Meet The Speakers

One of the UK's leading economists, Gerard is an expert on the UK and global economy, international financial markets and monetary policy with an excellent forecasting record. He has testified to the US Senate Banking and Foreign Affairs Committees, spoken at the EU-China Summit in Beijing, and on the globalised televised BBC Debate from Davos. He is a Board Member of Bank of China (UK), Chief Economic Strategist and shareholder at online discretionary wealth manager Netwealth Investments, advisor to financial consultants Parker Fitzgerald and Chief Economic Advisor to think tank Policy Exchange. From January 2013 to May 2016 Gerard Lyons was Chief Economic Advisor to Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London. He is a multi-award winner, including Bloomberg's leading global forecaster (of over 350). In addition, the month before the financial crisis he was one of only two UK economists to predict a deep, imminent recession.

Tilman Lüder heads the unit developing European policy in the area of investment funds at the European Commission. Policy development in this area involves drafting legislative proposals, implementing acts and conducting pre-legislative impact studies. The unit represents the Commission in negotiations with Council and Parliament as well as with the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA). Most recently Tilman was involved in equivalence decisions for share trading venues and also the Delegated acts for MiFID II and the Market Abuse Regulation, and amendments to the regulation on securities markets.

Brett leads the trading division for the US’ first federal regulator of securities markets, the SEC and has responsibility for establishing and maintaining standards for fair, orderly, and efficient markets. He has extensive experience in the U.S. equity markets, having worked with investors, exchanges and broker-dealers. He has focused on how technology, regulation and business trends are changing trading patterns across asset classes and geographic regions. He has helped build electronic trading products, worked closely with exchanges and other trading venues as these products evolved, and engaged with global asset managers on major regulatory developments, plus been an active participant at several meetings of the SEC’s Equity Market Structure Advisory Committee.

The Rt Hon Lord Garnier is a major public voice in the industry and media in the Brexit debate for supporting the UK to remain in the EU. He is a newly appointed member of the House of Lords, and previously held positions as Shadow Home Affairs Minister, Shadow Justice Minister, Shadow Attorney General and HM Solicitor during Prime Minister David Cameron’s leadership. He is a prominent lawyer specialising in International Human Rights & Corporate Criminal Law at 1 Brick Court, and Sir Edward has vocalised his concerns around how the UK will leave and the approval routes of the Government vs Parliament.

Blackrock is the biggest asset manager globally, with asset under management of $6.3 trillion. Supurna oversees BlackRock’s global trading activities and is responsible for driving innovation and setting the trading platform’s strategic vision. She is a member of BlackRock’s Trading and Liquidity Strategy Executive Committee, Global Operating Committee as well as the Human Capital Committee. Previously, Supurna was BlackRock’s Deputy Head of Trading, where her responsibilities included Global Equities Trading and Prime Brokerage Financing. She was also Co-head of electronic trading and market structure across asset classes. Her understanding of both the buy-side and sell-side as well as electronic trading and technology allowed her to work towards industry solutions that work for both sides during this unique period of rapid change in the industry as it relates to trading. Externally Supurna sits on the CFTC Technology Advisory Committee (TAC) and the CFTC Global Markets Advisory Committee (GMAC).

Rick leads the global investment strategy for the 3rd largest asset manager globally by AUM, State Street Global Advisors. As a member of the firm's Executive Management Group, he is responsible for all investment management activities including research and trading. Currently, his focus is around improving active management and driving good quality investments, with a focus on trading as well as driving technology integration and collaboration upstream as key factors of gaining a competitive edge.

Daniel is co-leads global trading activity at AXA Investment Managers, Europe's fifth-largest asset manager with €746bn under management. He is in charge of Quant Lab, Structuring and Trading, supporting fund managers and clients with market access and quantitative innovation to support their decisions from Analytics and SAA to Derivatives and Structuring. As well as delivering ALM and financing solutions for institutional and corporate clients.

Kenny is a Managing Director of Technology at J.P. Morgan Asset Management, based in London responsible for Equities Trading Technology Globally. He began his career in 1997 at Barclays Capital and has filled various roles in trading technology spanning multiple asset classes on the buy and sell side. He is passionate about using technology to turn trading from an art to a science.

Allianz Global Investors a top 30 global asset manager with  EUR 530 billion in AUM. Eric, as Global Head of Trading with Allianz Global Investors, is responsible for the trading implementation of investment strategies across all asset classes. Eric was previously Global Head of Derivatives, leading the European Equity Derivatives team. He also traded fixed-income, equity and commodity derivatives.

Fabrice works for one of the biggest asset management firms in Europe, BNP Paribas Asset Management, with assets under management in excess of 550 million euros. As COO he is the direct lead for all IT and operational developments within the firm. His extensive background in HR and leadership of cash management products from front to back office at firms such as the Inspection Générale and BNP Paribas Securities Services respectively means he is well placed to discuss from a strategic point of view how a leading asset manager needs to continually readdress the regulatory, operational and technology changes to the European trading landscape to thrive as a business.

UBS Asset Management & O’Connor is one of the world’ largest multi-asset hedge fund and asset managers, with assets under management of >$600bn. As Global Head of Trading, he is responsible for all trading activities as well as the head of portfolio implementation for their active equity unit.  He is the chairman of the Best Execution Committee and is a member of the following groups 1) The  Investment Management Team, 2) The United Kingdom Management Committee and 3) The Global and Switzerland Risk Committees .

