TradeTech FX 2015 (past event)

16 - 17 September, 2015

Contact Us: 44 (0) 207 368 9465

Speakers

2015 Speakers

Lee Sanders
Head of FX Execution
AXA Investment Managers
Lee is the head of FX and MM for AXA IM, the 2nd largest money manager in 2015, covering both the Paris and London offices. After 10 years as an Investment Manager, Lee Sanders made the move to trading to help set up an execution function for FI and FX and MM and this has slowly been rolled out to a more a global role. Lee Sanders has embraced changes in  e-commerce and market structure and by doing so has helped make the desks he manages more efficient. Lee also has worked on TCA projects and also many initiatives to improve the quality of execution in all the asset classes he oversees.
Massimilano Castelli
Managing Director, Head of Strategy
UBS Asset Management
As Head of Strategy in the team at UBS Global Asset Management, Max analyses the market trends affecting the investment behavior of central banks, sovereign wealth funds and other state-controlled investment institutions, and works closely with the investment teams in providing investment advice and developing tailored investment solutions for this client segment. Max is a member of the UBS Global Sovereign Management Committee, and he has established himself as a thought leader on the key economic, financial and political trends driving the investment landscape and investors' behaviour. He is often called in by leading institutions as an expert on global economic and financial matters surrounding the management of foreign exchange reserve and sovereign wealth funds, and will be sharing his expertise as the keynote speaker at TradeTech FX, covering the key macro themes that will dominate FX over the next 12 months and beyond.
Jonathan Davies
Head of Currency Strategy
UBS Asset Management
Jonathan Davies is Head of Currency within the Global Investment Solutions (GIS) team, based in London. His primary responsibility is setting currency strategy both as an overlay component of global portfolios and in Global Tactical Asset Allocation (GTAA) strategies. Jonathan is the UK Investment Coordinator with overall responsibility for the investment of all UK clients’ portfolios. He chairs the UK Investment Committee and he is also a member of the Asset Allocation and Currency Committee.
Gordon Ibrahim
Managing Director
Blackrock
Gordon is a member of the Fixed Income division of BlackRock's Alpha Strategies Portfolio Management Group. He is a portfolio manager within the Macro team, and is responsible for running developed market FX and Interest Rate strategies. Prior to joining BlackRock in 2010 Mr Ibrahim was at CR Global LLP working as a portfolio manager on the global macro fund, focussing on currencies and fixed income.

