and values through Methodologies and Technologies related to Artificial Intelligence and Data Science transpired through his knowledge, insights, experience and influencing skills across multiple industries including Manufacturing, Insurance, Telecom, Banking, Media, Health Care and Retail industries in USA, Europe, Australia, Japan and India. In last 10 years he has influenced key decision makers in about 7 different fortune 500 companies to adopt Data Science, Artificial Intelligence and Big Data related technologies to address complex business needs through use of large volume of Data. Sourav has also consistently provided directions to and successfully led numerous challenging Artificial Intelligence, Data Science and Big Data oriented projects in last 10 years applying various related methodologies ranging from Descriptive statistics, Probabilistic Modeling, Algorithmic Modeling, Natural Language Processing, etc., to solve critical business problems using large volume of data. Sourav has also successfully partnered with academia within North America, India, South Africa to mentor the students and enabling them in this area. Sourav is a seasoned professional experienced in working both as an individual contributor and team player thriving in a dynamic and ambiguous environment. Sourav has experience and exposure in working in variety of Artificial Intelligence, Data Science and Big Data related technologies like Watson APIs, Watson Studio, Watson Explorer, SPSS, Spark, Hadoop, BigSQL, HBase, MongoDb, Solr, System ML, Brunel, Cognos, R, Python, Scala/Java, etc., using them in projects involving phases from creation of Minimum Viable Product to Productionization. Sourav consistently publishes papers/blogs/articles in various industry forums. He also speaks in various Industry conferences on Artificial Intelligence, Data Science and Big Data.

Vladislav Gesterak

is the Managing Director and the Head of Electronic Trading Distribution and Sales Trading at Cantor Fitzgerald. Mr. Gesterak joined Cantor Fitzgerald from Bank of America Merrill Lynch, where he spent 2 years as an electronic sales, account management and sales trader, following a 5-year tenure at UBS as an electronic sales trader. He has over 14 years of electronic trading experience, driving business growth and profitability with institutional and quantitative clients, Prior to UBS, he worked on buy-side as a high-frequency trader with IVC, and Portfolio Manager/Senior trader with a foreign family office.Mr. Gesterak and his family reside in Marlboro NJ, where he previously volunteered with a local fire fighting company, and trained soccer and basketball as the head coach of girls’ teams.

Jack Kokko

is the CEO and Founder of AlphaSense, an AI-powered business insights platform. AlphaSense’s mission is to organize the world’s business information and leverage AI to allow knowledge professionals to make smarter, faster, and more confident decisions. As a former financial analyst, Jack experienced the problem of information overload and fragmentation first-hand, and understood that the combination of AI-powered search and broad content aggregation would be unrivaled. He built AlphaSense into a unique platform used across Wall Street and at the largest corporations globally. Before AlphaSense, Jack was a co-founder and CEO/Chairman of two successful venture-backed technology companies. Previously, Jack was a senior analyst in Morgan Stanley’s technology team in Menlo Park, California, and telecom team in London, UK.

Jack holds an MBA with a major in finance from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He also holds a master’s degree in engineering from the University of Oulu, Finland, and a bachelor’s degree in finance from the Helsinki School of Economics.

Adam Maher

serves as Founder & CEO of Ursa Space Systems Inc. (Ursa). He founded Ursa in 2014 to develop his driving vision of connecting people to information rich data derived from synthetic aperture radar, seeing an obvious frustration and disconnect between the technology and those who could take full advantage of the capabilities.
Adam has 10 years of experience in the satellite industry. Prior to founding Ursa, he worked at Space Systems Loral, where he was lead systems engineer for multiple satellite proposals and builds.

Adam holds a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering and Master of Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, from Cornell University. At Ursa Space Systems Inc., he uses his knowledge of the satellite industry to fuel his vision of a living world map, where the connection between satellites and users is no longer complicated or difficult, and users are empowered to make better decisions with better data.

Geoffrey Craig

is a Global Energy Analyst at Ursa Space Systems. Ursa is a data fusion and analytics company. The company uses radar satellites to provide global monitoring services across the oil supply chain for customers in energy and finance. The flagship product is a weekly oil inventory report covering 150 locations around the world. Prior to Ursa, Geoff was an energy reporter at S&P Global Platts, a leading publisher of commodity news, data and benchmarks. He also has experience living in the Middle East as a journalist and Peace Corps Volunteer. Geoff is a graduate of Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs and George Washington University. 

Edward Oliver

is Vice President, Finance Sales at Dataminr. Edward has over nineteen years of experience in Financial Services and Fintech. At Dataminr he has been responsible for content analysis for the finance vertical and currently helps lead the finance vertical sales team. Prior to his role at Dataminr, he was a trader in the equities division at Citigroup where he traded NYSE and NASDAQ companies across a variety of sectors. Edward holds a Bachelor of Arts from Morehouse College and an MBA from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.

