Xiang Zhang, Senior Vice President, Fixed Income and Absolute Return Investment Department, China Investment Corporation
Xiang is a portfolio manager and part of the team that runs the Multi Assets Portfolio within CIC. Prior to joining CIC, Xiang has spent five years at Northwater Capital, developing and running a proprietary systematic trading strategy. Xiang has started his career as an investment analyst and assistant portfolio manager at Manulife Financial. Xiang holds the Masters of Mathematical Finance, University of Toronto; Masters of Economics, Queen's University; Bachelor of International Finance, Renming University of China.
Allen Sing, Executive Director/Portfolio Manager, SAIL Advisors
Allen Sing is an Executive Director and serves on SAIL Advisor’s management committee. He is Portfolio Manager of SAIL Flagship, a global fund of hedge funds and over his nine years at the firm, has been responsible for research of equity-related and CTA hedge fund strategies. Allen has over 15 years of experience in the hedge fund and investment banking industries. Prior to joining SAIL, he was a research analyst for a San Francisco-based US equity long short fund. Allen began his career at Morgan Stanley, where he was a financial analyst in the corporate finance and capital market divisions in New York and subsequently Hong Kong. In addition, Allen is an alumnus of Harvard Business School, Executive Education and holds a Bachelor of Arts from Brown University. He is also a holder of the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation. Allen currently serves as Board Member of Summerbridge Hong Kong and committee member of RICE, both non-profit organizations focused on the educational development of children that face socioeconomic challenges.
Michael Tostée, Director, Skybound Capital
Michael Tostée completed his senior certificate at Diocesans College (Bishops) in Cape Town. He then went on to complete a Bachelor of Business Science at the University of Cape Town and graduated in 2003 with Honors in Finance.
In 2006, Michael was awarded the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation. The CFA designation is globally recognised as a standard for measuring competence and integrity of investment professionals. It prepares investment professionals to practically apply their investment knowledge in the global marketplace.
While completing the CFA Program, he joined a global asset management company based in South Africa, Alpha Asset Management (Pty) Ltd, in 2004. Alpha is a specialist fund management and alternative investment business, providing fund of hedge fund solutions to financial institutions, pension funds and high net worth clients.
Michael was appointed as Director of the business and as a Fund Manager to five funds, with over R2 billion of assets under management. Serving on an investment committee of 9 members, Michael was co-portfolio manager with the CIO. He was instrumental in creating the framework for the investment research process and was able to attract significant institutional assets based on the reliability of the research process, including the technical tools used in portfolio and risk management. Michael also served a fiduciary role as Trustee and Director to all client investment structures, and the Employee Benefits Trust.
Michael joined the Skybound Group in 2009 and is based in the Hong Kong Office. His primary responsibility is to act as Head of Investment Strategy for the Skybound Group and to manage the investment funds, together with a team of portfolio managers and investment analysts, now numbering 8 members.
Michael has gained extensive experience in international markets, particularly in South Africa, United Kingdom, Hong Kong, United States, Australia and Europe.
Eric Wong, Director, TCG Capital
Eric Wong established the multi-family office TCG Capital in 2004 to manage existing investments in the venture capital, private equity, and real estate space. Since then he has redirected the portfolio towards liquid, quantitative strategies and is responsible for all aspects from manager sourcing to risk management. Prior to forming TCG Capital, he managed his family’s chemicals and electronics interests in Greater China.
Andrew Ballingal, Chief Investment Officer; Portfolio Manager – BIA Pacific Fund
Aged 48, Andrew has worked in Asia Pacific investment since 1982. He graduated from Oxford University in 1982 with a BA (Hons) in Modern Languages. After training as a commodity and mining analyst, Andrew worked from 1984 as an investment analyst in Asia Pacific markets, as Chief Strategist - Japan from 1987 to 1993, and ultimately as Director - Global Strategy, all at Barclays / BZW, based in Tokyo and London. He joined Sloane Robinson in London as a Partner in 1994, and then worked in Hong Kong as Chief Strategist - Asia Pacific at NatWest from 1996 and at Schroders from 1997, and as Investment Director - Asia Pacific at TAL from 2000. In 2003 he designed and launched the Ruffer Pacific Fund, which he ran as a partner of Ruffer from its inception until 2006. In addition to extensive Asia Pacific investment experience, he has had significant involvement over twenty years as an advisor, investor, and partner in hedge and absolute return investment funds. He has lived in Asia for twenty-one years, between 1986 and 1993 in Japan, and since 1996 in Hong Kong. Andrew is the founder and chief executive of Ballingal Investment Advisors. He has been Portfolio Manager of the BIA Pacific Fund since its inception in October 2004, and Portfolio Co-Manager of the BIA Pacific Macro Fund since its inception in March 2006.