Christian Schoeppe
Head of FX Trading EMEA
Deutsche Asset and Wealth Management
Christian joined the company in 2000. Prior to his current role, Christian served as an International Equities and FX Trader. Previously, he worked in Corporate Asset Management at Deutsche Bank Frankfurt and Deutsche Bank Cologne. Christian holds a degree from the Technical University Bonn-Rhein-Sieg, he completed the bank training program at Deutsche Bank, Krefeld.
Brigitte Le Bris
Managing Director of FX
Natixis Asset Management
Brigitte Le Bris heads up the FX strategy for Natixis Asset Management, the 7th largest money manager in Europe, where she has been since September 2010 as Head of Currency and Global Fixed Income. Brigitte is directly responsible for the strategy within both emerging market and G10 currencies, and will be providing particular expertise on where the major market trends lie across both G10 and EM.
Virginie Queval
Head of FX Trading
Legal and General
Virginie Queval Heads up the FX trading team at LGIM, the 8th largest money manager in Europe in 2015. Virginie’s vast experience at BNP Paribas and later Commerzbank has led her to heading up the FX team at LGIM, where she has been tasked with growing the LGIM FX desk, driving them forward in a constantly changing FX landscape. Virginie will be offering advice and expertise on FX benchmarking strategies, helping provide an insight on new ways to effectively reduce costs and measure best execution.
Patrick Fleur
Managing Director
PGGM
Patrick is head of the Trading & Execution Desk at PGGM, a role which he has held since September 2007. PGGM is the third biggest asset manager for pension funds in Europe, where Patrick heads a team of professionals who can hold risk or act as an agent servicing 16 different teams of portfolio managers across all liquid asset categories. He is responsible for all relationships with financial counterparts and for all Front Office IT & facility related services. Next to this he is a member of the PGGM Allocation Committee who advice clients on long-term tactical adjustments to their investment portfolio. Patrick also holds positions at the ACI FX Committee, the ECB FX Contact Group and the Bloomberg FX Advisory Board.
Benjamin Lesch
Quantative Analyst
MAN Investments
Ben is responsible for both research and investment management in FX and commodities for AHL, a major systematic hedge fund. With the USD role as the world’s de facto reserve currency, the dollar is the single most important factor in FX markets, and Ben will be sharing his expertise and experiences with the dollar. This includes his experience after several years of successfully building systematic FX models centered around appropriately understanding and dealing with the USD, as well as his most recent research into the economic meaning of dollar cycles, and how they drive currency markets in general.
Toby Baker
Senior Foreign Exchange Trader
T. Rowe Price
T Rowe Price is a Global Investment manager with offices in 14 countries, managing client assets over $700 Billion. The investment execution is traded out of Sydney, Hong Kong, London and Baltimore. Toby has recently added TCA to the investment process and where they can utilise FX transparency. Toby also uses Morgan Stanley QSI and is working on pre-trade analysis to source the best liquidity conditions, and will be sharing his expertise on how to best make the use of FX TCA.
Alessio de Longis
Vice President
Oppenheimer Funds
Alessio de Longis, CFA, is a Vice President, Macro Strategist and Portfolio Manager for the Global Multi-Asset Group (GMAG), which he joined in October 2013. In this role, he leads the group’s macro strategy focusing on business cycle dynamics, global macro regimes, and their impact on asset class risks and returns. In addition, Alessio manages and oversees active currency strategies in GMAG’s funds. Between 2004 and 2013, Alessio was a member of the Global Debt team where he served as Portfolio Manager and Quantitative FX Strategist. In this role, he developed a large set of valuation and forecasting models for global interest rates and currency markets, and will be sharing his expertise in his interactive case study presentation.
Michael Ganske
Partner, Head of Emerging Markets
Rogge Global Partners
Dr Michael Ganske is a Partner and Head of Emerging Markets at Rogge Global Partners plc in London. He is in charge of RGPs global emerging markets portfolio management and research and has final responsibility for the firm's investment strategy in EM local rates, hard currency bonds and FX. Michael will be providing specific expertise on where major market trends lie in emerging market currencies. 
Paul Chappell
Chief Investment Officer
C-View