Philippe heads up the economic research department of Ostrum Asset Management, formerly Natixis Asset Management, in the top 20 largest asset managers in Europe. He is responsible for observing and understanding the economic cycles on a global scale, and to create a scenario on growth, inflation and the orientation of monetary policies for the major countries and the Euro zone, and paying close attention also to imbalances and rigidities that limit the ability of economies to adjust.

Jean-Charles Delcroix has been serving as Chief Compliance Officer of Amundi Asset Management UK entities since 2015. He is also a member of the Executive Committee (UK) and the Board of Directors of Amundi UK. He is in charge of the supervision on all the compliance topics for the UK and Asia subsidiaries. Amundi is Europe’s largest asset manager by assets under management and ranks in the top 10 globally. Thanks to the integration of Pioneer Investments, it now manages more than 1.4 trillion euros of assets across six main investment hubs.  Amundi offers its clients in Europe, Asia-Pacific, the Middle-East and the Americas a wealth of market expertise and a full range of capabilities across the active, passive and real assets investment universes.

Olga is the Market Integrity Senior Officer within the Markets Department at the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA). She is involved in ESMA work on defining reporting requirements that stem from European regulatory regimes – EMIR, MiFID II/MiFIR, MAR and SFTR – in relation to various types of market data. More specifically, her current tasks focus ESMA implementing measures on trades, transactions, order book, instrument reference data and securities financing transactions reporting.

Virginie is responsible for engaging with policymakers and regulators across Europe on legislative and regulatory initiatives that are significant to the financial services industry at one of the top 20 global hedge funds in the world. She has extensive regulatory and strategic experience having worked at some of biggest financial institutions including KCG and NYSE. She is also a member of the ESMA Secondary Markets Standing Committee Consultative Working Group responsible for improving the structure, transparency and efficiency of secondary markets for financial instruments, including trading platforms and OTC markets.

The Candriam trading team is a fully integrated multi-asset desk working with one core order management system across various global asset classes: equities, bonds, currencies and derivatives; it is balanced between individual expertise (equities, bonds) and multitasking (currencies, derivatives). Fabien manages a highly experienced execution desk centralizing orders from different business units and various locations. His priorities are to continue multi-asset integration, improve cooperation between traders, find liquidity optimally, use the most appropriate ways to trade different types of orders, strengthen transaction cost analysis, reduce the cost of execution and maintain a high level of trading efficiency for Candriam portfolio managers.

Thierry drives the Digital Strategy for Wealth Management at BNP Paribas at group level and supports the countries for its deployment and for their transformation. The Digital Strategy covers not only Web & Mobile solutions for clients & public, but also the commercial environment for the front employees (workstation on premises and in mobility, CRM) and many other digital solutions for all employees (individual visio, collaborative site, webinar, eLearning), including process digitalization (A.I., RPA, workflows and more). As Head of Wealth Management Digital Solutions, Thierry sponsors and manages a wide set of ambitious digital programs, providing new solutions to support and implement BNP Paribas Wealth Management Client Experience Strategy together with an Employee Experience Strategy.

Sharon is responsible for the oversight and co-ordination of the Global Equities business. She plays a key role in defining the strategy for this extensive and highly successful business and will implement the strategy accordingly, within a robust and efficient framework that keeps costs to a minimum, accounts for regulatory requirements and protects the firm against operational risk, whilst generating profit and returns on resources. As Chief of Staff, Sharon plays a critical role ensuring excellent standards are maintained throughout the organisation and has full accountability for managing and controlling the resources for this business, including recruitment and hiring. Sharon is on the Financial News FN100 Women In Finance list for 2015. The annual list recognises the "most influential female executives working in financial services.

Mark has more than three decades’ experience in the financial services industry. Prior to joining Liquidnet as Head of EMEA in 2012, Mark led the EMEA equity sales franchise at Bank of America Merrill Lynch as part of a 20 year career there.

Instinet is a global leader in electronic trading and agency-only brokerage services. Richard has been Chief Executive Officer of Instinet Europe since May 2016 and served as its Head of Sales & Trading until May 2016. He is exceptionally well suited to lead Instinet Europe forward having served as a Key Member of management team for more than 13 years.

RBC Global Asset Management is a global asset manager with $24BN AUM. Ross is responsible for global trading activities cross asset, and the analysis of trade performance. He is also responsible for staying vigilant and looking for future global trading opportunities both in and outside of Europe.

With experiences at UBS and formerly as Head of multi-asset trading at AXA Investment Managers, Richard has experience of both the buy and sell side of the market. Currently responsible for execution of client relationships, client strategy, sales and marketing, market structure and regulation, Richard has extensive experience and insight on how liquidity can be found . He is looking to continue developing their technology, market expertise and to provide transparency to their clients.

James is Head of Sales, EMEA for the Advanced Execution Services Group (AES) of Credit Suisse’s Global Markets Division. James has worked at Credit Suisse for seven years, developing AES into the leading algorithmic trading business in Europe. He has experience covering a wide spectrum of clients across EMEA, with particular focus and success in the UK, Scandinavia and Switzerland. In his current role, James is responsible for developing strategy and the sales and marketing of the AES product in Europe.