Dr. Ranjan Bhaduri, Chief Research Officer and Head of Product Development, Alphametrix
Dr. Ranjan Bhaduri is Chief Research Officer and the Global Head of Research at AlphaMetrix Alternative Investment Advisors. Prior to joining
AlphaMetrix, he was a Vice President and on an Investment Committee at Morgan Stanley where he conducted due diligence and helped design customized
portfolios of Alternatives. Earlier, he was at a Canadian Fund of Funds, and at a multi-billion dollar capital management firm where he was involved in
all aspects of its fund of hedge funds and structured finance business. He has also worked with two major Canadian investment banks in the Financial
Strategy Consulting Group and in Global Risk Management & Control, respectively.
Dr. Bhaduri has held advisory roles at the East-West Center, a leading think tank on the Asia-Pacific region, and at ClassMouse, an early stage software
company. He has taught finance and mathematics at several universities and lectured on Derivatives for the Montreal Exchange. Dr. Bhaduri holds a PhD
in pure mathematics and a Masters in Combinatorics & Optimization, as well as a MBA in Finance and International Business.
Dr. Bhaduri holds both the CFA and CAIA charters. He is a member of the American Mathematical Society, the Mathematical Association of America, the
Toronto CFA Society, and the Global Association of Risk Professionals (GARP). Dr. Bhaduri serves as a member of the All About Alpha Editorial Board, and as a CAIA Chicago Chapter Executive.
Richard Bibb - Chief Investment Officer and Partner, AIMhedge
Richard heads the Research and Technology departments at AIMhedge. He is responsible for the development and running of both the underlying strategies offered by AIMhedge: AIMhedge GDF Classic, a traditional systematic trend following strategy and AIMhedge GDF Opportunity a multi algorithm based strategy that combines both directional and not directional trading. In addition to this he heads up the technological development for research and trading within AIMhedge. Richard has over 17 years of experience in systematic trend following CTA’s with over 13 of those years spent at AHL where he managed the key teams of AHL Research Software Development and AHL Front Office Trading Development. This experience has given him a detailed knowledge of forming and managing teams that build mission critical, scalable, low latency quantitative trading systems for a wide range of financial instruments. Richard is a Charted Engineer and holds a degree in Electronics from the University of Manchester.
Steven Biggs, Managing Director, Argus Capital Management
Steven Biggs is the Founder and Principal of Argus Capital Management. He is an experienced investment professional possessing 25 years of industry practice in asset management and investment advisory with solid management experience and investment knowledge specializing in alternative investment strategies.
Argus Capital Management, a Hong Kong based funds management company was launched in 2005 in partnership with Macquarie Bank. The Argus investment methodology is based on the systematic application of a group of robust, non-correlated trading strategies to a broad range of global derivatives markets with an average trade duration of 4 days. Alpha is generated via a proprietary, highly dynamic capital allocation methodology ensuring that reliance upon a single type of market condition is abolished. The core trading strategies employed include Short-Term / High Frequency Trading, Relative Value Trading, Wavelet Analysis and Long-Term Trend Following.
Prior to Argus, Mr Biggs was Managing Director of the investment advisory firm Investwell Australia from 1985 until he sold the business in 1996. During this time Investwell held an unrestricted Security Dealer’s Licence, grew to employ 15 financial advisers and was a market leader in the introduction of customised client investment strategies.
In the early 1990’s Mr Biggs commenced trading in futures and derivatives markets while undertaking extensive research into the systematic implementation of trading strategies. In 1996 he adopted a purely quantitative approach to trading. Since that time he has been developing and trading quantitative models over most of the world’s major futures markets.
Mr Biggs’ academic background includes a Graduate Diploma in Applied Finance and Investment, a Diploma of Financial Markets and a Diploma of Financial Planning. He is also a Fellow of the Financial Services Institute of Australasia as well as being registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) as an Associated Person of Argus Capital Management.