Paul Chappell is Chief Investment Officer of C-View Limited which he established in 1996, launching the C-View Currency Managed Account Program  which has produced consistent risk adjusted returns since inception. In 2008 C-View launched the C-View Emerging, Developing and Minor Currency Program to capitalise upon the Company’s particular expertise in minor and developing currency FX. In February 2013 the C-View Global Macro Interest Rate Program was launched, expanding that expertise further into interest rate opportunities. C-View has in excess of US$ 300million in Assets Under Management.
Buford Scott
Chief Investment Officer, Stelrox Systematic Programme
C View
Buford Scott is CIO of the C-View Stelrox Systematic Currency Strategy, an emerging FX strategy managed by C-View Limited, which recently began trading in September 2014. The Stelrox strategy is the culmination of Mr. Scott’s 28 years of trading experience, spent at top-tier financial institutions, including JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch, and Goldman Sachs. Prior to founding Stelrox, Mr. Scott was Managing Director at Standard Chartered Bank, where he founded and ran the Alternative Asset Group, an elite quantitative trading group focused on futures and currencies.
Per Ivarsson
Investment Partner
Harmonic Capital
Harmonic Capital Partners is a fully systematic, London-based macro hedge fund manager focusing on non-directional strategies. Harmonic has a team of 25 people, with 11 dedicated to research and development. Per is a member of the Harmonic Investment Committee, and the majority of his time is spent developing and maintaining Macro trading strategies across asset classes. Through Per’s 8 years in systematic research and asset management at Harmonic, he has developed a good understanding of the benefits and potential pitfalls that come with this trading style.  
Romael Karam
Partner, Head of Dealing
Harmonic Capital
Romael is responsible for managing the trading team and all trading activities across all asset classes including G10 & EM FX and futures in Bonds, Rates and Commodities. At Harmonic Capital, trade cost and dealer performance is regularly monitored, where they leverage off their systematic approach and technology focus to gather trading data and develop detailed reporting allowing them to ensure costs are within expected levels and make improvements where possible. Harmonic has continued to grow AUM over the past 18 months and therefore trading sizes are getting larger. Over the next 12 months, Romael is looking to overcome the challenge of less liquid currencies becoming more fragmented at times of heightened market stress. He will be looking to identify and avoid these points in time and continue to trade with minimal market impact to keep trade costs within expected levels.
Nigel Rogers
Founding Partner, Head of Trading
Adrian Lee and Partners
Nigel is in charge of the Trading desk and also oversees the Dublin HQ which incorporates 15 members of staff from Portfolio Management, Trading, Legal & Compliance, Accounts, IT and back office functions. Adrian lee & Partners has been market leaders in active asset and currency management for the last 16 years and have over 30 years experience in FX fund management/FX trading. They continually look to adjust thier processes to improve client alpha within currency selection, allocation size and trading techniques. Trading platforms are compared for their bulk order capabilities and the added value vs. cost, counterparty bank capabilities are regularly evaluated with direct feedback given and trading technique and trade level are assessed on a trade by trade basis. Bulk order trading for developed and EM currencies require specific technology and they work with platform providers to achieve these goals in various formats. Nigel will be providing his particular knowledge and experience on where he believes the major FX trends lie during the 'All Star Panel' on day 1.
David Denison
Deputy Chief Investment Officer and Partner
Florin Court Capital
David is a partner in a new quantitative, cross-asset hedge fund that has 8 employees and trades over 150 markets on 35 exchanges around the world. Together with the CIO, David is responsible for the investment management of the fund and oversees its ongoing research effort. With David’s background and experience he is particularly focused on the FX models they trade which make up a significant portion of their risk exposure. David recently managed a portfolio of over 30 currencies for 4 years in his previous job. Now, David is embarking on a new effort to improve on the success of the approach he adopted then.
Malcolm Day
Global FX, Head of Emerging Market FX Trading
BBVA
Christopher Cruden
Chief Executive Officer
Insch Capital Management
Insch has one of the longest and most successful continuous performance track records in currency management. Since 2000 Insch has returned 6% pa with a std.dev of 7% without leverage and 14% pa with a std.dev of 20% at the maximum leverage of up to x3.

