CFA Institute Seminar for Global Investors 2020

George (Yiorgos) Allayannis is a professor of business administration at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia. His research focuses on corporate risk management, international finance, capital structure, and corporate financial policies and has appeared in leading journals, such as the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics, and the Review of Financial Studies. He was the recipient of the University of Virginia Alumni Association Distinguished Professor Award in 2011. Between 2005 and 2007, he was a director at Citigroup’s Global Financial Strategies Group and worked extensively with clients in the financial institutions and industrials sectors. He holds an MBA degree from the University of Massachusetts and a PhD in finance from the Leonard N. Stern School of Business at New York University.

Judy Cotte is the CEO of ESG Global Advisors, a firm that bridges the gap between companies and investors on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors. With over 20 years of legal experience, the last 10 of which have been exclusively focused on ESG issues, she is a globally recognized expert on ESG and responsible investment. Previously, Ms. Cotte was vice president and head of corporate governance and responsible investment at RBC Global Asset Management, where she was also a member of the Executive Committee. In addition, she has served as the director of policy development and chief operating officer at the Canadian Coalition for Good Governance (CCGG), a coalition of most of Canada’s largest institutional investors. Ms. Cotte has practiced law in various capacities, including as litigation counsel at a large broker/dealer and as a partner at a law firm, and she has served as the Canada correspondent for the International Corporate Governance Network. She is a board adviser to Connor, Clark & Lunn Financial Group and a member of the TSX Listings Advisory Committee, the CCGG Public Policy Committee, and the PRI’s Global Policy Reference Group. Ms. Cotte has a master’s degree in securities law.

Frances Donald is managing director, global chief economist, and global head of macroeconomic strategy at Manulife Investment Management. She forecasts global macroeconomic and financial trends, analyzes the economy and capital markets for potential opportunities and risks, and serves as a thought leader both within the firm and externally. As a senior member of the asset allocation team, Ms. Donald coordinates global macro research, assists with the team’s return forecasts, and contributes to portfolio positioning views. Previously, she worked as a financial economist at Scotiabank and as a global macro analyst at Pavilion Global Markets. Ms. Donald has also worked at Deloitte, Roubini Global Economics, and Bank of Canada. She is a frequent public speaker and regularly appears in international media, including Bloomberg and CNBC. Ms. Donald earned a BA (honours) in economics from Queen’s University and a master’s in economics from New York University.

Michael Falk, CFA, is a partner at the Focus Consulting Group. He specializes in helping investment/wealth management teams improve their investment decision making and helping their firms with strategic planning and succession. Previously, Mr. Falk was a chief strategist at global macro L.P. and chief investment officer in charge of manager due diligence and asset allocation at a multi-billion dollar advisory practice. He is a frequent speaker and presenter at industry events and is often quoted in the press. Mr. Falk is on the CFA Institute Approved Speaker List and has taught on behalf of CFA Society Chicago. He had served as a contributing member for the Financial Management Association’s Practitioner Demand Driven Academic Research Initiative and as an adjunct faculty member for DePaul University’s Certified Financial Planner Certificate Program. Mr. Falk is author of the CFA Institute Research Foundation monograph Let’s All Learn How to Fish . . . to Sustain Long-Term Economic Growth and Get to Work . . . on OUR Future, and he co-authored Money, Meaning, and Mindsets.

Morgan Housel is a partner at the Collaborative Fund. Previously, he was a columnist at the Wall Street Journal and the Motley Fool. Mr. Housel is a two-time winner of the Best in Business Award from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, a New York Times Sidney Award recipient, and a two-time finalist for the Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism.

Jason Hsu is founder, chairman, and chief investment officer of Rayliant Global Advisors, a global investment management group specializing in quantamental Chinese equity strategies. He also co-founded Research Affiliates, a leader in smart beta and asset allocation. Mr. Hsu is an adjunct professor in finance at the UCLA Anderson School of Management and a visiting professor at Tsinghua University, Kyoto University, and Taiwan National Chengchi University. He is on the editorial board of the Financial Analysts Journal, the Journal of Investment Management, the Journal of Investment Consulting, and the Journal of Index Investing. Mr. Hsu has published more than 40 journal articles and is a contributing author of nine handbooks in finance and economics. He has won three Graham and Dodd Awards, one FAJ Readers’ Choice Award, three Bernstein Fabozzi/Jacobs Levy Outstanding Research Awards, and three William Sharpe Best Research Awards. Mr. Hsu received a bachelor of science degree from Caltech, a master of science degree from Stanford University, and a PhD in finance from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.