Alejandra M. J. Litterio

is a Co-founder and Chief Research Officer at Eye Capital, a Fintech which develops algorithms based on Artificial Intelligence, Deep Learning and Natural Language Processing with strong cryptographic properties. As Director of R&D department, her work lies in the creation of a tailored-made financial lexicon. She is currently working on the design of market driver lexicons in Spanish and English for the global financial markets. As part of the project, Alejandra is also outlining strategies to design algorithms able to detect deceptive language and fraudulent behavior veiled in unstructured as well as alternative data. Being a Linguist, her passion for studying the complexities and subtleties of the natural language and the ways to translate it into computational language became Alejandra’s driving force to explore new scientific approaches and paradigms. Alejandra is an expert in Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing within the field of Systemic Functional Linguistics (Appraisal Theory) and Forensic Linguistics, leading innovative projects and working in tandem with a multidisciplinary team of mathematicians, physics, anthropologists, cognitive scientists and developers to design algorithms with the ability to interpret financial news in real time.

Ms. Litterio has been speaker and panelist in conferences internationally. She is the president of the Organizing and Academic Committee in the “First Symposium of Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing” in Buenos Aires. Last but not least, Alejandra is a columnist in a prestigious newspaper and a frequent guest in “Reporte Economía”, a well-known radio program, where she analyses topics related to global economic and financial events, the application of algorithmic techniques and the impact of Artificial Intelligence in the financial arena. Alejandra is pursuing her Master’s Degree in Discourse Analysis at Universidad de Buenos Aires. She is a PhD candidate in Linguistics at UBA andalso works as a researcher at the Center of High Studies in Information Technology (CAETI) and teaches the “Computational Linguistics” seminar at Universidad Abierta Interamericana.

Michael Roberts

is the Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Roberts Capital Advisors, LLC (“RCA”) where he manages an opportunistic absolute return strategy. RCA’s proprietary technology harvests millions of conventional and unconventional data points – in some cases, on a single company or single sector of the economy – every day in search of leading indicators that provide RCA a sustainable edge in investment decisions. Over the last ten years, RCA’s strategy has consistently generated double-digit returns with less volatility than the broad equity markets.

Prior to founding Roberts Capital Advisors, Michael was a Vice President and Investment Advisory Committee Member of a five-star small cap growth fund at T. Rowe Price Associates Inc. Michael also developed proprietary return, risk and attribution models which influenced over $300 billion of investments. Michael has a BA in Economics with Honors from the University of Chicago, an MA in Economics from Brown University (where he was the recipient of the Susan Kamins Fellowship), a JD with Honors from the University of Maryland, and an LLM with Distinction from the Georgetown Law Center. He is also a member of the New York and New Jersey Bar Associations.

 michael beal

is the CEO of Data Capital Management. A systematic Hedge Fund that specializes in machine learning, advanced technologies and novel data sources to generate differentiated and uncorrelated returns for the clients of its DCM A.I. Absolute Return Fund.

Prior to DCM, Mr. Beal co-founded the Big Data and Advanced Analytics group for JP Morgan Chase and was an investor with TPG Capital and Morgan Stanley. Michael is a frequent Keynote and CNBC contributor and is passionate about investing, the onset of the “Data Economy” and the application of disruptive technologies to valuable “problems to solve”.

Michael earned a BA from Harvard College with honors in Economics and an MBA from Harvard Business School with distinction. Michael is an active Board Member of the City University of New York’s Medgar Evers College.

Hector Negroni

is Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer of FCO Advisors LP (FCO). Hector has been a pioneer in the municipal market over the last 3 decades, leading innovation in investing and proprietary trading, public/private financing, derivatives, securitized products and a broad range of structured solutions. His efforts have provided financing for tens of billions of dollars of infrastructure and essential government services. Prior to forming FCO, he was the head of municipal trading at Goldman Sachs and before joining Goldman, he worked at Société Générale, Lazard Fréres and Citigroup in a variety of leadership roles. Hector earned a BS from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He resides in New York City with his wife and two young daughters and is active with a number of charities focused on children’s and veteran’s concerns.

AJ Abdallat

is the Founder and CEO of Beyond Limits, a pioneering Artificial Intelligence company based in Glendale, California. The company has a strong legacy from the NASA space program, notably AI technology developed at Caltech/Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The technical leadership of the company includes former scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

Mr. Abdallat is a serial entrepreneur with 20 years of experience in building high tech startups in the fields of artificial intelligence, cognitive reasoning systems, and smart sensors. He founded Beyond Limits in 2014 to drive new innovation as the company brings AI technology from the space program to solve challenging problems for companies on Earth. He secured Series A investment in 2014, and closed Series B funding from British Petroleum (BP) in early in 2017. Mr. Abdallat is currently working on securing Series C investment to accelerate delivery of Industrial-scale cognitive AI. Starting in 1998, Mr. Abdallat worked with Caltech/JPL on commercializing smart sensors, and artificial intelligence projects. Since then, he has founded several companies to bring innovative Caltech/JPL technology to market, the latest of which is Beyond Limits. Prior to his career as an entrepreneur, Mr. Abdallat served Hewlett-Packard and Control Data Corporation in High Performance Computing and Technology Development to capture and implement large contracts in the government, aerospace & defense, and manufacturing sectors.

Mr. Abdallat holds a Master of Science degree in Engineering from the University of Missouri and a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley.