Before establishing Insch in 2000, Christopher Cruden was instrumental in the launch and management of one of the very first FX programs (in 1991). Prior to that he was with AHL in London and DWR in NY. He has over 30 years experience in the currency management industry.

Insch is privately owned, based in London and Lugano, Switzerland and has an exclusively institutional client base.
Felix Adam
Founder
ACT Currency
Mr Felix Adam is the founder and CEO of ACT Currency Partner, the Hedge Fund Manager with 20 years of history in working with institutional clients. The prime focus of ACT is generation of alpha in currency, option and precious metals, which is reflected in an average performance of 7.6% for the last 8 years. ACT Incubation's business model is offering investment professionals the possibility to run their own Hedge Fund strategy. During his career in Citibank and J.P. Morgan Felix Adam gained a deep experience in providing Alpha with currencies. In 1992 he established ACT, which is today a well-known currency and global macro specialist.
Yoav Barnes
Managing Director
Victory FX
Yoav is the Managing Director and Portfolio Manager at Victory FX, the specialist G10 currencies, gold, silver and oil accounts manager. He is responsible for managing funds for firms and HNIs based on the unique Orbits trading strategy which he developed for six years. It identifies genuine(from false) breakout of long term price range with 90% probability for very large moves.
Philippe Bonnefoy
Founder
Eluthera Capital
Philippe has been involved in the financial markets for over thirty years and managing money globally for twenty-eight years across multiple asset classes and trading strategies. He has built a number of successful businesses including the Cedar Fund and Cedar Diversified Macro Fund which were sold to Erste Bank in mid-2007; and Cedar Partners, the external investment advisor to Commerzbank for alternative investments; an investment business that grew over 600% during this period. Prior to founding Cedar, Philippe ran a proprietary trading and advisory firm specialising in global macro trading. This business had evolved from the international activities of a risk arbitrage firm established by former Kidder, Peabody & Co. colleagues. Philippe began his financial career at Kidder, Peabody in New York as an international corporate finance analyst. He then became responsible for international equity investment for Kidder, Peabody's London-based investment management business where he managed investments for institutional clients including the BHP Pension Fund. 

Philippe has a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies and Economics from the School of International Service, The American University, in Washington DC. While attending university Philippe was employed as an International Trade Specialist, at the US Department of Commerce where he conducted research and prepared policy reports liaising with the US Congress and US Special Trade Representative, Executive Office of the President
Michael Metcalfe
Head of Macro Strategy
State Street Global Advisors
Michael and his team are responsible for FX, interest rate and cross asset strategy for State Street Global Markets. His main area of expertise lies in developing tools to help analyse the market regime and in integrating measures of investor behaviour and inflation into an investment strategy. His team is consistently voted as providing some of the best capital flow research by industry surveys. They conduct more than a thousand client meetings per year with the world’s largest portfolio managers and official institutions. They also work closely with State Street Associates in the development and application of State Street’s unique measures of investor behaviour and inflation. 
Robert Savage
Chief Executive Officer
CC Track Solutions
Mr. Savage runs a small start up fund, CC Track Solutions, which is backed by CITIC Capital with 14 people and total AUM of $75 million. The focus of the fund is FX trading systematically, and Mr. Savages entire career has been focused on FX space starting with his work as a Quant strategist at Goldman.