Fran Janis is founding partner at Pomona Capital, a global, value-oriented private equity firm with 45 employees on three continents focused on generating significant performance while limiting risk. She is primarily responsible for investment sourcing and decision making in the secondaries, primary funds of funds, and co-investment businesses. Ms. Janis has 37 years of private equity experience. Previously, she was a general partner at Hambro International Equity Partners, a venture group that managed a series of domestic and offshore funds. Ms. Janis has served as a director of a number of private and public companies engaged in the telecommunications equipment, consumer products, software services, health care, and specialty retailing industries. She is a member of the board of trustees of Northeastern University. Ms. Janis received a BS from the State University of New York at Albany and an MBA from Northeastern University.

Vitali Kalesnik is a partner and senior member of the investment team at Research Affiliates, leading research and business strategy in the European region. Previously, Dr. Kalesnik led the equity research team, and he continues to perform general equity-related research. Dr. Kalesnik has co-authored articles that were recognized with three Graham and Dodd Scroll Awards, a Financial Analysts Journal Readers’ Choice Award, a William F. Sharpe Indexing Achievement Award, a Bernstein Fabozzi/Jacobs Levy Award, and a Graham and Dodd Award for "What is Quality." His research strengthens and expands Research Affiliates’ products—in particular, the RAFI Fundamental Index strategies—and supports the firm’s global tactical asset allocation products. He speaks fluent English, Russian, and French. Dr. Kalesnik earned a PhD in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles, where he was a winner of the UCLA Graduate Division Fellowship.

Engin Kose is a senior analyst with the systematic team at Allianz Global Investors. His expertise in alpha research and dynamic multi-factor strategies complements the team’s behavioral finance-focused investment process. Dr. Kose has more than 10 years of investment industry experience. Previously, he worked at Research Affiliates. Dr. Kose has authored many published articles and submissions on optimal portfolio construction, including diversification, component weighting, and asset quality and strategy constraints. He earned a BA in economics and mathematics at McGill University and a PhD in finance from Washington University in St. Louis.

Marlena Lee is head of investment solutions at Dimensional Fund Advisors. She leads a team dedicated to providing clients thought leadership, analysis, and education on a wide range of investment-related topics, and she is a member of the Investment Research Committee. Previously, Dr. Lee served as co-head of research, helping shape the firm’s global research agenda by working with clients to identify topics of interest and overseeing the creation of research papers. She has also worked as a teaching assistant for Nobel Laureate Eugene Fama, a professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Dr. Lee earned a BS in managerial economics and an MS in agricultural and resource economics from the University of California, Davis, and an MBA and a PhD in finance from the Chicago Booth School of Business.

Peter Lindley is president and CEO of OPTrust, one of Canada’s largest defined benefit pension plans. He is a financial services industry veteran with over 30 years of experience in strategy, investments, and leading high-performance teams. Mr. Lindley is a strong advocate for defined benefit pensions and responsible investing. Previously, he served as president and head of investments at State Street Global Advisors, where he was responsible for the firm’s overall Canadian business strategy. In this role, Mr. Lindley led teams of investment, client service, operations, and administration professionals providing investment solutions and advice to institutional clients, including pension plans, endowments, foundations, and fund managers. He has also held senior roles at Deutsche Bank and CIBC World Markets in Toronto and worked in the United Kingdom for the Industrial Bank of Japan and Security Pacific. Mr. Lindley obtained a bachelor of engineering from the University of Leicester and a bachelor of education from the University of Toronto.

Michael J. Mauboussin is head of consilient research at Counterpoint Global. Previously, he served as director of research at BlueMountain Capital Management, head of global financial strategies at Credit Suisse, and chief investment strategist at Legg Mason Capital Management. Mr. Mauboussin also served as president of the Consumer Analyst Group of New York and was named multiple times to Institutional Investor’s All-America Research Team and the Wall Street Journal All-Star survey in the food industry group. He is the author of The Success Equation: Untangling Skill and Luck in Business, Sports, and Investing; Think Twice: Harnessing the Power of Counterintuition; and More Than You Know: Finding Financial Wisdom in Unconventional Places, which won several awards. Mr. Mauboussin is also co-author of Expectations Investing: Reading Stock Prices for Better Returns. He is an adjunct professor of finance at Columbia Business School and is on the faculty of the Heilbrunn Center for Graham and Dodd Investing. Mr. Mauboussin twice received the Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence, and BusinessWeek’s Guide to the Best Business Schools highlighted him as one of the school’s “Outstanding Faculty.” He is chair of the board of trustees of the Santa Fe Institute. Mr. Mauboussin earned an AB from Georgetown University.