Huw is Head of Dealing at Newton, overseeing all dealing for the firm across all asset classes. He joined Newton in October 2016. Prior to that, he was Head of Trading, Europe and Asia at Principal Global Investors, with trading roles at Blackrock and TT International Investment Management before that. Huw chairs the EMEA Investment Management Working Group for FIX Trading Community, a not-for-profit industry organization working for standardized technology trading protocols in the industry; as well as being a member of the UK Investment Association’s Buyside Trading Committee.

Man Group is a leading hedge fund which has more than $78 billion in assets under management (AUM). There are four major investment groups underneath the Man Group umbrella: Man AHL, Man Numeric, Man GLG and Man FRM. With over 10 years experience on the trading desk, dealing with electronic execution, Alison now reports direct to the group COO, and leads the change and business management team, responsible for regulatory implementation, front office technology implementation, business integration and efficiency.

PGGM is a privately owned investment manager, and the 3rd largest asset manager in the Netherlands, with AUM of EUR 218 billion. The firm manages pension funds. It invests in the public equity and debt markets of across the globe. Remco is part of the trading and investment team with responsibilities of equity execution and investment strategies, and driving cost effective execution processes and analysis.

Duncan Higgins heads ITG’s electronic products in EMEA with responsibility for product strategy, client consulting and market structure for the region. He also oversees ITG's MiFID II program, including changes to tools to help clients meet their regulatory obligations. Prior to joining ITG in 2010, he spent two years at the multilateral trading facility, Turquoise, which followed nine years at UBS in client trading and execution.    

Virtu Financial is one of the largest high-frequency trading and market making firms. Doug is the Chief Executive Officer of Virtu Financial and was one of the co-founders of Virtu in 2008. Prior to joining Virtu, Mr. Cifu was a Partner at the international law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison (Paul Weiss). Highly regarded by peers, Mr. Cifu is recognized in Chambers USA and Legal 500 as a leading mergers and acquisitions lawyer for buyouts and private equity transactions. In 2006, Private Equity International included Mr. Cifu in its list of the 30 most influential lawyers currently working in global private equity, citing in particular his expertise in technology-driven sectors, and he has been recognized by Crain’s New York Business in its “Technology 100,” a listing of the top 100 persons working in technology in the New York area.

Schonfeld is a multi-manager platform that invests its capital with Internal and Partner portfolio managers, primarily on an exclusive or semi-exclusive basis, across quantitative, fundamental equity and tactical trading strategies with a Current Gross Market Value (“GMV”) managed of $25B. Formerly at Bluecrest, Derek has moved to Schonfeld to build out the European trading desk. He has extensive experience in building scalable centralized dealing platforms and has a key focus on workflow automation, best execution and MIFID II research & unbundling.

Jon heads up JP Morgan Asset Management’s Equities Trading Technology function globally and has in excess of 20 years’ experience in technology development and engineering in a variety of environments.  His current focus is in bringing cutting edge technology to buy-side trading desks to streamline the trading process and automate the order execution of more routine flow.  Prior to joining JP Morgan he led the Hong Kong FX trading technology team at HSBC Global Banking and Markets where he was responsible for the delivery of a number of flagship electronic trading solutions. Previously Jon had held senior technology positions with RBS working across the Markets technology functions.

Euronext was the first pan-European exchange and remains one of the largest venues globally. Simon is Head of Cash and Derivatives, with overall P&L responsibility for these franchises, including the product offer, market model, client strategy and liquidity programmes. Current priorities include revamping Euronext’s retail and institutional offers, with a particular focus on enhancing liquidity experience of institutional traders, as well as the development of Euronext Block, a Large-in-Scale block trading MTF for Equities.Prior to this role, Simon held several positions within Euronext in Corporate Finance and Strategy, and occupied various roles in the oil and gas sector.

Invesco is the 17th largest asset manager globally, with an AUM of  $987.8 billion. David runs the equity trading desk across European, Middle East and Africa, and responsible for regulation implementation, best execution and improving all trading strategies across the various regions. He started his career in 1984 as a dealer on the London Stock Exchange, working with Smith New Court trading mainly smaller companies. In 1995 he was involved in the creation of the UK’s first Order Driven Exchange, Tradepoint, where he was market controller. Miller returned to trading with Knight Securities in London in 2000. Prior to joining Invesco in 2001 he spent some time with Virt-x as a trading consultant as they launched a pan-European exchange.

XTX Markets is a leading quantitative-driven electronic market-maker partnering with counterparties, exchanges and e-trading venues globally to provide liquidity in the Equity, FX, Fixed Income and Commodity markets. Formerly head of commodities within the liquidity provider, he is now responsible for global business development activities with a core focus on their equity SI offering.

Nordea is the largest financial services group in Northern Europe with a market capitalisation of approximately EUR 286.1bn AuM. Pierre has been head of cross-asset trading for over 3 years and focusing on driving a more systematic approach across the desk. Prior to that, he had over 10 years experience as a pm at various investment management firms.

The AMF is the stock market regulator in France,  The AMF is responsible for safeguarding investments in financial instruments and in all other savings and investment as well as maintaining orderly financial markets. Philippe began his career in finance in 1987 at DKL James Capel (now HSBC), where he held various positions in the markets. In 1991 he joined Enskilda Securities as a market maker, first in Paris then in London. In 1998 he moved to Crédit Agricole Cheuvreux in Paris, taking over as head of Facilitation, before being appointed Group Trading Director in 2006, first in Paris then in London. During this time Philippe played an active part in numerous working groups and market bodies dealing with MiFID issues in Paris. He was a member of the Securities Trading Committee of the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME).