Evan Morris

is a Principal on Pithia's investment team, where he focuses on managing the firm's end-to-end deal pipeline and due diligence process, as well as industry research. Previously, he was the lead emerging technology analyst at PitchBook (acquired by Morningstar) where he focused on blockchain and financial technology. He also gained experience at Fortress Investment Group's Global Macro Fund, Sea Change Fund, and has co-founded multiple startups. His research and commentary has appeared in the Financial Times, Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune and Reuters. Evan graduated from Harvard with an A.B. in History.

AniRUDH Chowdhry

is a managing consultant with TCS where he leads the asset management advisory practice. He has been investing in alternatives since joining a Swiss based alternative asset manager-Gottex Funds Management (2005). During this period he invested in both new and emerging managers globally, initiated private credit investments in 2007, structured accounts with bespoke exposures, and managed advisory mandates on risk management and portfolio allocation. Mr. Chowdhry believes that managing hedge fund redemptions during the financial crisis was the best lesson in hedge fund investments. A plaque on his desk reads-’crisis takes much longer time coming than you think, and then it happens much faster than you would have thought.’

Mr. Chowdhry is a CPA and received a Masters in Business Administration and a Masters in Finance from Simon School of Business, University of Rochester. Wall Street Journal published his critique of Ken Griffin’s Op-Ed on the emergence of non-bank intermediaries (like Citadel) as new liquidity providers in the fixed income markets.

Andrew Lazarus

Andrew Lazarus, Managing Director, heads The Beryl Consulting Group’s Real Estate practice. As part of the New York real estate community, he brings a proven track record of over 25 years in commercial real estate.

Mr. Lazarus was an owner’s representative for VMS Realty Partners, responsible for the leasing and asset management of over 2.5 million square feet of property in New York. Prior to Beryl, he was a Managing Director at Grubb & Ellis. Since 2013, as a partner of Almatt llc he has been involved in development, financing, and the acquisition of both commercial properties and over 500 multi-family apartment units. On a combined basis, Mr. Lazarus has leased, acquired, and asset managed real estate properties, in excess of five million square feet.

The mission of Beryl’s Real Estate practice is to maximize long term capital appreciation through the acquisition and development of real estate assets, both in the United States and abroad. Beryl’s approach monetizes asset values for privately-owned entities and family offices with projects ranging from $20M - $500M.

Mark H. Leeds

is a Tax Transactions & Consulting partner in Mayer Brown's New York office. His practice is focused on the tax consequences of a variety of capital markets products and strategies, including over-the-counter derivative transactions, swaps, tax-exempt derivatives and strategies for efficient utilization of tax attributes—such as net operating losses. Mark advises on the tax aspects of capital markets, structured finance, derivatives, financial products and insurance transactions and has extensive experience working with both buyers and sellers to develop and structure complex derivatives. A significant portion of his work involves the taxation of financial products and trading strategies engaged in by banks and other financial market participants. He also advises on hedge fund and other investment vehicle formation matters. Mark is a former managing director and senior tax counselor with Deutsche Bank in New York. He also served as the general counsel of a credit derivative company and was a partner at Deloitte & Touche, where he led the capital markets tax practice. A frequent writer and speaker on tax topics affecting the capital markets, Mark is also the editor-in-chief of the monthly publication

JAIME MORGAN STUBBE

has over 32 years in top executive positions in high level positions in the private sector and in the executive branch of government. Mr. Stubbe has dedicated most of his career to the resort real estate development sector. He is currently Managing Director of Real Estate at DBR Development, the development company of Puerto Rico’s ultra lux residential resort Dorado Beach and Ritz-Carlton Reserve Hotel.  Prior to joining the Dorado Beach Resort Development Team, he oversaw the development and sale of land and resort residences for 15 years during his tenure at one of Puerto Rico’s largest resort developments -Palmas del Mar- with sales averaging $131.0 million a year; closing over 1000 units from 2000-2009. He has participated in complex transactions such as $150 million bond issue; $230 million construction loan negotiation; oversaw and coordinated multi-discipline team in obtaining permits to build a 650,000 square feet regional retail center; was responsible for overseeing $100 million of capital expenses and real estate improvements from 2001-2008. Mr. Stubbe has also been a member of the board of the PR Home Builders Association and was selected as one of Puerto Rico’s Top Ten Businessmen of 2006 by the prestigious Caribbean Business.

Prior to being involved in real estate development, Mr. Stubbe practiced law in the areas of real estate, commercial and business law, and held Governor’s Cabinet level positions in the Puerto Rico Government.  He was the Director of the PR Economic Development Administration and President of the Puerto Rico Industrial Development Company (now Department of Economic Development & Commerce). In this role, besides developing and executing economic development policies, he was responsible for marketing PR as a destination for investment and promoting and managing multiple tax incentives, including Act 20 . He has served in multiple boards of directors including that of a publicly (NYSE) traded company. He has also served in Boards of financial institutions such as the Government Development Bank and the Economic Development Bank.

MANUEL LOPEZ-ZAMBRANA ("NOLIN")

is a partner at DLA Piper where he represents clients in a variety of industries such as financial, mutual funds, manufacturing, not for profit, insurance airline transportation, maritime transportation and telecommunications industries. Mr. López-Zambrana's expertise is highly sought after in all stages of tax controversies. He is considered by Chambers and Partners publication as a "standout tax practitioner who receives glowing recommendations from sources as one of the leading lawyers in the field." Mr. López-Zambrana has also served as advisor to the Puerto Rico Department of the Treasury and to the Government Development Bank for Puerto Rico. He was capital member of various major law firms in Puerto Rico and is a frequent speaker at numerous seminars and conferences sponsored by the Puerto Rico State Society of Certified Public Accountants, Puerto Rico Chamber of Commerce, the Puerto Rico Manufacturers Association and other professional organizations.