Aaron Scott Boesky, CEO of Marco Polo Pure Asset Management
Mr. Boesky was born in the U.S. and is a graduate of Michigan State University Eli Broad College of Business. He completed his Post-Graduate studies at Beijing Foreign Affairs College and Oakland University. Mr. Boesky Founded Marco Polo Investments and Marco Polo Pure Asset Management in 2004. The group became the world’s first dedicated Shanghai A-Share hedge fund management team offered to foreigners and today has one of the world’s longest track records focused on the Shanghai market. Mr. Boesky speaks English and Mandarin Chinese. He has been dedicated to the Chinese markets since 2001. Mr. Boesky regularly appears on Bloomberg Television, presents at numerous industry conferences, and has been the subject of and interviewed for publications on the subject of the China Shanghai A-Share market around the world.
Brian Brown, Head of Trading, Shogi Capital Group
Brian R Brown is a Wall Street veteran in quantitative trading, with a 15 year career spanning investment banking and one of the industry's most successful hedge funds. He spent eight years as an executive at Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong, serving as director of pan-Asia systematic trading. During his tenure he advised the Asian stock exchanges on their market structure, which led to the improvement of market efficiency and attracted global investors. Mr. Brown formerly managed statistical arbitrage portfolios for Trout Trading Management, a pioneer in high frequency trading and a legendary Market Wizards. Mr Brown is the author of Chasing the Same Signals, which outlines the transformation of global equity markets into an arbitrage driven marketplace. He presently is a Managing Director of the Shogi Capital Group, a principle trading firm based in Hong Kong that develops empirical trading strategies for Asian markets. Mr. Brown was born in Canada, and graduated from the University of Waterloo.
Donald Day, Quantitative Strategist, Deutsche Bank
Donald holds a Master of Computer Science from Munich University and an MBA from London Business School. He worked in the capital markets practice of Accenture on projects in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, China and Japan where he designed, built and delivered exchange trading systems and advised clients.
His current research spans both high and low frequency delta-one equity products, focusing on optimal hedging and market microstructure. He publishes weekly quantitative factsheets for Asia, Europe and the US. Donald joined Deutsche Bank's Quantitative Strategies team in January 2010.
Chris Faddy, Head of Distribution, BCFS
Chris Faddy, Director, is currently the Head of Distribution for BCFS (Non-Japan Asia), responsible for the sales and distribution of BCFS product for non-Japan Asia. Mr. Faddy brings with him more than twenty years of experience in Sales and Relationship Management. Prior to joining BCFS in April 2010, Mr. Faddy spent 6.5 years with Goldman Sachs Asset Management (“GSAM”). He was the Retail Sales Manager and Head of Research Relationship for GSAM, responsible for distribution of funds to the banking, insurance and IFA channels as well as being responsible for retail ratings for GSAM funds during his time there. Prior to GSAM, he has worked for Australian Skandia, Permanent Trustee, BT Portfolio Services, Salomon Brothers, BTCO as well as spending 2.5 years working as a chartered accountant with Hall Chadwick. Mr Faddy has a Bachelor of Commerce (majoring Accounting and Economics) from The Australian National University, has attained CPA designation as well as being a Fellow of Finsia (Banking and Finance Institute of Australia).
Marc Fisher Managing Director, FRM, Hong Kong
Marc Fisher is responsible for Marketing in Asia Pacific ex-Japan and Korea. Additionally, Marc manages the FRM Principia business and serves as product head for FRM’s managed futures fund, Sigma. Previously, Marc was a Managing Director at Citigroup where he founded and managed the fund derivative marketing business, overseeing $11bio of client hedge fund assets. Prior to Citigroup, Marc started his career 13 years ago at Deutsche Bank where he held a number of derivative trading and marketing positions. He holds a Bachelor of Veterinary Medicine (Hons) degree from Bristol University. Marc joined FRM London in 2008 and is now based in Hong Kong.
Spencer Greenberg, Chief Executive Officer Rebellion Research
Spencer Greenberg is a mathematician with an education in applied mathematics and computer science from Columbia University's School of Engineering and NYU's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. Spencer is co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Rebellion Research, a quantitative fund that applies machine learning technology to investing. He has spoken about artificial intelligence and investing on Fox News, Bloomberg News, Bloomberg Radio, CNBC, Canada's Business News Network, China's Phoenix TV, in the Wall Street Journal , at Columbia Business School and at the Stern School of Business.