Victor Lebreton
Managing Director
Quant Hedge Fund
Victor Lebreton manages the strategies and the portfolio for Quant Hedge a prop-trading fund. Prior, he was a consultant for trading and operations for major investment banks. In 2007 he moved to electronic trading to develop his own trading strategies based on cutting edge approach, delivering a liquid Absolute Return investment (Sharpe >2, +158% since 2009). Today, he is also a teacher for electronic and quantitative trading for ECE Paris engineer schools. His investment research is based on systematic and algorithmic trading developed through innovative algo-optimisation processes. He is also a Research Assistant at ENSRF and speaks at various international conferences and business forums. In 2012, he was appointed Expert for the European commission.
Peter Lundgreen
Chief Executive Officer
Lundgreens Capital
Peter Lundgreen is the CEO and founder of Lundgreen's Capital. The client segments are funds, corporations, municipalities, trusts and high net worth individuals based in northern Europe. Lundgreen’s Capital publishes a widely read 28-page quarterly magazine about the global financial markets, a 28-page quarterly magazine about China plus weekly newsletters. Peter Lundgreen has an extensive network in China, and to ensure the optimal insight about China and Asia Lundgreen’s Capital also has its own research unit in Hong Kong. Peter will be sharing his particular expertise around Asian currency trends when hosting his roundtable.
Saeed Amen
Managing Director and Co-Founder
The Thalesians
Saeed Amen is a Managing Director and a Co-founder at Thalesians Ltd. Saeed is currently publishing ground-breaking quant strategy notes at Thalesians Ltd., drawing upon nearly a decade of experience both creating and running systematic trading models successfully with real cash. Independently, he is also a systematic FX trader, running a proprietary trading book trading liquid G10 FX. He has also recently written a book on trading which is was published by Palgrave Macmillan: Trading Thalesians - What the ancient world can teach us about trading today.
Jon Vollemaere
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
R5FX
Currently, Jon is the founder and CEO of R5 the Emerging Currency MarketPlace, a new Interbank Liquidity pool for eNDF's and EMFX, and is actively involved in the development of Emerging Market currencies. R5 is building the eMerging MarketPlace for FX banks that not only satisfies these new legal requirements, but also specialises in the fast growing transaction volumes in BRIC and emerging economy currencies, and Jon will be sharing his specific expertise on where the current emerging market and G10 trends lie at TradeTech FX.   
Ron Quaranta
Chairman
Wall Street Blockchain Alliance
Ron is an accomplished executive and entrepreneur, with 25 years of experience in the financial services and technology sectors. He currently serves as Chairman of the Wall Street Blockchain Alliance, an advocacy group whose mission is to guide and promote comprehensive adoption of digital currency technology across financial markets. He also serves as Chief Executive Officer of Digital Currency Labs, a financial technology and strategic advisory firm focused on bridging the gap between the emerging world of digital currencies and Wall Street. Prior to this, Ron served as CEO of DerivaTrust Technologies, a pioneering software and communications provider of secure transaction and information platforms for financial market participants. Before this he held a variety of roles at Thomson Reuters, the global news and information firm, culminating as Global Head of Trading Analytics. 
Pete Eggleston
Managing Director
Morgan Stanley
Peter joined Morgan Stanley in August 2010 and has 22 years of experience in the financial markets. Prior to joining Morgan Stanley, Peter set up and led the Global Quant Solutions business at RBS, a cross-product client advisory business, for 7 years.  Previous roles involved establishing an equity quant trading business at ABN AMRO and a variety of risk management roles across Europe and Asia.