Mr. López-Zambrana has favorably obtained significant rulings and Closing Agreements with the Puerto Rico Department of the Treasury and the United States Internal Revenue Service. He has also served as an expert witness in various controversies, including an international dispute resolution case. His publications include Private equity and hedge funds in Puerto Rico – a welcoming environment in the Caribbean, 14 March 2018; Tax incentives in Puerto Rico: a quick introduction, 13 Jun 2017; Puerto Rico's Act 20 and Act 22 – key tax benefits, 4 Aug 2016. Mr. López-Zambrana holds a J.D. degree from University of Puerto Rico School of Law.

MARÍA DE LOS ANGELES RIVERA, CPA

is a Tax Partner in charge and International Business Director of Kevane Grant Thornton in Puerto Rico and has over thirty-two years of experience in public accounting. In her role as tax partner, she serves clients in various industries, with a focus on those in hospitality, construction and manufacturing. Mrs. Rivera assists clients with decisions related to tax applications and audits and helps business clients and their owners to lessen corporate, individual, estate and gift taxes. She is responsible for the administrative aspects of the Tax Department and coordinates the technical tax training of the tax department professionals. In addition, she is a member of the firm's Executive and Marketing Committee as well as an active member of the Tax Committees of the Puerto Rico Chamber of Commerce and Puerto Rico State Society of CPAs. She has written numerous tax related articles for prominent local media outlets. Mrs. Rivera is a summa cum laude graduate and holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from Catholic University of Puerto Rico, and holds a Master’s Degree in Public Accountancy from the University of Texas in Austin.

Francisco Luis, CPA

is a  Tax Partner at Kevane Grant Thornton in Puerto Rico and has over twenty-five years of experience in public accounting, including the “Big Four” and in private consulting practice. Mr. Luis engages in the design and development of tax planning and consulting strategies. This includes tax services in the area of mergers and acquisitions, business reorganizations, partnership transactions, tax incentives and exemptions, individual and corporate tax issues, personal financial matters, and others. Mr. Luis has experience in assisting clients before state and federal agencies and various municipalities. He also possesses extensive tax compliance experience. He is a Member of Puerto Rico State Society of Certified Public Accountants and American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. Mr. Luis holds a Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration in Accounting from University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez and an Juris Doctor Degree from University of Puerto Rico School of Law. 

MARGARET PENA JUVELIER

is the Founder/President of Puerto Rico Sotheby's International Realty. Up until September of 2012, Margaret Pena Juvelier was a Senior Vice President and Associate Broker with Sotheby's International Realty in New York City, joining the firm in 1986 shortly after starting her real estate career. In September of 2012, Margaret gracefully transitioned, after 28 years in the acclaimed NY office, to become Founder/President of Puerto Rico Sotheby's International Realty, located in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

A seasoned, savvy and skilled negotiator, Margaret has sold in excess of $700 million worth of properties and has created stellar sales including the most recent sale of 5th Avenue property selling at $32,000,000 substantially above the asking price and featured in the Wall Street Journal. Her performance as a producer has been consistently in the top percentile. She was in the top ten producers in 2007 and 2011. Margaret was featured as one of Manhattan's "big budget brokers" in the wealthiest zip code on the Upper East Side in Gotham magazine, as well as being noted in periodicals such as the Wall Street Journal, for her success.

Specializing in residential sales, and unique homes , Margaret covers a broad range of property type. She is an extremely hard worker with a passion for properties, shown through her dedication and professionalism which is evident to all who work with her. Margaret has assisted international investors in securing prime, luxury-brand, Manhattan residential real estate. It is with great excitement and enthusiasm Margaret enters the Caribbean marketplace. With an International eye on the market, she intends to bring this knowledge and expertise to Puerto Rico. Margaret speaks Spanish, French and Portuguese.

Dean Porter

is the Managing Member of Commonwealth Advisors, LLC in San Juan. Commonwealth Advisors is a member of the Alianza Fenix de Construccion, LLC, consisting of CIC Group, the largest Puerto Rican-owned general contractor, and Ecologia Carmelo, the largest Puerto Rican-owned quarrying, mortar and construction materials company. The mission of the Alianza is to provide replacement homes for Puerto Rican families whose homes were destroyed by Hurricane Maria in connection with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) utilizing Puerto Rican companies, labor and materials.

Mr. Porter has been engaged in the practice of law and investment banking; has held elective office; and is a long standing advocate for environmental stewardship. He holds BA and MBA degrees from Columbia University, and a JD degree from Case Western Reserve School of Law. Mr. Porter will offer insight into the efforts being made by both governmental and private agencies in to remedy the unprecedented, catastrophic hurricane damage principally affecting the interior portions of the island, and a majority of the least fortunate residents of the island.    