Tim Haas, Global Product Manager, Institutional Markets, Dow Jones & Co., Inc.
Tim is the Global Product Manager - responsible for the Sales & Trading business at Dow Jones. Tim leads a cross-functional team to research, develop and take to market solutions for algorithmic trading. Tim focuses on developing strategic partnerships with leading technology and connectivity services providers. Prior to this role Tim worked at The Wall Street Journal Digital Network and in the Dow Jones Corporate Markets business. Tim has a BA from Allegheny College and an MS in Industrial/Organization Psychology from West Chester University.
Tobias Hekster, Assistant Professor, CUHK
Tobias Hekster has recently started up RVT HK Ltd, a proprietary trading firm which trades Volatility Relationships in a high frequency manner. Previously, Tobias has worked at IMC Trading for over 12 years. He has amongst others traded multiple European products and strategies in Amsterdam, headed the Chicago office and set up their Volatility Arbitrage desk in Hong Kong. Currently, Tobias also teaches in the Finance Trading Academy at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Yishen Kuik, Katong Capital Quantitative Research
Yishen Kuik is the founder of Katong Capital, a New York based commodities trading advisor. The advisor runs a systematic program to trade equity index futures, mostly with an intraday time horizon. The program is based on statistical research, and has been operating on a continuous basis since 2005. The research team is headed by Yishen and has a very strong scientific and mathematical background. Yishen also had a founding role at a volatility based hedge fund prior to founding Katong Capital, and had roles in Merrill Lynch in corporate equity derivatives, convertible bond structuring and investment banking in New York.
Yishen has a degree in Mathematics and in Economics from Cornell University and was about to complete a third degree in History of Art when Wall Street made an offer he could not refuse. He enjoys skiing and reading about financial history, and has spoken on the topic of quantitative investment to students and professionals in New York.
Christophe Lee, Chairman, Alternative Investment Management Association (Hong Kong)
Mr. Lee has been the Chairman of the Hong Kong Chapter of The Alternative Investment Management Association Limited (AIMA) since 2003. AIMA represents the global alternative investment community and has over 1,200 corporate members with more than 40 countries worldwide. The Hong Kong National Group was established in 1999 and has over 170 corporate members. Mr. Lee has 20 years of experience in the financial services industry and he is a leading figure in the Asian fund management industry. Mr. Lee was recently voted by AsiaInvestor Magazine as one of the “Top 25 most influential people in Asian hedge funds”. Mr. Lee has worked at FrontPoint Partners, Sun Hung Kai Financial, Goldman Sachs and Bankers Trust. Mr. Lee was appointed by HKSAR government to serve on the Advisory Committee of the Securities and Futures Commission from 2007 to 2009. He was also a committee member Hong Kong Trade Development Council Financial Services Advisory Committee from 2007 to 2011. Mr. Lee graduated from University of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Haksun Li, Founder and CEO, Numerical Method Inc
Dr. Haksun Li is a founder and the CEO of Numerical Method Inc., an algorithmic trading research and analytic consulting company. Prior to this, Haksun was a quantitative trader/quantitative analyst with multiple investment banks. He has worked in New York, London, Tokyo, Singapore and Hong Kong. Dr. Haksun Li has a B.S., an M.S., in Pure and Financial Mathematics from the University of Chicago, an M.S., and a Ph.D. in Computer Science & Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Dr. Haksun Li is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor of the Department of Mathematics, National University of Singapore and an Adjunct Associate Professor of Banking & Finance at Nanyang Business School, Nanyang Technological University (NTU). He is also an industry fellow.
Yutaka Matsuo, Associate Professor, Institute of Engineering Innovation, The University of Tokyo
Yutaka Matsuo is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Engineering Innovation, The University of Tokyo. He received his BS, MS, and PhD degrees from The University of Tokyo in 1997, 1999, and 2002 (supervised by Prof. Ishizuka). He joined the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) during 2002–2007. His emphases of study are web mining (specifically social network mining), text processing, and semantic web in the context of artificial intelligence research.
