Advisory Board

Mark joined VFMC in April 2018 as Head of Investment Risk.  He is also currently an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Centre for Quantitative Finance and Investment Strategies at Monash University.   Prior to his current role, Mark was Head of FICC Structuring at the National Australia Bank from 2010 to 2017, where he built a leading securitisation swap business in both Australia and the UK.  From 2004 to 2010 Mark held various roles at NAB in both Front Office and Market Risk.

Mark holds Bachelor degrees in Law and Science (both with Honours) from Monash University and a PhD in Mathematics jointly from the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics and the Free University of Berlin, Germany.  Mark is also the co-author of a recent book on securitisation swaps which was published by Wiley Finance in March 2019.

Binay is a Hong-Kong based Portfolio Manager for Principal Portfolio Strategies, an investment boutique within Principal Global Investors. His entire career spanning 26 years has been in portfolio management, encompassing asset allocation, fixed income, and equities. Prior to his current role, he served as Chief Investment Officer for Principal Global Investors (Hong Kong) and Principal Asset Management (Asia) where he was responsible for overseeing investments in the Hong Kong region. He joined the Principal Financial Group in 2000 in India and was the Deputy Chief Investment Officer of Principal's Indian Mutual Fund operations before relocating to Hong Kong in 2005. Prior to that, he spent 7 years in various portfolio management roles with India's largest banking group, State Bank of India. Binay has a post-graduate diploma in business management, equivalent to an MBA from Xavier Institute of Management and a bachelor's degree in commerce from St. Xavier's College. He holds a Financial Risk Manager certification from the Global Association of Risk Professionals and has earned the right to use the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.

Eva is the head of eFX trading at Bank of China (HK) Ltd. Eva is responsible for setting the strategic vision and drive innovative electronic trading development. Her team also looks after the CNH Futures business.

Prior to joining Bank of China (HK) Ltd in 2016, Eva was with RBS where she was the e-commerce salesperson covering North East Asia across all client sectors. Before that, Eva was with HSBC where she started her career in the banking industry.

Michael’s key responsibilities include management and oversite of the Funds Cash and Fixed Income exposures, currency overlays, securities finance program as well as the funds centralised dealing function.  Michael is also responsible for the day to day running of the Funds internally managed derivative overlays and cash and short term credit mandates. 

Michael has over 16 years of experience in the Financial Services Industry and Prior to joining FTC, Michael was employed at JP Morgan as a Project Manager from June 2003 to 2007. Key role responsibilities included successful completion and implementation of projects relating to cash flow management, unit pricing and accounting.

Michael has a Masters’ degree in both Business

Li Cui is the Chief Economist, Managing Director, and Head of Macro Research at China Construction Bank International, responsible for the investment bank’s macroeconomic assessment, thematic views, and asset allocation ideas. She was formerly a Managing Director at Goldman Sachs where she led the bank’s macroeconomic research on China. Prior to that she led/conducted China macro research at Royal Bank of Scotland, Hong Kong Monetary Authority, and IMF. Her research has been frequently quoted in policy publications, market reports, and media. Li has also built extensive networks in financial markets, policy institutions, and academia, both in China and overseas.

She holds a B.A. from People’s University of China and M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from Northwestern University.

Dominique d’Avrincourt joined HESTA in 2015 as an Investment Manager – Equities & Currency. Her main responsibilities include investment manager research and portfolio construction, and managing the alpha program for the listed equity investments and currency overlay program for listed equities. She joined the Superannuation industry in 2013 as a Senior Investment Specialist at Vic Super. She started her career at Goldman Sachs JBWere in 2004 in portfolio strategy before joining Merrill Lynch as an institutional equities research analyst and subsequently CBA Institutional Equities in a similar role.

Chris has held various financial positions in South Africa since 1997 after having completed his articles at a small Audit and Accounting firm in Johannesburg. He has been involved in various companies in the financial sphere including Transport & Freight, Security and IT. He joined ABB in 2008 first as a SAP consultant for their ERP implementation, then as their Country Credit Manager and then finally as their first Country Treasurer looking after South Africa as well as Southern Africa with all their treasury concerns and establishing the first ABB treasury operation in Southern Africa and spent 3 years in Singapore as their Country Treasurer. He is currently the new Asia Regional Treasurer for General Mills, responsible for all Treasury operations in Asia. He holds a B Compt Honors degree in Accounting Science from the University of South Africa.

Colin joined Eastspring Investments, the Asian asset management business of Prudential plc, as Chief Investment Officer, in January 2018.

Colin was responsible for the Multi Asset Solutions (MAS) team and had the overall responsibility for the investment process, philosophy, portfolio strategy and team management of MAS products for third party clients.

Prior to joining Eastspring Investments, Colin served as Chief Investment Officer, Multi-Asset Solutions at BNP Paribas Investment Partners in London.  Previously, he was Managing Director, Co-Head of Global Multi Asset Strategies, Multi Asset Client Solutions at BlackRock and a portfolio manager at Merrill Lynch Investment Managers (formerly Mercury Asset Management). In all, Colin has over 24 years of investment experience.