Giovanni Mendez

has extensive experience as a corporate and tax attorney, including compliance, financial reporting, tax preparation, and regulatory matters. Admitted to the Puerto Rico Bar and United States Tax Court, Giovanni has advised clients at both the State and Federal levels. His clients have included Fortune 500 companies, pharmaceutical companies, telecommunications firms, financial services companies, e-commerce, technology and software companies, private equity investors, blockchain technology companies, and high net-worth individuals.

Giovanni’s practice includes structuring of tax exempt and taxable operations in Puerto Rico, structuring of complex business transactions, transfer pricing consulting, entity formations, negotiation of tax exemption decrees, tax planning and counsel for Puerto Rican and United States federal international income tax matters, and accounting services.

During the past years, Giovanni has served as advisory counsel for many investors and businesses seeking grants of tax exemption under Puerto Rico’s Acts 20 and 22. As a blockchain technology investor and advisor, Giovanni has played a key role in the development of Puerto Rico as an investment destination for the industry. Giovanni’s unique access to the burgeoning global and local cryptocurrency industry provides his clients with invaluable insight.

Mindy Eng

is a User Experience Strategist at Beryl Labs, a Division of The Beryl Consulting Group. Beryl Labs focuses on helping startup businesses optimize their opportunity for success. Ms. Eng focuses on strategic, formative, and tactical UX research for both digital and integrated interfaces. She designs user studies and executes user research programs to better connect products with the needs of people, their values, lifestyles, and unique circumstances. Ms. Eng has worked as a product design consultant across several industries, including beauty, retail, finance, healthcare, commercial aviation, and designs for children. In her work with Fortune 500 clients, she has created strategic road maps for digital transformation and innovation, showed companies new ways to utilize web and app analytics to effectively inform design changes to consumer-facing products, and recommended KPIs that would help measure and establish accountability for driving progress in digital products. Holding degrees in both engineering (from MIT) and product design (from TU Delft), her passion lies in making effective connections between technology, products, and people.

Paul Goodman

is leading new business development and innovation at Beryl Labs, a Division of The Beryl Consulting Group. Beryl Labs focuses on helping startup businesses optimize their opportunity for success. He has worked in direct to consumer retail and eCommerce for over 20 years and during that time he has built and grown multiple B2C and B2B eCommerce businesses. 

Paul has a proven record of success in senior leadership roles with a number of companies, including Lillian Vernon and Sam Ash Music, where he leveraged his expertise across marketing, customer contact strategies, technology, merchandising, vendor relations and innovation.

Daniel Huss

is head of product management for Verus at State Street. Previously, he laid the foundation for the very product he’s building now with Boston Consulting Group’s Digital Ventures. In another life, he would have been a physicist. He tries to fake it by applying as much scientific method as he can to product development and entrepreneurship, valuing uncertainty and ambiguity and having a default setting of “build, measure, learn.”

Jordan Hauer

is the Co-Founder & CEO of Amass Insights, an alt-data technology company with the largest pipeline of esoteric data streams in the world. As one of the pioneers in 'Email Transactional Data', he's spent the last 6 years consulting technology companies striving to better monetize their proprietary data assets to the asset management industry. Previously, he was the lead technologist at a multi-billion dollar long-short equity fund, and graduated with a degree in Information Sciences from Cornell University.

Mark Donovick

is the Co-Founder of Amass Insights, a disruptive FinTech data company based in New York City, Mark is driven to take the 'alternative' out of 'Big Data', and has worked for the past five years to research and validate what the future of investment research will look like. Previously, he worked on the buy-side at QS Investors (former Quantitative Strategies Group of Deutsche Bank), and in portfolio / risk software. He graduated with a Double Bachelors Degree in Finance and Econometrics from Northeastern University in 2012.

Olga KANE

is Director of Business Development at Quantstellation, a proprietary quantitative investment group that combines scientific methods and financial expertise to exploit market inefficiencies across asset classes in global markets. In her role Olga oversees data origination strategy. That includes proactive sourcing of traditional and alternative data sets, building strategic data partnerships and managing full cycle of data acquisition.

Olga joined Quantstellation in 2015 from ITI Group where she was head of a multi-manager hedge fund platform focusing on quantitative investment strategies. Before that she held a variety of senior roles in the alternative investments industry including Head of Operations and Investor Relations at Da Vinci Capital. She started her career as a client relations manager at Renaissance Capital. Olga holds master’s degree in finance from International University of Business and New Technology and MBA degree from Baruch College Zicklin School of Business. She is also a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA).

Justin Zhen

is a Co-Founder of Thinknum, a leading alternative data company specializing in web-crawled data. At Thinknum, Justin works with hundreds of investment firms, banks and corporations to develop innovative data sources which provide new insights into economic activity moving online. Justin’s team uses Machine Learning algorithms to contextualize and index multidimensional inputs at scale. Prior to founding Thinknum, Justin worked as a research analyst at a quantitative hedge fund. He graduated from Princeton University with a degree in Financial Engineering.

Daniel Goldberg

Daniel is an Independent Advisor/Consultant in alternative data. He advises several data companies and NLP/AI platforms in monetizing their products within the investment community. He also advises Hedge Funds on building proprietary market intelligence teams and sourcing unique alternative data sets. Daniel currently serves as an active advisory board member for several alternative data companies and is a regular participant in industry conferences.