Mr Matsuo is a prominent young researcher in the information technology field in Japan. He has authored more than 30 journal papers in Japanese during the past seven years in addition to 60+ international conference papers. He received the Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence (JSAI) Best Paper Award in 2002, the JSAI Anniversary Project Award in 2006, and Information Processing Society of Japan (IPSJ) Nagao Special Researcher Award in 2008. He joined the editorial committee of JSAI in 2004, and currently serves as Associate Editor-in-Chief. He received the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Postdoctoral Fellowships for Research Abroad in 2005 and stayed for two years at the Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI) at Stanford University. After returning to Japan, he joined the faculty of The University of Tokyo in 2007.
Mr Matsuo is a PC member of several conferences and an editor of journals including the International World Wide Web Conference (WWW), International Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI), and IEEE Transaction on Knowledge Engineering and Data Mining (TKDE).
Robert Moxham, Managing Director, eStats Funds Management
Robert Moxham began his financial career in 1996 with Bankers Trust in the chaos of the Sydney Futures Exchange Trading Floor having decided at the last minute against furthering his career in the Army. On the floor he worked in the Short and Long term interest rates, and the SPI pits. When the floor closed in late 1999 he moved to a role with ABN Amro, broking European markets to local hedge funds. As the markets went electronic, he moved the clients to self-executing their own trades and his role changed to eCommerce Sales. He moved with ABN Amro to Singapore to run their regional eCommerce offering, then onto Hong Kong with HSBC to do the same for them. He returned to Australia to join old friends Bernard Orenstein and Steve Woodyatt at proprietary trading firm eStats Capital to manage trading operations and execution technology infrastructure. More recently he has lead their push into the Funds Management business as Managing Director of eStats Funds Management. eStats has been trading futures on an automated high frequency basis from their data centers in Chicago and Frankfurt for the last 5 years.
Stefan Nilsson, CEO and Founder, HFC Advisory Group
Stefan Nilsson is a former hedge fund executive who has also worked in asset management and prime brokerage at JP Morgan and Bear Stearns. He has been working with the alternative investments industry since 2000. He is the Founder and President of the Hedge Funds Club, Asia’s largest network of hedge fund managers and investors, and a former member of the executive committee of AIMA Japan. As the CEO of Tokyo-headquartered HFC Advisory Group he works closely with global fund managers and Asia-based investors. He currently serves on the advisory board of TSI International Group, a Canadian alternative investments company.
Bradford Paskewitz, CEO and Founder, Paskewitz Asset Management
Bradford Paskewitz has been developing and trading quantitative strategies since 1987, with a primary focus on the futures and equity markets. He has done this work at firms such as Banque Indosuez, Lehman Brothers, Credit Suisse, Schonfeld Securities and Bear Wagner. He now runs Paskewitz Asset Management (PAM) where strategy R&D is the ongoing focus. Over the course of a twenty two year career in finance, he has focused on the problem of market price forecasting and has continually kept abreast of technological forecasting methods and techniques as they emerge, with the goal of remaining at the frontier of forecasting technology and implementation. His proprietary quantitative research infrastructure currently enables him to develop new quantitative strategies and trading programs in both U.S. and foreign futures, equity and currency markets. PAM has been a registered CTA since January 2007 and Bradford Paskewitz is an Associated Person and Principal of PAM. Since 2003 he has also been CEO of Qualsolutions, Inc., which provides R&D and technical consulting services to PAM. Qualsolutions has foreign teams located in Beijing and Zhengzhou China, and provides financial market consulting services using their select team of Chinese quants and programmers. From 1982-87, he worked as Director of R&D at Electro-Catheter Corporation on an artificial heart project. He began his career at General Electric, with the Re-entry Systems Division conducting missile radar signal processing R&D (1980-82).
His education includes a BS in Electrical Engineering/Computer Science from Princeton University and an MS in Systems Engineering from the
University of Pennsylvania.
Mathias Piardon, Founding Partner and CIO, NoHo Capital
M. Piardon is a founding partner and CIO of NoHo Capital, a managed futures fund based in Hong Kong. The investment strategies are based on systematic trading on Asian equity index futures. M. Piardon has more than 13 years of investment banking experience. In his last position, he ran the equity derivatives trading desk for Dresdner in Hong Kong from 2007 to 2009. Previously, he managed different portfolios for the equity derivatives trading desk at Calyon in Hong Kong, London, Paris and Zurich. M. Piardon graduated from the Master in Money, Banking and Finance at the University of Birmingham (UK) and from the University of Orleans (France). M. Piardon is a contributor to publications in the financial press (Journal of Aima, Active Trader Magazine).