Petra Wikström
Global Head of FX Execution and Alpha Solutions
BNP Paribas Corporate and Institutional Banking
Petra Wikström, Global Head of FX Execution & Alpha Solutions, joined BNP Paribas in 2014. She is part of developing the bank’s pre- and post-trade transaction cost analysis and quantitative investment analysis directed to institutional investors globally. Specifically the team delivers bespoke analysis on topics such as currency benchmarks, hedge ratios and minimising tracking errors and assisting clients who wish to implement a more quantitative currency investment process.

Petra has over 15 years of experience in the financial industry, and held both regional and global roles providing FX and cross-asset quantitative investment solutions to institutional and corporate investors for 7 years at Royal Bank of Scotland and RBS Greenwich Capital, and most recently at Morgan Stanley. She also earlier worked at BNP Paribas, London, in the early years of 2000. 

Andrew Harvey
MD for Europe
Global Financial Markets Association
Andrew Harvey is Managing Director, Europe, of the Global FX Division of GFMA (Global Financial Markets Association, whose member associations include SIFMA, AFME and ASIFMA).  The Division was formed in June 2010 to support efforts to promote an efficient FX market, monitor regulatory developments that could affect the market and assist the industry in building out the infrastructure of the future.  Its members currently comprise 23 global FX market participants, collectively representing more than 90% of the FX market.  While focused on Europe, Andrew has responsibilities for global initiatives as the Division seeks to harmonize evolving rules for FX across jurisdictions.
Richard Metcalfe
Director of Regulatory Affairs
The Investment Association
Richard is Director of Regulatory Affairs for The Investment Association, with responsibility specifically for its advocacy work on the full range of Association issues, including: funds; institutional and capital markets; and systemic risk. This work entails engagement at EU and international level, as well as on UK legislative and regulatory initiatives. In this role, he works closely with other Investment Association Directors, particularly in the Public Policy area and Risk, Compliance & Legal.
A graduate of Oxford University in Russian and Spanish, Richard worked for 12 years in journalism (specialising in risk management and derivatives), with an interlude in a communications role at SWIFT in Brussels. Before joining the Investment Association in September 2013, he worked for 14 years at the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) in London, overseeing European regulatory matters and acting as regional Deputy Head.
Vincent Dessard
Senior Regulatory Policy Advisor
EFAMA
Vincent Dessard is regulatory policy advisor at EFAMA. He is in charge of capital markets, capital requirements and risk management related files. Vincent is a company lawyer, member of Belgian Institute for In-House Lawyers. On the back of ongoing regulatory reform, Vincent will be providing expertise on how the FX market structure has been impacted by regulation. 
Robin Poynder
Director
FMR Advisory
Robin Poynder is an advisor focusing on Regulation of the OTC Financial Markets, in particular the G20 initiatives and Conduct Risk. Following a career in foreign exchange trading and management, Robin has spent time at Thomson Reuters managing part of the FX&MM business. In recent years Robin has spent a considerable amount of time engaging with Regulators and key market participants around the G20 commitment to regulation and potential consequences on the OTC markets. He has built up a significant network of contacts and experience in this field. This background gives Robin a deep understanding of the foreign exchange industry, strong understanding of the policies and aims of the newer global Regulatory approach, as well as a recent ‘neutral’ non-bank history – providing a unique insight into how the OTC business is being and will be affected by the recent and impending Regulations such as Dodd-Frank, EMIR, MiFID and related global initiatives. Conduct Risk in particular is a major focus for his work, helping firms understand how a programme to demonstrate change in this area might be made real. 
Peter Schwendner
Senior Lecturer
Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW)
Peter Schwendner is a Senior Lecturer at the Institute for Wealth and Asset Management at ZHAW School of Management and Law, Zurich, Switzerland. His research interests are financial markets, asset management and network analytics. Peter received a PhD in Physics in 1998 for his research at Max Planck Institute in Goettingen. He has 15 years’ work experience in the financial industry as a head of quantitative research at Sal. Oppenheim and as a partner at Fortinbras Asset Management, developing investment products. His research interest is asset management, financial networks and trading strategies.
James Sharpe
Managing Partner
Sharpe and Sigworth Associates
James has been involved in the financial markets since the late 1970s. He has a Degree in Economics, a Masters in Finance (Exon.) and PCIAM. He is also a published author ‘Foreign Exchange the Complete Deal’ (Harriman’s 2012). Jim’s range of experience is extraordinary and is unlikely to be replicated. He has worked in the US and the Middle East where he was responsible for the region and interbank/central bank relationships. He has combined positions of chief dealer, trader and foreign exchange sales but it is in the latter that Jim has focused on and where he has run a number of desks. The range of institutions he has worked for has been global, including: US, Japanese, Scandinavian and UK. He has dealt with an array of counter-parties including, banks, corporates, central banks, funds and multinationals. In recent years he completed ‘the hand’ and dealt with high net worth individuals in addition to corporates at a leading private bank.
Manuele Marini
Portfolio Manager
Temple Asset Management
Manuele Marini is co-Portfolio Manager of the Wakett Currency Fund. He is also the Project Manager responsible for designing, writing and supporting all software for the automated currency trading chain. Manuele has been analyzing the properties of currency market data since 1999 to understand its behavior. From this, Manuele has developed predictive mathematical trading models that form the basis of the systems that generate signals for the Wakett Currency Fund. Having completed his MSc. in Mechanical Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Milan, Manuele has worked as an independent engineer and IT consultant, developing trading strategies, trading tools and supplying market data analysis to financial services companies. He also spent three years as director of SHBK Asset Management based in Lugano, Switzerland.
Carl James
Managing Director
C2 Consulting
Carl James, managing partner of C2, is an influential buy-side dealer with 30 years’ experience in global multi-asset execution. He has operated successfully at various Global Asset management companies, including in Global Head of Dealing roles. He has overseen the management of more than £1 trillion of assets. Carl’s experience stands out for its breadth – embracing every aspect of execution, and for its depth – including advising on regulation, risk, process and developing and implementing groundbreaking technology. Highly respected by both buy and sell-side, his opinions are sought by people at the highest level. He demonstrates the kind of vision and incisive, strategic thinking that have seen him inform change and progression for organisations and for the industry as a whole.
Rebecca Healey
Director
Incisus Capital Partners
As a recognized thought leader in market structure, regulatory reform and financial trading technology, Rebecca is an independent research analyst focusing on the complex challenges the financial service industry now faces and how technology can help address these, ultimately improving capital markets both for participants and investors. As a European Consultant for TABB Group since March 2011, Rebecca has authored an expanding catalogue of research papers and commentary covering European equities, FX, fixed income, dark pools, TCA, HFT, FTT, market surveillance, market structure and regulatory reform. 

