Equity Research and Valuation 2019

Aswath Damodaran is the Kerschner Family Chair Professor of Finance at the Stern School of Business at New York University, where he teaches corporate finance and valuation to MBAs, executives, and practitioners. He is the author of five books on valuation, three books on corporate finance, and three books on portfolio management, and he was co-editor of the book Investment Management with Peter Bernstein. Professor Damodaran has published articles in a number of journals, including the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis and the Journal of Finance. He was named the most popular US business school professor in a 2011 survey by Businessweek. Professor Damodaran also writes a popular blog, Musings on Markets. He holds an MBA and a PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Philip S. DeSantis, CFA, is senior vice president and head of product management at Westwood. He is responsible for the planning, development, and execution of the firm’s product strategy, product management, marketing, and communications initiatives. Mr. DeSantis also is co-head of product innovation at the firm. He has over 20 years of experience in sales and distribution, product management, strategic marketing, and strategy. Previously, Mr. DeSantis worked at PNC Capital Advisors, LLC, as a managing director for the firm’s asset management business. He has also served as director and senior product specialist at UBS Global Asset Management and vice president for its multi-asset and liquid alternative strategies. In addition, Mr. DeSantis served as senior product manager for quantitative strategies at Northern Trust Asset Management. He is a registered securities representative (FINRA Series 6, 7, and 63). Mr. DeSantis earned a BS in finance from Arizona State University.

Andrea Frazzini is a principal at AQR Capital Management, where he is the co-head of the Global Stock Selection team. He is also an adjunct professor of finance at the NYU Stern School of Business. Professor Frazzini’s research has been published in top academic journals, and he has won several awards for his research, including the Smith Breeden Award, the Fama-DFA Prize, the Barclays Global Investors Michael Brennan Award, several Bernstein Fabozzi/Jacobs Levy Awards, and the PanAgora Crowell Memorial Prize. Previously, he served as an associate professor of finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Professor Frazzini also served as a consultant for DKR Capital Partners and J.P. Morgan Securities and was on the board of directors of the Center for Research in Security Prices at the University of Chicago. He earned a BS in economics from Roma Tre University, an MS in economics from the London School of Economics, and a PhD in economics from Yale University.

Joel Litman is President and CEO of Valens Research, a global investment research and advisory firm. He is also the Chief Investment Strategist of Altimetry Financial Research, a boutique financial research and publishing firm. Professor Litman is a contributor to Seeking Alpha and wrote the Harvard Business Review article, “Give My Regrets to Wall Street.” He has been interviewed by CNBC, Forbes.com, the Singapore Stock Exchange, Barron’s, Institutional Investor, and NASDAQ’s Marketsite. Professor Litman has conducted seminars and lectures for Harvard Business School, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, London Business School, and other universities, as well as CFA Institute member societies in New York, Germany, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Japan. He is a professor at three universities and a CPA. Professor Litman is a member of the board of directors of COL Financial Group. He earned an MBA/MM from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.

Mary Jane McQuillen is a managing director, a portfolio manager, and the head of the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investment program at ClearBridge Investments. She co-manages the ClearBridge Sustainability Leaders Strategy, as well as a number of other active equity ESG strategies. Ms. McQuillen has 23 years of investment industry experience and is a member of the ClearBridge Investments Proxy Committee. She serves on the board of directors of the Sustainable Investments Institute. Previously, Ms. McQuillen served on the boards of CFA Society New York, the IRRC Institute, and the Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment. She is an active member of the UN Principles for Responsible Investment Listed Equities Steering Committee and the ESG Integration Sub-Committee. Ms. McQuillen was included on the Women Worth Watching list for financial services and was named a Rising Star of Corporate Governance by the Millstein Center for Corporate Governance and Performance at the Yale School of Management. She is a member of Bpeace, a volunteer organization that works to introduce sustainable business skills to women in Rwanda, Afghanistan, El Salvador, and Guatemala. Ms. McQuillen earned a BS in finance from Fordham University and an MBA in finance from Columbia Business School.

Ryan O. Murphy is the head of decision sciences and a member of the behavioral insights team at Morningstar Investment Management. His research is interdisciplinary, bringing together methods from experimental economics, cognitive psychology, and mathematical modeling, and its focus is to better understand how people make decisions, especially about risk and money. Dr. Murphy’s current work centers on measuring people’s preferences, dynamic goal-centric portfolio choice, and developing methodologies and frameworks that improve decision-making quality. Previously, he was the chair of decision theory and behavioral game theory at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and a visiting professor at the University of Zurich economics department. Dr. Murphy has also served as associate director of the Center for the Decision Sciences at Columbia University. He has written extensively on human decision making, and his papers have been published in Management Science, Experimental Economics, Uncertainty and Risk, Judgment and Decision Making, Personality and Social Psychology Review, the Journal of Financial Planning, and the Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance. Dr. Murphy has taught university courses in decision theory, behavioral economics, negotiation analysis, experimental game theory, and statistics.