Oliver Prock, CEO and CIO, Salus Alpha Capital
Oliver Prock is CEO and CIO of Salus Alpha Capital. He graduated from Vienna University of Business and Economics with an MBA and has gained experience in different investment fields such as financial engineering, product development, trading and sales. He started his career working for an American CTA. Later on, he was in charge of derivatives and structured products at Raiffeisen Zentralbank AG.
Before he became CEO of Salus Alpha, he worked at Erste Bank, where he was responsible for the prop investments as well as for the development and the management of alternative investment products of Erste Bank. Mr. Prock has over 16 years of professional investment experience working for banks and investment companies in Austria and abroad.
As CIO and Fund Manager he has achieved important success in the past years in the range of alternative investments, as for instance the introduction of the first world-wide the UCITS III compliant alternative investment fund "Salus Alpha Equity Hedged". Also, the successful development of the Alternative Investment Indices listed on the Viennese Stock Exchange was realized under his management.
Further, Mr. Oliver Prock is founding member and chairman of the board of the Vereinigung Alternativer Investments (VAI). He is also a member of the Expert Group of the European regulator ESMA providing support in regards to current legislation such as AIFMD.
Mr. Prock is also a member of the supervisory board of the Cinema for Peace Foundation, which is a non-profit organization that aims to create awareness of the social and political relevance of films.
Being a Member of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Mr. Prock supports its mission to inspire, connect, and empowe
Randy Saaf, Co-Founder and CEO/CIO of AlphaGenius Technologies, LLC
AlphaGenius is a technology and investment management company that captures and processes proprietary behavioral, sentiment, leading indicator and company/industry trend data from social web sources such as Twitter, Facebook, and Blogs. AlphaGenius runs econometrics and machine learning algorithms to develop quantitative trading strategies based on this unique and valuable set of data. Randy is a proven entrepreneur who has built technology companies since he was 23 years old. Previous to AlphaGenius, Randy co-founded iPhone gaming company Jirbo, Inc. which amassed over 30 million downloads and was recently sold to Insight Venture Partners for $21MM cash. Previous to that Randy was Co-Founder and CEO of MediaDefender, Inc. Randy built MediaDefender into the largest online anti-piracy software company in the world. In 2005 Randy sold MediaDefender to ARTISTdirect, Inc for $42.5 Million cash. Randy has been interviewed on various news sources such as 60 Minutes, CBS Evening News, the Wall Street Journal, and The Financial Times. Randy has testified to The United States Congress three times in various technology matters. He holds a B.S. in Engineering from Harvey Mudd College where he served as a Trustee from 2005-2009.
Lionel Semonin, Managing Partner, Four Elements Capital
Lionel Semonin is the founder of Singapore based Four Elements Capital and the portfolio manager of its flagship ÒEarth Eleml was Global Head of Commodity Investor Derivatives at BNP Paribas and before that had a similar role at JPMorgan where he spent more than 10 years. In particular, Lionel's rolentÓ commodity fund. The Fund is a long-short systematic fund based on both fundamental and market analytics, the fund invests, through futures, in up to 30 commodities across Energy, Metals and Agriculture. Prior to this Lionee encompassed setting up and managing a number of systematic commodity strategies. Lionel held other senior positions during his career including trading, structuring and marketing on different asset classes.
Lionel is a CFA charter holder (2001) and has an MSc (Applied Mathematics and Telecommunications) from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, Switzerland (1995). From 1991 to 1993 Lionel also worked as a teaching assistant.
Tim Sharp, CFA – Portfolio Manager
Tim Sharp, CFA – Portfolio Manager Tim is a founding member of QIC Quantitative Management and is responsible for the portfolio management of the QIC Asia Pacific Market Neutral Fund. As well as assisting in the operational aspects of managing the fund, Tim takes a driving role in research and development and is heavily involved in the continuous evolution of the investment process. This includes original idea generation, research and implementation as well as performance evaluation and portfolio construction. Before managing the QIC Asia Pacific Market Neutral Fund Tim worked in quantitative research and risk within the equities asset class as well as spending time prior to that teaching quantitative finance at university, where he published some of his work in the Journal of Applied Financial Economics. Tim is also a CFA Charterholder.