Previously, Daniel was founder and CEO of Tangent Data Services, the first alternative data analytics business using email data to come to market and service the buy-side. Daniel also spent five years at Hunter Global Investors (a global, equity focused hedge fund) covering the global financial services sector. Prior to Hunter Global, Daniel was a Managing Director in the Equity Research Department at Bear Stearns. As the Senior Analyst covering the brokers, asset managers, and financial technology sectors, Daniel was recognized by Institutional Investor Magazine for his outstanding work from 2000 to 2007. Daniel started his career at Ernst & Young LLP where he spent six years in the Audit Department. Daniel graduated with a Bachelor of Accountancy degree from The George Washington University and received his CPA Certification in 1995.

guy Geier, FAIA, FIIDA, LEED AP

is Managing Partner responsible for the overall management and strategic direction at FXCollaborative. An architect with 40 years of experience, he is deeply involved with projects including offices, showrooms, hotels and education spaces for corporate, institutional and public sector clients. Guy has served on the advisory boards of a number of architecture and interior design schools including the University of Virginia, where he received his Bachelor of Science and Masters of Architecture degrees and currently sits on the Foundation Board. A LEED Accredited Professional, Guy is a Fellow of both the American Institute of Architects and the International Interior Design Association and is 2018 President of the New York Chapter of AIA. He serves on the Executive Committee and Board of AIANY and Center for Architecture as well as representing FXCollaborative on the national AIA Large Firm Roundtable. He is also a frequent juror at architecture and interior design schools as well as industry awards programs. When not pursuing new work, leading a project team or strategizing the direction of the firm, he loves to travel, play golf, listen to classic rock and cheer on the Yankees, Giants and Rangers.

Jason Levergood

Mr. Jason Levergood is an experienced International Client Services Director on the US National Advisory Services team of Grant Thornton LLP, with over twenty-five years international or related professional experience spanning the private, public and NFP sectors. Grant Thornton is one of the top six accounting and professional services firms in the world with a cohesive network of member firms in over 140 countries. Mr. Levergood collaborates across Grant Thornton network IBC (International Business Centers) & Country & Regional Desks leading international projects, facilitating cross border service integration between Grant Thornton International member firms, and mobilizing talent. Jason develops and implements network-wide internal infrastructure strengthening projects while assisting with the leadership of key global accounts, business planning and business development. He is part of a team building global advisory and consulting services capacity and supporting public and private sector services integration.

In Jason’s previous role with Grant Thornton International Ltd. (GTIL) from 2011 to 2016, he was a member of the London-headquartered centralized team leading in the public sector. Jason began his international career working for Chang’an University in Xi’an, China and then for various international not-for-profit organizations in the education sector prior to working for international consultancies like Mercatela, Fujitsu Consulting and Grant Thornton. He spent six years of his professional career living in both China and Japan.

Jack tatar

Jack is Managing Partner of Doyle Capital Management which is an early stage investor to companies involved with transformative technologies. He's also an angel investor and advisor to start-ups in innovative growth comapnies and is an author of retirement and finance books. Jack is co-author with Chris Burniske of "Cryptoassets: The Innovative Investor's Guide to Bitcoin and Beyond" (McGraw Hill, 2017).

Jack's work in the Retirement space has led him to become a leading columnist and RetireMentor on Marketwatch.com writing on the latest news and trends regarding retirement. Author of numerous books on retirement including "Having The Talk: The Four Keys to Your Parents' Safe Retirement" which focuses on the vital discussion between adult children & their parents about retirement and later life issues. His bestselling first book, "Safe 4 Retirement:The 4 Keys to a Safe Retirement" takes a holistic approach to retirement. Focusing not just on financial matters for retirement, this book explores the 4 Keys to a Safe Retirement: Financial Preparedness, Health & Wellness, Mental Attitude and Staying Involved! He's also written widely about bitcoins including the best-selling "What's the Deal with Bitcoins?" (co-authored with Ryan Lancelot).

Bo Williams

is a Portfolio Manager and Partner of Gallatin Loan Management (GLM), a high yield credit investment manager based in San Juan, specializing in the creation/management of Collateralized Loan Obligation securitizations (CLOs) with over $1 billion of current AUM. Mr. Williams joined GLM from Hildene Leveraged Credit (HLC), which he helped found, where he was also a Portfolio Manager, helping grow the de novo business to approximately $1.5 billion across four new issue CLOs in two years, before HLC’s sale to Fortress Investment Group. Prior to helping form HLC, Mr. Williams served as a work-out/operating partner for special situation investments controlled by Goldman Sachs affiliates. Previously, Mr. Williams worked as a high yield credit analyst and help build the fundamental, specialty finance business at Marathon Asset Management. Mr. Williams began his career in the M&A investment banking group at Goldman Sachs, later moving to the GS Merchant Bank to focus on private equity investing.

Mr. Williams earned a BA cum laude from Harvard College and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Steve Ehrlich

Steve is Chief Operating Officer at the Wall Street Blockchain Alliance, a global 501(c)(6) non-profit trade association that guides the comprehensive adoption of blockchain technology and cryptoassets across global markets.