Citadel Securities is an award-winning global market-maker across a broad array of fixed income and equity products. Jonathan leads the European Business Development at activities with responsibilities including overseeing the firm’s electronic trading relationships with European banks, brokers, asset managers and exchanges and identifying new business opportunities across Europe. Prior to joining Citadel Securities, Jonathan worked at Fidelity International for 11 years, most recently as Head of Systematic Trading.

Joseph joined Comgest in 2017 and works as Group Head of the Trading Desk. Comgest is an independent, international asset management group with 8 entities globally including Paris, Dublin, Hong Kong, and Boston with an AUM of circa Eur30billion. Joe leverages his almost 20 years industry experience to navigate the new MiFID II world having previously held the positions of Head of Trading & Securities Lending at Anima Asset Management and COO at Dexia. In both former roles Joe was responsible for the establishment of the trading desk and the implementation of multi asset OMS & EMS.

Michael is the global head of Quantitative Execution Services at Goldman Sachs, the leading global investment bank. He is responsible for the research, development and implementation of quantitative processes for portfolio and electronic trading, as well as the management of the firm's relationships with the quantitative client-base across regions. Michael manages a variety of teams globally, spanning algorithmic research, portfolio quants, client solutions, analytics and quantitative content generation. He joined the firm as a managing director in 2017.

Cathy is Head of Dealing at Royal London Asset Management, she joined from Deutsche Asset Management where she was Head of FI Trading - UK Asset Management, prior to that she has held a senior trading role at Pioneer Investment Management, she also held various trading roles at Bank of Ireland and KBC Asset Management. Cathy holds a BA in Economics and Master of Economic Science from University College Dublin.

As Chief Data Scientist and CEO of OTAS Technologies, Tom is responsible for creating new strategies and systems to help generate ”Trader Alpha” for Liquidnet’s Member community. Tom joined the company following Liquidnet’s acquisition of OTAS Technologies in 2017. OTAS provides next-generation market analytics and trader intelligence to the world’s leading banks and institutions. It uses artificial intelligence and big data analysis to alert clients to exceptions, allowing them to make faster, more informed trading decisions and ultimately more control over achieving best execution. Tom is responsible for the integration and product development of both OTAS, the market data analytics platform, and OTAS TradeShaper, the real-time microstructure analysis and trading optimization platform.

John Lowrey has had a long and distinguished career of thirty eight years’ experience in the capital markets in a wide variety of leadership roles. John has been at the forefront of many market innovations and is an acknowledged leader in the automation of trading. He built the market leading algorithmic and high speed trading business at Lehman; founded, as CEO of Chi-X Global, exchanges in Asia; and created MarketPrizm, which was sold to Colt Telecommunications in 2011. John is presently the Global Head of Cash Product Strategy at Citi, having previously managed the Global Electronic business. He is responsible for building the next generation data analysis and trading platforms for Citi. Most recently, prior to Citi, he was a Venture Partner at The JRJ Group, a London based private equity firm, where he oversaw the group’s technology portfolio and strategy. He has served on the Board of a number of fin-tech companies and a mentor to tech incubators in London.

Tom heads up the client trading team which helps Invesco investors implement ETFs into their portfolio and trading strategies for buying or selling in the most cost effective and efficient way as possible. As technical ETF experts, the team is driven to deliver a superior investment experience for investors and traders to leverage ETFs for their specific market access needs.

Shary joined RBC Capital Markets in 2009 and worked his way up from an associate on the capital markets rotational programme to become a managing director in global equities trading. His extensive background in predictive analytics made him an ideal candidate to take on the role of Director in global algorithmic trading and is building out the bank's algorithmic trading strategies for its equities platform, given the bank is also involved in opening artificial intelligence labs in Toronto and Montreal. He's at the forefront of the new move to introduce AI and data science into everything from compliance to the trading floor, including the opening of a new AI workspace later this spring.

Glenn is responsible for bringing the company’s range of brokerage solutions to clients globally at the leading broker Northern Trust Capital Markets. He has extensive experience, with more than 30 years working in the financial services sector, including two years as a director at strategic consultancy company Stratevolve, where he advised financial services companies on MiFID II implications and as the Chairman of the Operating Committee for Schroder Securities, MD head of European cash equities at Citi and CEO for equities at ICAP. Glenn has extensive knowledge on MiFID II and other financial regulations will be invaluable for clients across the globe as they navigate regulatory change and achieve the levels of transparency the markets seek.

Nej D'jelal is responsible for electronic trading supervision and product development at Barclays, a British multinational investment bank. Nej also serves on Barclays’ Markets Innovation Committee, AFME’s Equities board, and is co-chairman of Plato Partnership. Nej has extensive experience in electronic trading roles across technology, product development, algorithmic trading and electronic sales trading including serving as Executive Director at Goldman Sachs from 2006-2012.

SIMAG was formed in 2017 as an independent joint venture between Credit Suisse Asset Management and a spin-off company of ETH Zurich. They have a systematic approach in applying the latest scientific research from the fields of mass psychology, physics and behavioral finance to detect investment opportunities caused by inefficiencies and instabilities in financial markets. Christian as CEO, he will lead the newly founded company and develop the firm to become a leading asset manager of systematic investment strategies in the Swiss market.