Michael G. McMillan, CFA, is director of ethics education and professional standards at CFA Institute. Previously, he was a professor of accounting and finance at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School and the George Washington University School of Business. Dr. McMillan also served as a securities analyst and portfolio manager at Bailard, Biehl, and Kaiser and Merus Capital Management. Prior to joining CFA Institute, Dr. McMillan served in a variety of volunteer capacities; he was a member of the Council of Examiners for 10 years and a grader for the Level II and Level III CFA exams for 12 years. He also served as vice president and treasurer of CFA Society Washington, DC. Dr. McMillan is treasurer and a board member for the Alexandria Police Foundation and the Friends of Fort Dupont Ice Arena. He is on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Business Research and a member of the Society for Business Ethics. Dr. McMillan is a Certified Compliance and Ethics Professional (CCEP), a Chartered Investment Counselor (CIC), and a Certified Public Accountant (CPA). He earned a BA from the University Pennsylvania, an MBA from Stanford University, and a PhD in accounting and finance from George Washington University.

Maureen O’Hara is the Robert W. Purcell Professor of Finance at Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management. She is an expert on market microstructure and publishes widely on banking and financial intermediaries, law and finance, and experimental economics. Professor O’Hara is the author of numerous journal articles, as well as the books Market Microstructure Theory; High-Frequency Trading: New Realities for Traders, Markets, and Regulators; and Something for Nothing: Arbitrage and Ethics on Wall Street. She has served as president of the American Finance Association, the Western Finance Association, and the Financial Management Association and as executive editor of the Review of Financial Studies. Professor O’Hara was a member of the CFTC-SEC Emerging Regulatory Issues Task Force (the “flash crash” committee) and served on the Global Advisory Board of the Securities Exchange Board of India, the Advisory Board of the US Treasury’s Office of Financial Research, and the SEC’s Equity Market Structure Advisory Committee. She was named to Institutional Investor’s Trading Technology Top 40 and is a fellow of the Initiative for Cryptocurrencies and Contracts. Professor O’Hara is an adviser to Symbiont, a company focusing on blockchain and smart securities, and AVA Labs, a cryptocurrency and blockchain startup.

Tad Rivelle is chief investment officer, fixed income, at TCW, where he oversees fixed-income assets, including fixed-income mutual fund assets under the TCW Funds and MetWest Funds brands. Previously, he served as chief investment officer at MetWest, an independent institutional investment manager that he cofounded and whose investment team has been recognized for a number of performance-related awards, including Morningstar’s Fixed-Income Manager of the Year. Mr. Rivelle also served as co-director of fixed income at Hotchkis & Wiley and a portfolio manager at PIMCO. He earned a BS in physics from Yale University, an MS in applied mathematics from the University of Southern California, and an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.

Brian Singer, CFA, partner, is the head of William Blair’s Dynamic Allocation Strategies (DAS) team, on which he also serves as portfolio manager. He is also a member of the Investment Management leadership team. Before joining William Blair in 2011, Brian was the head of investment strategies at Singer Partners, LLC. Before that, Brian was the head of global investment solutions and the Americas chief investment officer for UBS Global Asset Management, where he was a member of the UBS Group’s managing board and global asset management executive committee. Brian is extensively involved with the CFA Institute. He formerly served as a board member and chair of the CFA Institute board of governors. He is a member of the CFA Society Chicago and a former chair and member of the CFA Institute Research Foundation board of trustees, and in 2015, he received the CFA Institute’s Distinguished Service Award, which recognizes CFA members who have made a significant contribution to the CFA Institute through their leadership, exceptional stewardship, and outstanding service. Brian has written extensively on global portfolio, currency, and performance issues, and co‐wrote the seminal Determinants of Portfolio Performance II: An Update with Gary Brinson and Gilbert Beebower. In 2009 Brian was the lead author of Investment Leadership and Portfolio Management from Wiley Publishing. In 2018 the CFA Society Chicago awarded Brian the Hortense Friedman Award for Excellence, and in 2015 The Spaulding Group inducted Brian into the Performance and Risk Management Hall of Fame. Brian serves on the endowment investment committee for Exeter College at Oxford University; he is chairman of the “Free to Choose Network,” which is inspired by the ideas of economist Milton Friedman; and he serves as a member of the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago Keystone board. Brian received a B.A. in economics from Northwestern University and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.