Paula Campbell Roberts is director of global macro, balance sheet, and risk at KKR. As the head of alternative data and analytics, she leads the firm’s efforts to incorporate big data and machine learning into many of its investing and value creation efforts. In addition, Ms. Roberts helps KKR assess consumer and real estate investment opportunities. She joined KKR as a member of the Global Macro, Balance Sheet, and Risk team. Previously, Ms. Roberts was an executive director and the US consumer economist at Morgan Stanley, where she managed coverage of the US consumer sector and developed fundamental trading signals using big data. She has also served as a management consultant at Bain & Co., where she led case teams and advised Fortune 500 companies. Ms. Roberts serves on the boards of the Brearley School, the Northside Center for Childhood Development, and the American Friends of Jamaica. She is also a Compass Charter School Advisory Board member. Ms. Roberts earned a BA from Yale University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Nouriel Roubini is a professor of economics at the NYU Stern School of Business. He is also chairman of Roubini Macro Associates, LLC, and co-founder of Rosa & Roubini Associates. At a 2006 address to the International Monetary Fund, Professor Roubini predicted the impending recession due to the credit and housing market bubble. He has extensive policy experience and broad academic credentials. Previously, Professor Roubini was on the faculty of Yale University’s department of economics and was cofounder and chairman of Roubini Global Economics. He has served as senior economist for international affairs on the White House Council of Economic Advisers and senior adviser to the undersecretary for international affairs at the US Treasury Department. The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and numerous other prominent public and private institutions have drawn upon Professor Roubini’s consulting expertise. He has published numerous theoretical, empirical, and policy papers on international macroeconomic issues and coauthored three books. Professor Roubini’s views on global economic issues are widely cited in the media, and he is a frequent commentator on various business news programs. He received an undergraduate degree at Bocconi University and a doctorate in economics at Harvard University.

Jennifer Stevenson is vice president and portfolio manager at Dynamic Funds, where she focuses on the energy industry and is a member of the Dynamic Equity Income Team. She has extensive energy industry experience and has been active in the sector for nearly three decades. Ms. Stevenson has served as managing director, portfolio management, at a Western Canadian investment management company, where she was the lead oil and gas portfolio manager. Her experience also includes over 10 years of energy investment banking, specializing in corporate finance and property acquisitions and divestitures. Ms. Stevenson has held senior positions at Dundee Securities, Merrill Lynch/Midland Walwyn Capital Inc., and FirstEnergy Capital Corp. In addition, she has experience working at Canadian oil and gas producers Amoco Canada and Petro-Canada. Ms. Stevenson has a bachelor of commerce degree in marketing and finance from the University of Calgary, a master of business administration in finance from the University of Alberta, and an advanced certificate in petroleum land contract administration.

Jason DeSena Trennert is the chairman and chief executive officer of Strategas Research Partners and its affiliated companies. He is known as one of Wall Street’s thought leaders on the subject of markets and economic policy. Mr. Trennert’s research pieces are read by leading institutional investors and corporate executives across the globe. He co-founded Strategas, which began with just 5 employees and today has over 50 research analysts, institutional salesmen, and sales traders. Widely quoted in the domestic and foreign press, Mr. Trennert is a regular guest host on CNBC’s Squawk Box and Bloomberg Surveillance with Tom Keene. He has penned numerous op-ed pieces in the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, and Investor’s Business Daily and is the author of three books on investing and the investment business, including My Side of the Street. Mr. Trennert is a member of the investment committee of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and is on the advisory board of Hollow Brook Wealth Management. He has a BS in international economics from Georgetown University and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

James J. Valentine, CFA, is principal and founder of AnalystSolutions. He started his career as an equity research analyst; during this time, the major North American investor polls ranked him among the top three in his sector for 10 consecutive years and Forbes identified him as one of the top three among all 2,000 US sell-side analysts. Mr. Valentine has served as director of training for Morgan Stanley’s global research department. After implementing a new global training program for 500 analysts and associates, he realized far too many buy-side and sell-side analysts were approaching this profession without a strategy, which held them back from generating alpha. To remedy this problem, Mr. Valentine began his independent effort by writing Best Practices for Equity Research Analysts and founding AnalystSolutions, to help all analysts and prospective analysts improve their stock picking and receive greater recognition for those calls. He teaches equities at DePaul University and is a clinical professor and the executive director of the Driehaus Center for Behavioral Finance. Mr. Valentine earned a BS in management at Northern Illinois University and an MS in finance at the University of Iowa. He is currently pursuing a doctorate in business administration at DePaul University.