Bertil is an experienced and pragmatic member of the buy side world, having run trading and execution desks for commercial asset managers, pension funds and hedge funds internationally. He embraces technology as the conduit for capacity, scale and efficiency. Currently he runs a family office called TenInvest in the Netherlands. Prior to this he was Head of systematica execution at Systematica Investments Ltd, the quant spin off from BlueCrest Capital Management in Geneva. As Head of systematic execution, he transitioned the multi asset execution function from voice trading to fully data driven algo trading for FX, Rates, Bonds, Commodities and Equity instruments. He also shaped Global Equity Trading at APG, the Dutch civic pension fund where we set up trading desks in Amsterdam, New York and Hong Kong.

Aberdeen Standard Investments is the largest active manager in the UK and one of the largest in Europe with £557.1bn AUM. Lydia has been recently appointed to head up their global regulatory engagement function and to manage the firms risk governance approach. Lydia is currently sponsoring the group’s SMCR programme implementing the regime in over 20 Core and Enhanced regulated entities across the firm.  Lydia has an extensive background in regulation having spent seven years at the FSA and FCA, holding a number of senior positions including Deputy Chief of Staff to the then CEO, Hector Sants and later Chief of Staff to the Board Director of Supervision. During this time Lydia was involved first hand in the development of SMCR for banks giving Lydia a unique perspective.  

PanAgora Asset Management is an advanced, next-generation quantitative firm, with approximately $54 billion of assets under management. Jason is the Director, Head of Trading and Implementation and in this role he is responsible for the firm’s trading activities across Equity, Multi-Asset and Alternative investment strategies.

Christoph is Head of Multi-Asset Trading at Union Investment. He joined Union in April 2014 and, with his team, is responsible for all trading activities associated with portfolio management of cash equities, fixed income, fund and ETF business, FX, listed and OTC derivatives, and securities lending. Christoph has more than 20 years of international investment banking, trading and management experience, having worked for companies on the sell- and buy-side, most recently as Head of Execution Sales at Barclays Bank and at Alpha Trading.

Scott Bradley has overall responsibility for global business development activities, promoting growth and development within both existing and new markets at LSE Cash Secondary Markets and Turquoise. Scott has extensive experience in execution, having spent the previous 17 years of his career in various roles at Instinet, Nomura, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and ITG. He was also actively involved in the early days of electronic trading and started out as a sales trader with ITG, before joining Goldman Sachs Electronic Trading. At Bear Stearns, Scott was responsible for the build out of electronic sales trading in London before joining JP Morgan as Head of Electronic Client Solutions, EMEA.

Empiric Capital is a technology and data driven investment group and Empiric Technologies is its machine learning pole. Alexandru is Co-found and COO of the algorithmic, data driven asset management firm headquartered in London. He is also a guest lecturer in big data and machine learning at Pierre et Marie Curie University in Paris, and is involved in neuro oncogenetic research, in particular applications of machine learning. After initial studies at LSE, he completed 4 graduate and postgraduate degrees and diplomas in technology and science, focusing on the thorium nuclear fuel cycle, surgical robotics, neuroanatomy and imagery, and biomedical innovation. He was nominated as one of Forbes’ 30 Under 30 in Finance in 2018.

Steve is an established leader with a successful record in banking and capital markets, will lead the Fixnetix team as General Manager. Steve brings to DXC Technology more than three decades of global experience in electronic trading, market microstructure and electronic trading strategies. He has traded all asset classes in the Asian, European and U.S. markets. He has also led the architectural, functional and performance designs for trading systems including pricing, risk and trading models in these securities.

Jane Street is a global liquidity provider specializing in equities, ETFs, and options  and leading market maker. Slawomir oversees European ETF sales initiatives for Jane Street. Slawomir has worked in the ETF industry for nearly a decade, including with large asset managers in which he acquired an in-depth understanding of ETF trading from both a trader’s and customer’s perspective. Before joining Jane Street, Slawomir worked at Vanguard Asset Management where he held the positions of Head of ETF Capital Markets and Head of Investment Product Specialist Group.

Frank heads up CapTec Partners, a systematic hedgefund based in Munich, Germany. CapTec was founded in 2017 based on a fully machine-based approach that spans from strategy development to automated trade execution and risk management. Thereby, Frank has developed a differentiated view on the limits and possibilities of using ML and traditional statistics in order to generate alpha in financial markets. Before founding CapTec, he worked as a strategy consultant at The Boston Consulting Group, with a strong focus on digitisation and data analytics. 

Matthew heads up Equities at Barclays and Execution Sales EMEA. He has recently joined the firm from Credit Suisse where he spent 11 years and was co-Head of AES Sales for EMEA. He is responsible for strengthening Barclays European equities franchise. He has extensive experience in electronic trading brokerage with former positions at Credit Suisse, EBI Ltd. And AKJ Ltd.

Alun supports sales efforts by identifying product enhancements,3rd party solutions and marketing campaigns. Previously, Alun was a senior business consultant for Charles River, responsible for meeting EMEA client requirements and assisting implementation consultants with workflow design and integration needs. Prior to joining Charles River, Alun held a variety of sales and consultant positions at Misys and SunGard Data Systems, served as a fund administrator for Morgan Grenfell Asset Management, and was a derivatives trader at the Nippon Credit Bank.