Meredith Sumpter is head of research strategy and operations at Eurasia Group, where she leads research management and strategy and carries out advisory work. She has held senior positions in the private and public sectors and has nearly 20 years of experience in policy, analysis, business, and management. Ms. Sumpter is a strategic thinker and thought leader who regularly meets with senior officials and executives and often speaks at conferences and to the media. She advises industry leaders and investors on politics and commercial strategy, and her experience spans multiple regions and sectors. Previously, Ms. Sumpter led strategic advisory for Fortune 500 clients across Asia and served as a diplomat, including in Beijing, where she advised two US ambassadors and analyzed politics, economics, and security issues for the policy community. She has held advisory positions in policy and global think tanks and in the US Senate. Ms. Sumpter started her career working among business executives and engineers at a Fortune 100 multinational company, where she worked to expand the firm’s product base worldwide. She is an honors graduate of both the London School of Economics and Political Science and the University of Washington.

Zia Uddin, CFA, is a partner, managing director, and portfolio manager of Monroe Capital’s private credit investment vehicles. He is a member of the firm’s Investment Committee, works extensively with sponsors (fundless and private equity), and is on various boards of directors for Monroe’s investments. Mr. Uddin has over 25 years of management consulting, corporate finance, turnaround, and investing experience. Previously, he was a partner and principal at two middle-market private equity funds and was a senior manager at Arthur Andersen LLP, where he provided management consulting services to a wide range of clients. Mr. Uddin has also served in numerous operating roles at middle-market companies, including chief operating officer, chief financial officer, and chief revenue officer. He is a non-practicing CPA. Mr. Uddin earned a BS from the University of Illinois and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Manuela M. Veloso is a managing director and head of J.P. Morgan AI Research. She is on leave from her role as the Herbert A. Simon University Professor in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, where she has served as head of the machine learning department. Professor Veloso has led research in artificial intelligence, with a focus on robotics and machine learning, and developed a variety of autonomous robots, including teams of soccer robots, as well as mobile service robots. She served as president of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) and is a co-founder, trustee, and past president of RoboCup. Professor Veloso has been recognized as a fellow of the ACM, IEEE, AAAS, and AAAI. She has received several best paper awards, the Einstein Chair of the Chinese Academy of Science, the ACM/SIGART Autonomous Agents Research Award, an NSF Career Award, and the Allen Newell Medal for Excellence in Research. Professor Veloso earned bachelor and master of science degrees in electrical and computer engineering from Instituto Superior Técnico, a master of arts in computer science from Boston University, and a master of science and PhD in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University.

Luis Videgaray is director of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Policy for the World Project, a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and a distinguished fellow for the MIT Internet Policy Research Initiative. Previously, he served as foreign minister and finance minister of Mexico. Dr. Videgaray is a founder of the Lima Group. He was named Finance Minister of the Year by the Banker and Euromoney and a Leading Global Thinker by Foreign Policy. Dr. Videgaray was campaign manager for President Peña Nieto and head of his presidential transition team. He served as a member of the Mexican Congress, where he chaired the Budget Committee, and Secretary of Finance of the State of Mexico. Before serving in government, Dr. Videgaray worked in investment banking, advising M&A, private equity, project finance, and debt restructuring transactions at Protego. He is a Pacific Leadership Fellow at the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy, a member of the Advisory Board of the CyberPeace Institute, and a member of the Artificial Intelligence Council of the World Economic Forum. He earned a BA in economics from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) and a PhD in economics from MIT.

Stephen Wendel is head of behavioral science at Morningstar, where he leads a team of behavioral scientists and practitioners in conducting original research on saving and investment behavior. He is the author of two books on applied behavioral science, Designing for Behavior Change and Improving Employee Benefits. Dr. Wendel is the founder of the nonprofit Action Design Network, which educates the public on how to apply behavioral research to product development with monthly events in eleven cities. He holds a BA from University of California, Berkeley; a master’s from the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins; and a PhD from the University of Maryland, where he analyzed the dynamics of behavioral change over time.

Mark W. Yusko is the founder, CEO, and chief investment officer of Morgan Creek Capital Management. He is also the managing partner of Morgan Creek Digital Assets, an early- stage investor in blockchain technology, digital currency, and digital assets through the firm’s Venture Capital and Digital Asset Index Fund. Previously, Mr. Yusko was chief investment officer and founder of UNC Management Company, the endowment investment office for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has also served as senior investment director for the University of Notre Dame Investment Office. Mr. Yusko has been at the forefront of institutional investing throughout his career. An early investor in alternative asset classes at Notre Dame, he brought the Endowment Model of investing to UNC, which contributed to significant performance gains for the endowment. Mr. Yusko received a BA with honors from the University of Notre Dame and an MBA in accounting and finance from the University of Chicago.