Previously, he was Vice President at Citi FinTech, where he drove strategic and new business development initiatives for Citigroup’s Global Retail and Consumer Bank business. Prior to joining Citibank, Steve was Lead Associate for Emerging Technologies at Spitzberg Partners, a boutique corporate advisory firm headquartered in NYC that advises technology and financial services firms on innovation goals and strategies to navigate political and regulatory hurdles worldwide. Spitzberg Partners specializes in blockchain and cryptoasset technologies, with a strong emphasis on helping clients form investment strategies and introduce these technologies to their business operations. Prior to joining Spitzberg Partners, Steve was a Senior Intelligence Analyst at Booz Allen Hamilton supporting the U.S. Department of Defense. In this role, he led a team of all-source intelligence analysts that provided intelligence support to U.S. Department of Defense officials and combatant commands on emerging security threats in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, East/Southeast Asia, and Latin America.

Steve has a B.S. in Business Administration from the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University and a M.A. in International Affairs from Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. Additionally, he is a Certified Information Privacy Professional (United States, Canada, and the European Union) and a Certified Information Privacy Technologist at the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP). Steve is a sought-after speaker, commentator, and author on emerging technological issues, with a focus on digital banking and blockchain technology. He is a regular contributor at Forbes and has been featured on numerous outlets, including Nasdaq, Cheddar, Yahoo, Tearsheet, American Banker, International Business Times, and the New York Business Journal.

David D. Tawil

is Co-founder of ProChain Capital and serves as its President. ProChain is a crypto-asset focused hedge fund. In addition, David is a Co-Founder of Maglan Capital and has served as President since its founding in 2009. Maglan is an event-driven, corporate turnaround-focused fund, with a concentration on small-cap, activist positions. Prior to founding Maglan Capital, David was an investment banker with Credit Suisse, where he served as a Director of Leveraged Finance trading.Before joining Credit Suisse, David was an attorney with Davis Polk & Wardwell and Skadden, Arps, specializing in workouts and bankruptcies. David is a frequent contributor to the Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, Bloomberg, the New York Times, Reuters, CNBC, Bloomberg, and Fox Business.

David earned a BS degree in Business Management, graduating magna cum laude, from Yeshiva University, and he earned a JD degree from the University of Michigan Law School.

Oliver Christie

Oliver is an Artificial Intelligence Expert, Strategist and Futurist who helps companies innovate, apply and build advanced technologies. He has worked in multiple industries including finance, real estate, healthcare, transportation and defense. He is a recent winner of a Google Moonshot, and the IBM Watson Prize for Innovation. AI stratergy advisor for Dell and SAP, a board member for Tech Transfer Days, NYAI, and Disruptive Technologists. He is currently helping to build the next generation of AI, based upon quantum physics and human cognition.

Sean Keegan

is the CEO of Digital Asset Strategies and manages Digital Asset Strategies’ investment programs and manages the firm’s overall strategy. At DAS, he launched the worlds’ first crypto smart beta strategy, DAS Crypto Core. Previously, Sean served as a business analyst at Rayliant Global Advisors, a Hong Kong-based asset manager with $24B in assets under supervision. Sean began his career as an generalist consultant for family offices, where he lead digital transformation projects; helped attract and retain C-level talent; and managed seed and pre-seed investments in digital currency, biotech, and data analytics start-ups. He has a degree in economics from Tufts University, and an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management

Zeeshan Ali

is Senior Vice President, Head of Financial Services at Beyond Limits, a pioneering Artificial Intelligence company based in Glendale, California. The company has a strong legacy from the NASA space program, notably AI technology developed at Caltech/Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The technical leadership of the company includes former scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Zeeshan is a finance and investment professional with nearly 20 years of experience in international finance and global capital markets. At Beyond Limits, Zeeshan is responsible for bringing the company’s cognitive AI solutions to the financial services sector. Prior to his current role, Zeeshan held numerous senior leadership roles focused on investments in both emerging and developed markets. Most recently, Zeeshan was a senior executive with Aventicum Capital Management, an affiliate of Credit Suisse Asset Management, where he focused on investments in emerging and frontier markets and sat on the Investment Committee. Previously, he held senior executive and investment roles with investment firms in Dubai, Chicago and New York. Zeeshan started his finance career in investment banking with Goldman Sachs in New York. He holds a MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and BA in Quantitative Economics from Stanford University.

Jorge Portugal

is a Managing Director at Cantor Fitzgerald Global Markets. His financial markets and asset management career has allowed him to build strong relationships with global institutional investors around the world,  acquiring  expertise in global developed and emerging markets asset classes.  Prior to joining  Cantor Fitzgerald in 2012, Jorge worked at Nomura Securities in the Macro and Emerging Markets group. Before that, he worked for 12 years at the Royal Bank of Scotland in different roles;  first as  proprietary portfolio manager in the Global Macro and Emerging Markets desk.  Later he was in charge of building partnerships with the largest SWFs, pension funds and asset owners in Asia, Latin America and Europe.  These relationships were critical in  navigating the volatile markets of the Financial Crisis in 2008.  He applies a disciplined quantitative macro framework, adjusted for trade flows, financial flows and taking into account the dramatically changing global financial markets structure, looking to constantly innovate and challenge traditional investment models.