Matt Barrett is a director and co-founder of Adaptive Financial Consulting, a leading organization offering solutions in powerful, elegant and intuitive trading platforms using the latest technology and techniques. He is involved with project delivery as a technical architect and engineering lead, as well as consulting strategy and sales.

Grasshopper is a leading Singaporean proprietary trading firm providing liquidity in global markets. An early pioneer in electronic market making, T-Kiang has seen the advent of modern trading from writing code for UBS O’Connor in his cramped Chicago apartment in the 1990’s to full-scale build-outs of high frequency infrastructure for major investment banks across Asia like Lehman and Mizhuho. As Chief Investment Officer, TK engages with major exchanges, corporate leaders, regional regulators, and key partners for Grasshopper. He is a highly sought-after expert panelist at global conferences on trading, technology, and innovation.

Acadian is a global investment management firm that specializes in systematic investment strategies, with AUM of $95 billion. Joseph heads up al trading within the company, and has extensive experience in multi-asset trading, analyzing and developing alternative trading strategies for disciplines. He is highly skilled in trading multiple investment products which include; Equity programs, ETFs, Volatility, Futures, Equity/Index Options, Foreign Exchange, OTC Swaps/Options, Commodities, Convertible Bonds and Structured Notes. Currently he has a core focus on developing ways to achieve traditional exposure in non-traditional ways to enhance cost effectiveness and alpha generation.

John is a Senior Vice President and Global Director of Portfolio Management and Trading Solutions at FactSet. Prior to this role, he served as the Global Head of Product Strategy at Portware LLC, A FactSet Company. John has over 18 years of experience in financial services technology. Before joining Portware, he held various roles at Liquidnet, including Director of Product Management and Director of Corporate Strategy.

Andy Mahoney has been working in the financial services industry for more than 10 years, with time spent at Goldman Sachs and trading systems provider, FlexTrade. Initially a strategy specialist, Andy helped grow the FlexTrade business in the EMEA region from a four-person outpost to a major enterprise with a team of more than 100, leading to his appointment as Head of Implementation. In 2010 he joined Goldman Sachs, where he led the REDIPlus product in Europe, and managed liquidity strategy and smart order routing across Goldman's wider electronic business. Mahoney's enthusiasm for trading technology saw him return to FlexTrade in 2012 and is now Head of Sales, driving the company's business strategy to regulation, cross asset trading and providing a fully open architecture, creating a new trading ecosystem that allows third-party technology to be seamlessly integrated.

The Investment Association is the trade body that represents UK investment managers. Their 200 members collectively manage over £7.7 trillion on behalf of clients in the UK and around the world. They look to promote UK investment management, which is the largest industry of its kind in Europe and the second largest in the world. Galina is responsible for the capital market division where she is focused on strategies that ensure that markets work fairly and effectively to meet the needs of savers and investors.

Simon is Head of Electronic Execution at SEB, where he is responsible for the banks electronic execution franchise across Equities and Exchange Traded Derivatives. Simon has been with SEB for over 7 years, having joined the ETD execution desk in 2010, where he managed both the high and low touch business streams, prior to which he spent some time on the buy side in a risk taking capacity.

Antoine is responsible for trading and execution at Exane BNP Paribas and has extensive experience in high-touch, programme trading and electronic trading. With the French broker, Exane BNP Paribas looking to expand it’s business in London, Antoine has been integral to ensuring this transition and growth is successful.

LiquidMetrix, are experts in financial market data research and execution quality analysis operating out of London and New York. They focus on execution quality assessment, cross asset class transaction cost analysis and pre-trade cost prediction across increasingly fragmented global markets. Mark is responsible for the sales and marketing activities of their analytics products, with a core product being best execution/TCA product suite and the surveillance solution for detecting patterns of market abuse to meet the MAR, MAD, MiFIR and ESMA guidelines.

With more than 11 years’ experience in the industry of financial markets, Kjelle is currently COO of Optiver Europe. He leads a committed team, dedicated to building and maintaining relations with exchanges, clearing houses and direct counterparties. In addition he is responsible for the strategy behind the products and markets we trade within Optiver Europe. Starting at Optiver as a screen trader in derivatives and equities in 2007, 3 years later Kjelle took on the role of team lead for the Fixed Income and FX team, comprising of twelve traders. 2012 was a year of change, Kjelle was asked to become Partner and relocated to the US to head up the Fixed Income, FX and Commodities team within Optiver Chicago LLC, accountable for twenty-five traders. After 18 months in Chicago, he returned to Amsterdam as Senior Partner and continued to manage the European Fixed Income and FX team. Stepping up to become Head of Market Structure Europe in January of 2015, he became COO in January 2016.

Liontrust Asset Management is specialist fund manager with AUM of £10.5bn. Matthew leads the trading efforts at Liontrust Asset Management, as well as Director of the Plato Partnership, a Member of The UK Investment Association’s Buyside Trading Committee and his desk was named Mid-Cap Trading Desk of the Year in 2017.. He started his career at AIG Investments, where he spent three years as a Junior Fixed Income Fund Manager. He then spent just under six years as a Senior Trader at Hedge Fund RAB Capital before moving to Legal & General Investment Management, where he traded Global Equities and Derivatives before moving to Liontrust to run the Multi-Asset Trading Desk.