Marcus Hooper
Managing Director
Agora Global Consultants
Marcus currently provides strategic business development for trading/ MTF/ exchange alongside developing trading systems, market structure strategy, process management, new regulations & risk mitigation and business process enhancement. Prior to this Marcus was the Chief Executive Officer of the European division of Aritas Financial. Marcus established Aritas from the ground up as both an MTF (Multilateral Trading Facility) and an investment firm offering algorithmic and electronic trading solutions. Marcus has spent over 27 years in financial services including 17 years in senior asset management trading roles working for HBOS, Allianz Dresdner and AXA. Throughout his career he has worked in the fields of market microstructure and the deployment of electronic trading technologies. Impressively, Marcus has overseen projects for the UK Treasury, The FSA, The Investment Managers’ Association, The British Banking Association, The London Investment Banking Association and The London Stock Exchange. He has published papers on Financial Markets behaviour including studies on the subjects of best execution, electronic and alternative trading systems and transaction cost analysis. Marcus has been published in the book “The Equity Trader Course” and the somewhat more sensational “A Million a Minute: Inside the Mega-money, Hi-tech World of Traders”. Marcus is proud to have lectured executive MBA programs in the UK and USA, and was a nominated speaker for the USA’s Association of Investment Management and Research education program.
Pierre Lequeux
Independent Consultant
The Financial Argonaut
Pierre is currently and independent consultant. In Pierre’s previous roles he managed very large currency overlay institutional mandates for central banks, insurance companies and also pension funds. His previous role was Head of Currency Management at Aviva Investors from April 2010 to July 2012 Prior to this, Pierre was Chief Investment Officer for currencies at Fortis Investments (ABN AMRO Asset Management legacy business) from March 1999 to March 2010. Pierre began his career in 1987 with Banque Nationale de Paris, London branch, where his last role was Head of the Quantitative Research and Trading Desk. This provided him with good expertise in the world of multi-asset and its requirements from an FX perspective.

Pierre, born 1961, is a graduate in International Trade from ISTEG (1983) and holds a diploma of the Forex Association (1990). He was an Associate Researcher at the Centre for International Banking and Finance of Liverpool Business school and also acted as an expert reviewer for the European Commission. He is an active contributor to academic and practitioner conferences. He is presently a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Derivatives & Hedge Funds.
David Mechner
CEO and co-founder
Pragma Securities
David Mechner is CEO and co-founder of Pragma Securities, a New York-based financial services firm specializing in innovative algorithmic trading solutions developed and customized for both buy- and sell-side clients. Pragma’s unique combination of broker independence and quantitative expertise in market microstructure distinguish the firm as an ideal partner for a range of clients, including exchanges, brokers, institutions and hedge funds. Before founding Pragma Securities, Mr. Mechner developed and implemented short-term trading strategies as Director of Research at Pragma Hedge Fund, and prior to entering the field of finance, he was a doctoral fellow at New York University's Center for Neural Science. His interest in intelligent systems originated during his computer-science undergraduate years, during which he spearheaded a research effort in developing a sophisticated program for the game of Go. Mr. Mechner participated in the Japanese professional promotion system for Go and still ranks among the strongest non-Asian Go players in the world.
Stéphane Malrait
Managing Director and Global Head of E-Commerce for Financial Markets at IN
ING
Stéphane has been active with the ACI since 2005, participating in ACI world congresses, meeting with global regulators and local ACI events in Europe. In October 2010 Stephane was nominated chair of the ACI FX committee. The FX committee is focussed on and comprised of FX Experts who support both the ACI Executive Board and Regional ACI’s and ensure that the views of the professional FX community are heard at the highest levels, in co-operation with other associations that have an FX.