Jorge is a CFA Charterholder, and has an  M.A.  in Economics from the Wharton School - University of Pennsylvania. 

Jeffry Nimeroff Ph.D

joined Zeta Global as its Chief Information Officer in 2014. Prior to joining Zeta Global, Dr. Nimeroff held executive technology positions as 1) the Head of Technology Solutions for eBay Enterprise (formerly GSI Commerce) where his focus was to ensure that the architecture of the hardware and software solutions, the construction of the implementation teams, the enforcement of technical processes, the demonstration of prototypes, and the project management for the builds was successful, 2) the Chief Information Officer of Pet360, Inc. where he oversaw all technical aspects of the company including the web properties Pet360.com, PetFoodDirect.com, NationalPetPharmacy.com, and the Pet360 Media Network (Pet360Media.com, PetMD.com, ThePetCenter.com, DoggySpace.com, PetStyle.com, Blogpaws.com, and others), 3) the Chief Technical Architect at BeMusic, the music arm of Bertelsmann’s Direct Group where oversaw technical decisions related to CDNOW, BMG Direct, MyPlay, and Napster, 4) the Chief Technology Officer at HotSocket, Inc., a Red Herring and FastCompany top 100 online marketing and analytics company, where he oversaw all aspects of HotSocket’s patented experimental testing technology, 5) the Chief Technology Officer at fashion500.com, an online B2B2C luxury-market service provider, where he oversaw all aspects of the fashion500.com’s end-to-end commerce offering, and 6) the Head of Technology Integration at CDNOW, Inc., a leading music e-commerce company where he led their research and development efforts concentrating on the architecture and design of their new secure digital music distribution infrastructure.

Dr. Nimeroff began his career in academia, teaching at the University of Pennsylvania in the Department of Architecture. His research concentrated on the areas of Artificial Intelligence, Computer Graphics and the Internet. He was the co-designer of the graduate and undergraduate degree programs in Digital Media Design and has authored and published numerous works in computer graphics and multimedia. Dr. Nimeroff earned his Ph.D. in Computer and Information Science from the University of Pennsylvania in 1997, concentrating on the design of large multimedia systems. He earned an M.S.E. from the university in 1993 as well. Dr. Nimeroff has also earned B.A. and M.A. degrees in Computer Science from Boston University.

Manny Alicandro

is an attorney with broad expertise in compliance, risk management, regulation, controls, surveillance, supervision, and governance. He has worked in diverse leadership roles in alternative asset management, banking, management consulting, electronic markets, trading technology and regulation, and is a frequent industry speaker, panelist, webcaster, and published author.
Presently, Manny is a Partner with the law firm O'Neill & Partners, LLC. Manny is also the founder of the Digital Currency Trade Association. Manny was General Counsel at MANA Partners, a trading, technology and asset management firm, where Manny led all strategic and tactical legal initiatives and was involved in the firm’s incubation of new FinTech and RegTech. Previous to MANA, he was Director of the Financial Services Risk and Regulatory Practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Advisory Services LLC where he advised clients on the overall management and performance of their business with a focus on compliance management, regulation, risk, controls, and governance. Prior to PwC, Manny was Executive Director and Assistant General Counsel at JPMorgan Chase covering cash equities and electronic trading.

Earlier in his career, through his almost ten years at NASDAQ where he was an Assistant General Counsel and President of BOX Regulation, he developed his expertise in electronic trading, U.S. trading regulations, management of electronic exchanges, and market structure issues. Prior to working for NASDAQ, Manny spent almost thirteen years in compliance and regulatory leadership roles working for several large securities firms and FINRA. During this time, he gained in-depth knowledge of legal and regulatory compliance issues pertaining to equities, derivatives, options and futures markets. Manny has a BA from New York University, an MS from Pace University, a JD from New York Law School and an MBA from MIT. He is a member of the Bar, State of New York and is admitted in the Southern District of New York, the Eastern District of New York, the United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, the US Tax Court and the US Supreme Court.

Subhankar Sinha

is the Founder and Managing Member of Nabartham LLC, a boutique consulting firm established in 2018 dedicated to serve the startups, investors, large enterprises and other ecosystem players on matters involving the use of blockchain, distributed ledger, and digital tokens. Nabartham helps its clients to define investible business models, to value new ventures and to design governance structures commensurate with the business models. Nabartham strategically partners with The Beryl Consulting Group LLC to advice clients on the use of Blockchain, Digital Tokens, Artificial Intelligence and other emerging technologies.

Subhankar is a former Director in the Financial Markets group of PwC’s financial services industry practice. He co-founded PwC’s blockchain initiative and co-led the practice in the US until his departure from the firm. Subhankar served as the Blockchain lead for PwC's DeNovo (now retired), a new strategy consulting platform focused on FinTech innovation. He also served as the Blockchain lead for PwC's @Scale Program which aimed to bridge the gap between FinTech startups and incumbent financial services companies. Subhankar is considered a thought leader in Blockchain technology. He has been a panelist and speaker at various forums in the US. His articles have appeared on Carrier Management, PwC US Blogs and LinkedIn. Also, his remarks have been quoted in American Banker, Bank Director, Coindesk and elsewhere.