Nir is a leading authority on applied research and teaching on hedge funds. Alongside his role at Saïd Business School he is also a Fellow of Worcester College. Nir is author of one of the leading texts on the microeconomics of e-commerce, looking at online trading mechanisms and the way in which web-based technologies such as bidding elves, smart agents and shopping bots, influence the behaviour of consumers and retailers. Leveraging his computer science, mathematics and economics background, he has developed models widely used in e-commerce, trading and hedge funds. Nir has also written and taught various educational programmes on hedge funds and trading,  Fintech, Blockchain Strategy and Algorithmic Trading, and works as part of the Oxford-Man Institute of Quantitative Finance and involved in long term research around systematic trading.

Hermes Investment Management is a leading London-based money manager with roughly $50 billion in assets under management. Dan heads up the trading desk, with a remit cross asset including Equity, Credit, Fx, MM, Derivatives, Commodity & Treasury. He has been nominated for 'Trading Desk of the Year' 2017 & 2018 by The Trade magazine and a respected voice in the industry around best execution, analytics and the European trading market structure.

John Greenan is recognised as a thought leader within the Electronic Trading space with strong market knowledge, commercial/financial savvy, relationship building skills and an enviable global contact list. Driving force behind FIX Orchestra, the next version of the FIX Protocol, the world’s leading open-source API for trading. Non-Executive Director and Board Advisor to a number of fintech firms. He has considerable experience of buy-sides, sell sides, IDBs, execution venues and stock exchanges. He works with multiple asset classes (fx, fixed income, equities, futures, options, money markets, Cryptocurrency) building out electronic trading and the necessary workflow and business process changes. He has specialisations in: digital transformation, portfolio management decision support and analytics, fixed income trading, strategy for trading systems/processes, market microstructure, OMS & EMS, ecosystem integration, FIX, project management, business analysis, real-time systems and vendor relationship management. John is known for innovation, thought leadership and digital transformation while consistently delivering projects on-time, on-budget and on-scope.

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 leads 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.

Simon heads up liquidity management at Tower Research Capital Europe, the leading quantitative and electronic liquidity provider within Tower Research Capital that operates the SI. His role is to ensure TRC successfully addresses the changing liquidity landscape, and delivers a class leading Systematic Internaliser, which offer’s further innovation & choice to market participants.  TRC’s Systematic Internaliser (TRSI) has been the largest ELP Si in Europe by value traded since April 2018. With over 15 years in the industry, Simon has built a strong reputation for the ability to optimise liquidity provision. He works effectively with trading participants across a variety of asset classes & venues types.

Mark is the chairman of the board for CME Europe and chairman of the FIA European Principal Traders Association (EPTA). He was previously vice-chairman of the EPTA before assuming the role of acting chairman. He worked for market liquidity provider GETCO as a director for nine years before leaving in 2011. Before joining GETCO in 2002, Mark spent 15 years at Van der Moolen, a Dutch market making firm, where he was a director responsible for all operations and trading. He began his career as at AMRO Bank. He also serves as a non-executive director at Aquis Exchange, a pan-European alternative trading system, based in London, which launched as a trading platform in November 2013.

TORA Trading Services provides cloud-based trading technology and financial services. Chris joined TORA in 2006 and currently serves as managing director and head of sales and operations focussing on their software platform encompassing OEMS and Portfolio management systems. He recently launched TORA's first European sales office in Jersey. Chris has over twenty years of experience in the financial software industry, twelve of which have been in Asia. In addition, Chris has been instrumental in expanding the use of electronic trading throughout Asia via the FIX protocol organisation where he served as Chairman for Asia Pacific.

Corvil is the industry leader for deriving IT, Security, and Business intelligence from network-generated big data. Donal has over twenty five years' experience working in the field of high-performance computer systems, network communications, and real-time data analytics. He joined Corvil in 2000 as the non-executive Chairman and since 2002 he has served as CEO driving the company to a leading position in the world of IT data analytics and real-time operational intelligence. His most recent interests are in frictionless business models, economics of web scale IT infrastructure, predictive analytics, the micro biome, bit coin, lean development and the psychology of motivation.

AMP Capital is a global asset manager with over $150 billion in AUM. Dylan, as manager of European dealing at AMP Capital, is responsible for portfolio implementation across the firm’s range of multi-asset funds. He joined AMP Capital in 2012 where he was initially responsible for Asian equities dealing from Sydney. In 2015, Dylan relocated to London to establish the firm’s multi-asset dealing desk, focused on portfolio management integration and efficient dealing strategies.

The Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets is the financial services regulatory authority for the Netherlands. It’s the body responsible for regulating the behaviour of all parties involved with the savings, loans, investment and insurance markets, and all organisations that provide financial products and those that issue products, including stock exchanges. It is responsible for making the financial markets more accessible, promoting the smooth operation of the financial markets and promoting confidence in the financial markets. Wouter is responsible for MiFID II transaction reporting and very well placed to discuss the practical guidelines.

Nedbank Group is one of the largest financial services groups in Africa offering wholesale and retail banking services as well as insurance, asset management and wealth management solutions. James is responsible for global markets, with extensive experience in credit, commodities, structures rates and non-linear derivatives and trading equities.