Stéphane Malrait is Managing Director and Global Head of E-Commerce for Financial Markets at ING. Stéphane joined ING to lead the bank e-commerce initiatives across all financial market products and to develop on the financial market group’s cross-asset ecommerce strategy. Before joining ING in May 2015 Stephane was global head of FIC eCommerce at Societe Generale since August 2007. Previously, Stéphane has worked at JPMorgan Chase for ten years based in New-York and London, working in different roles in Global FX E-Commerce Business Management and cross asset eCommerce technology. Stephane is also a board member for several eTrading market initiatives and market associations.
Chip Lowry
Senior Managing Director
State Street Global Markets
Chip Lowry is senior vice president of State Street and is responsible for State Street Global Market’s Agency FX Services.
Mr. Lowry joined State Street in 1992 where he worked in product development and currency risk management roles. He has been involved in electronic foreign exchange systems and market structures since 1995 when he participated in the development and launch of FX Connect, the first electronic FX trading platform for the intuitional investor community. Subsequently Mr. Lowry held positions in London where he ran SSGM’s Global Link division for EMEA and then in New York where he was the COO for Currenex, a State Street company.
Ganesh Iyer
Director, Product Marketing, Financial Markets Network
IPC Systems
Ganesh Iyer is Director, Product Marketing, Financial Markets Network at IPC Systems, a leading provider of mission-critical network services and trading communication technology to the global financial markets community. At IPC, Ganesh is part of the team responsible for spearheading global product marketing initiatives, building brand awareness and growing the business. He has been widely quoted in the press regarding various aspects of the financial markets and has been featured in a number of publications and media outlets including the Wall Street Journal, Information Management, CIO Review, FX-MM and Futures and Options World. He has also spoken at key industry events including TradeTech Europe, DerivOps North America, TradeTech FX, World Financial Information Conference and Asia-Pacific Financial Information Conference. Prior to joining IPC, Ganesh was responsible for marketing and product management at Syncsort, a leading provider of high-performance data integration software and iLEVEL, a spin-off of the Blackstone Group that offers a cloud-based SaaS solution to the alternative investment market. Ganesh has over 15 years of experience in the technology industry spanning product marketing, market research and strategic planning.
Asif Razaq
Global Head of FX Algo Execution
BNP Paribas
Asif is an experienced FX Algo Trader who has over 10 years of experience in developing electronic trading platforms. He has a MSc in Artificial Intelligence and has joined BNP Paribas from Citi, where he worked on various initiatives including eFX pricing engines and algorithmic trading. Utilising his experience in artificial intelligence, he has developed and launched Cortex iX (Intelligent eXecution) - a cutting edge FX algorithmic execution platform that has been highly acclaimed by clients and industry experts globally.
David Woolcock
Chair of the Committee for Professionalism
ACI
Joseph Hoffman
Director
Russell Investments
Bryan Smith
Director
Integral Development Corp
Darren Johnson
Chief Operating Officer
Impax Asset Management
Frederic Ponzo
Managing Partner
GreySpark Partners
Kim Johannessen
Chief Technology Officer
Decura
Klaus Paesler
Head
Russell Investments
Alex Gerko
Chief Executive Officer
XTX Markets
Robbie Boukhoufane
Global Head of FX Trading
Schroder Investment Management
Dmitri Galinov
CEO
Fastmatch
Paul Aston
Global Head of Quant Solutions
TD Securities
Anna Pajor
Head of Research, Capital Market Intelligence
Greyspark