Theodore Shou, CFA, CAIA, Skybound Capital
Theodore Shou completed his tertiary education in Shanghai, China, obtaining a Masters in Economics from the Shanghai International Studies University. He is a CFA charter holder and a CAIA charter holder. Theodore Shou was a Fund Specialist for HSBC Private Bank where he worked in various offices, including London, New York, Switzerland, and most recently China. Prior to joining Skybound, Theodore joined a well-known entrepreneur to establish an investment management business in Hong Kong. In this role he advised and managed portfolios with exposure to equities, fixed income, hedge funds, private equity and venture capital. Theodore joined Skybound Capital as a portfolio manager on the groups of Asian and China funds.
Lionel is a CFA charter holder (2001) and has an MSc (Applied Mathematics and Telecommunications) from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, Switzerland (1995). From 1991 to 1993 Lionel also worked as a teaching assistant.
Bjoern Schwarz, Founding Partner, Namira Capital
Bjoern Schwarz is a Founding Partner of NAMIRA CAPITAL. He is responsible for Operations and Client Service. Prior to founding NAMIRA CAPITAL he was a Portfolio Manager and member of the Investment Committee at Infiniti Capital AG. Previously he worked at various financial institutions including Citigroup and Merrill Lynch. Bjoern holds a dual degree in International Business Administration from European School of Business Reutlingen/ Germany and Universidad Pontificia Comillas (ICADE) Madrid/ Spain. He is also a member of the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) Association and holds the "Deutscher Börsenhändler" License for dealing on the floor of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and Xetra.
T-Kiang Tan, Chief Technology Officer, Grasshopper
T-Kiang Tan is Co-head of Prime Services department at Mizuho Securities, where he leads the team on Ultra High Frequency (UHF) trading and product development. T-Kiang has more than 12 years of experience working in the finance industry and is an expert in UHF low latency trading implementation. He started his career working on the buyside of the business at UBS O'Connor developing trading models and developing tick databases for backtesting. To gain a better understanding of corporate risk management, T-Kiang worked within Corporate Risk Management Systems for 3 years at JP Morgan Chase, after which he returned to the trading desk on the sell-side. T-Kiang has a proven track record of providing clients with the capabilities of trading in Asia. He is most passionate about applying the available technology to UHF trading and searching for new ways to improve the trading environment to reduce latency for clients. Clients recognize T-Kiang for his in-depth understanding of their requirements and his knowledge in the fast changing market environment in UHF trading. In addition, T-Kiang is known among colleagues and clients for providing UHF clients with the best possible solution in low latency trading services and leveraging his technology knowledge to implement future trading technology platforms. Prior to joining Mizuho Securities, T-Kiang was a Vice President of Capital Markets Prime Services at Lehman Brothers in Japan. When he is not visualizing innovative solutions for his clients, T-Kiang can be found teeing off on the greens first thing in the morning. He has also developed an inseparable relationship with his iPhone, which keeps all his schedules and photos of his two kids. T-Kiang earned his M.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of Chicago and his B.Sc. in Computer Engineering from the University of Michigan.
Bastiaan van der Reijt, Co-founder and Chief Investment Officer of Kokomo Capital
Mr. Van der Reijt is the co-founder and Chief Investment Officer of Kokomo Capital. In this role, he is responsible for the formulation of the trading strategies and overall management of software architecture, in-house development, database services, prime broker information flow, and back-office reporting. Prior to founding Kokomo Capital, Mr. Van der Reijt worked for the automated trading program team at Curvalue Group, responsible for the design and implementation of automatic trading systems for the equity and future markets, including mathematical financial modeling. Mr. Van der Reijt holds a M.Sc. in Theoretical Chemistry from the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. He is a lecturer in equity derivatives theory and applications at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Philip M York, Chief Executive Officer, Empyreal Investments Group
Mr York is Chief Executive Officer of the Empyreal Investments Group. In 1992, Mr York commenced trading Managed Accounts. In 1996 Mr York formed his first hedge fund and sold this business to the Empyreal Investments Group in 2003. In 2008 Mr York took over the Empyreal Investments Group. In these roles Mr York has been involved in the research, development and implementation of a diverse range of trading strategies in the global equities and derivatives markets including futures, swaps and other OTC products. This along with Mr York’s background in accounting, regulation and international finance have been significant in him being called to consult in projects as diverse as training proprietary traders and fund managers to developing and restructuring dealing and banking businesses.