Sharad Shandilya is a scientist, strategist, and execution lead across Financial Services and cloud to name a few. A published author in digital, IoT, and A.I., he leads A.I. and Big Data for Fidelity Investment's Institutional Business, where his core responsibility is to look at how best to apply and integrate AI and smart data applications across the whole business.

Apollo Global Management is one of the largest alternative asset managers globally, with an AUM of close to 250 billion USD. Recently, they have recruited the bond-management veteran Brigitte as global head of emerging-markets debt.  Apollo’s credit arm is its largest business by asset under management, accounting for roughly $183 billion out of the $269 billion across all strategies including private equity and real estate. She joined from investment firm Barings PLC where she worked as global head of emerging markets corporates, according to a copy of her biography. Prior to that, she worked as a portfolio manager at Pacific Investment Management Co. Before PIMCO, she worked as managing director and head of Latin America securitisation and trading at Deutsche Bank AG.

Marlon has been Global Head of Equity Brokerage at Kepler Cheuvreux since 2006 and serves as a Senior Managing Director. He is responsible for driving the efforts of being a the leader global broker in Europe. He started his career at ABN Amro, where he first worked in private banking before moving to institutional equity sales marketing Dutch equities to UK based clients. In 1990 he moved to BZW in Amsterdam as a Senior Salesman in Dutch equities. He served as the General Manager Research at ING Investment Management, responsible for managing the insurance company's 5%-plus equity holdings in Dutch companies. In 1996, he returned to BZW as managing director of the Amsterdam office until 1998. After this, he opened the Dutch brokerage office for German private bank Metzler.

Julia is the Founder & CEO of Streets Consulting, the UK and US business development, marketing and communications consultancy working with a wide range of financial services and technology clients. Prior to founding Streets Consulting in 2008, Julia was global head of communications at NYSE Technologies, serving on the Executive Committee and European head of marketing and sales development at Instinet. In 2013, Brummell Magazine named Julia one of their 30 Inspirational Women on Boards and in 2014 one of their 30 Inspirational Women Entrepreneurs. This year they listed her as one of their 30 Inspirational Women City Influencers. In the past three years Innovate Finance has listed Julia one of their Leading Women in FinTech and one of SWIFT's Global Power Women in FinTech. Julia is proud to serve as a trustee of the charity 'Children in Crisis' and is a Fellow of the British American Project.

Tradeweb builds and operates electronic over-the-counter marketplaces in the United States and internationally. Richard is responsible for managing and building their equity product offering, and has extensive experience cross asset in equities, equity derivatives, ETFs, FX and fixed income, in both trading, risk management and regulatory impact on the liquidity landscape.

James is European Head of Market Structure for Citi’s equity business, responsible for developing its liquidity strategy. Previously, he spent more than 11 years at London Stock Exchange, where as head of equity sales he was directly responsible for initiatives like Turquoise Plato Block Discovery™. Other roles included Head of Client management for Baikal, the dark book initiative initially developed in partnership with Lehman Brothers and was made Director of Client Management at Turquoise when LSE acquired the business in 2010.

Enrico Massignani joined Generali Investments Europe (GIE) as Head of Risk Management in May 2010. He is responsible for investment risk of all the assets managed by GIE as well as for the company operational risks. GIE is an asset management company fully owned by Generali Group, dedicated to the management of all Generali Group insurance assets as well as to the management of mutual funds, sicavs and third party institutional mandates with over 350b Eur under management. Before joining GIE Mr. Massignani was Chief Investment Officer (Feb 2009) and Chief Operating Officer (May 2004) of Generali Thalia SGR a Fund of Hedge Fund company controlled by Generali Group. Previously Mr. Massignani worked as Project Manager within BSI Group (May 2000), a swiss private banking affiliate of Generali Group.

Alain has over 20 years of experience in the financial markets and asset management, including in hedge funds investment and risk management. At Sycomore, he is responsible for risk management, performance analysis and reporting and is currently looking at the best ways to implement and integrate AI and machine learning techniques into processes. Before joining Sycomore AM in 2006 as head of Risk Management, Alain was senior investment analyst and member of the investment team for Allianz Alternative AM. Prior to that, he was portfolio manager for a long short equity fund for CPR AM. Previously, Alain served as head of new products development for JP Morgan, head of Asset Allocation for State Street Global Advisors and quantitative Analyst of Sinopia AM (now part of HSBC GAM). Alain is also member of the Risk Commission for the French Asset Management Association (AFG).

Generali Investments Europe (GIE), is an asset management company fully owned by Generali Group, dedicated to the management of all Generali Group insurance assets as well as to the management of mutual funds, sicavs and third party institutional mandates with over 350b Eur under management. Enrico is responsible for the measurement of Credit Risk effect on bond portfolios, developing  models for derivatives and structured securities pricing  and the ALM analysis on portfolios. Most recently he is focusing on how to apply AI and machine learning techniques to better predict  credit loss reduction and discover the best structure of portfolios.

Alpha Financial Markets Consulting is a global consultancy supplying perspective, strategy, and technical expertise to the world’s top asset and wealth managers. Greg has over 10 years experience within the asset management area with emphasis around the front office IT space dealing with both traditional and alternative managers. Before joining Alpha, he spent 5 years with Charles River Development and prior to that 4 years with Bluebay Asset Management and JPM Asset Management respectively.