Race and Inclusion Now

Machel Allen, CFA, is the founder and chief investment officer of Metis Global Partners, an investment firm dedicated to the management of global and international equity portfolios. She leads the firm’s business strategy efforts and the investment team responsible for researching and managing the firm’s portfolio strategies. Ms. Allen’s investment career spans over 27 years, including a decade spent with Brandes Investment Partners, where she led the quantitative investment team that designed and implemented the investment process used by Metis today. She also served as an equity analyst for international and domestic portfolios at Lord Abbett and served in institutional investment consulting roles at LCG Associates and Watson Wyatt. Ms. Allen has served as president and a board director of CFA Society San Diego and a member of the Chicago Quantitative Alliance. She is an advisory board member of the Brandes Institute. Ms. Allen earned a BBA in finance at Georgia State University (GSU) an MBA in investments from the Robinson Business School at GSU.

Stephanie J. Creary is assistant professor of management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. She is an identity and diversity scholar, a field researcher, a founding faculty member of the Wharton IDEAS Lab, an affiliated faculty member of Wharton People Analytics, a senior fellow of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, and an affiliated faculty member of the Penn Center for Africana Studies. Professor Creary leads the Leading [email protected] speaker series as part of her Leading Diversity in Organizations course at Wharton. Her research centers on understanding the work that individuals and leaders do to manage identity in asymmetric relationships and how their efforts shape self-views, relationship quality, and work performance. Previously, Professor Creary was a Cornell University faculty member. Before earning her PhD, she served as a research associate at Harvard Business School and the Conference Board researching corporate diversity and inclusion practices. She also has extensive work experience in the health care industry. Professor Creary earned BS and MS degrees from the Boston University Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, an MBA from Simmons School of Management, and an MS degree and a PhD from the Boston College Carroll School of Management.

John W. Rogers, Jr., is founder, chairman, co-chief executive officer, and chief investment officer of Ariel Investments. Ariel Fund, which he started over 30 years ago and still manages today, is the number-one-ranked fund among its peer group since the market bottom that followed the global financial crisis. Previously, Mr. Rogers worked at William Blair & Company, LLC. Early in his career, he was selected as co-mutual fund manager of the year by Sylvia Porter’s Personal Finance Magazine and an All-Star Mutual Fund Manager by USA TODAY. Mr. Rogers is regularly featured and quoted in a variety of financial broadcasts and print publications. He is a board member of McDonald’s, NIKE, and the New York Times Company and serves as vice chair of the University of Chicago board of trustees. Mr. Rogers is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a director of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights. He was awarded Princeton University’s highest honor, the Woodrow Wilson Award, presented annually to the alumnus or alumna whose career embodies a commitment to national service. Mr. Rogers served as co-chair of Barack Obama’s Presidential Inaugural Committee and recently joined the Barack Obama Foundation’s board of directors.

Lauren Foster is content director on the professional learning team at CFA Institute, host of the Take 15 Podcast, and anchor of Conference Live. She spent nearly a decade on staff at the Financial Times as a reporter and editor based in the New York bureau, followed by freelance writing for Barron's and the Financial Times. Lauren holds a BA in political science from the University of Cape Town, and an MS in journalism from Columbia University.