Colin holds a BSc (hons) degree from Brunel University, London, UK. He is a CFA Charterholder and CAIA Charterholder.

Dr Alex Joiner is the Chief Economist at IFM Investors and also sits on its Investment Committee. He is responsible for the firm’s economic, financial market, policy and geopolitical analysis and forecasting that underpin its investment and portfolio management processes. He represents IFM with domestic and global clients as well as with governments, central banks, financial institutions and corporates. He has over 15 years professional experience and prior to joining IFM Investors, Alex was the Chief Economist (Australian & New Zealand) at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, a senior economist at ANZ Bank and an economist at the Victorian Department of Treasury. He holds a First Class honours degree in Economics and a PhD in Econometrics from Monash University. Alex is a committee member of Australian Business Economists and sits on the UN-supported Principles for Responsible Investment Macroeconomic Risks Advisory Group.

Andreas König is Head of Global FX at Amundi Asset Management. He joined Amundi Asset Management (previously Pioneer Investments) in 2007 as Senior Portfolio Manager Foreign Exchange and is based in the London office.

Prior to this, Andreas was Head of Foreign Exchange at Amundi's office in Munich, where he was responsible for everything relating to FX, including the dedicated currency fund, currency risk management, currency overlay, currency derivatives and currency forecasts.

Andreas has worked in the investments industry since 1994. Before joining the company in August 2000, he was employed by Commerzbank London as Deputy Head of Global Foreign Exchange Options. Prior to that, he worked in the Frankfurt branch of Commerzbank as Head of currency options (1996-1998). He started his career in 1994 as a Currency Options Trader for Commerz Financial Products GmbH in Frankfurt.

Andreas is a graduate in Business Administration from the University of Applied Sciences, Landshut. He has been a CFA® charter holder since 2003.

Justin is an investment manager within the fixed income and currency team at Sunsuper. Justin joined Sunsuper in October 2013 and has over 11 years of industry experience. Prior to joining the firm, Justin worked at Legal & General Investment Management (London), J.P. Morgan (Sydney) and State Street (Sydney). Justin holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Finance) at Macquarie University, Masters of Financial Analysis at the University of New South Wales, is a CFA Charterholder, Certified FRM and Chartered Alternative Investments Analyst.

Bac Van Luu is head of currency and fixed income strategy at Russell Investments. He is an investment strategist and economist educated to PhD level with 18 years of multi-asset experience in asset managers, sovereign wealth funds and investment banks.

Taylor is part of the internal investments team at NGS Super. He is responsible for managing currencies and provide insights for asset allocation decisions through various macroeconomics and quantitative analytics.

Throughout his career he has also involved in managing asset classes such as equities, fixed income and alternatives.

Taylor has over 12 years of experience in the Australian Superannuation Industry having worked at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, ING and REST Industry Super prior to his role at NGS Super.

Taylor has graduated with degrees in Bachelor of Commerce (honours) from the University of Melbourne (majoring in Actuarial Science and Finance) and a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Sydney.

Arnab Nilim is the head of Currency at Goldman Sachs Asset Management. His team is responsible for currency portfolio management, trading and research for developed and emerging-market currencies.

Prior to joining the firm, Arnab worked at AllianceBernstein over seven years as the Lead Currency Portfolio Manager. Prior to that, he worked in the emerging markets trading division at Citigroup for seven years, where he traded and developed quantitative trading models for nonlinear portfolios composed of currency forwards and derivatives.

Arnab holds a BSc in engineering from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, and an MS and PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences from the University of California, Berkeley, where he received the prestigious Leon O. Chua Award in 2004 for outstanding achievement in an area of nonlinear science.

The Honorable Gary Sum is a 25-year distinguished Princely Advisor, Sovereign wealth investment banker, Royal family office, Swiss banker, MNC executive leadership, Honorary Consul candidacy, CODA Award chairman, frequent awards recipient, conference chair and keynote speaker.

The Group holds WFOEs, financial holdings, private equities, publicly listed companies and subsidiaries including East, Central, Qianhai and Big Bay Area in China; international branches in Singapore, Sydney, San Francisco, London, Dublin, Paris, Panama, Cambodia, Philippines, Korea, Taiwan, Liechtenstein and Switzerland, totalling USD 300 Billion asset ownership with strong exposure in forex, cash equivalents and cryptos.

The Group’s blockchain flagship Swiss Capital FinTech Link Ltd. launched The Holy Grail of Blockchain - World’s first multibillion dollar scale gold standard cryptocurrency “SC GEM” (scgem.digital) and crypto central bank “SC GOD” (scgod.digital) for listing traditional, financial and crypto businesses and assets that shall nurture a trillions worth cryptomoney supply, liquidity provision, sectoral integration with priority in CNH peg, ASEAN, LATAM and AFRICA crypto-central banking ecosystem. The Group is here for good of all mankind.

Guy Verberne is responsible for all macro-economic analysis within PGGM Investment Management - the second largest Dutch pension fund service provider, with currently €175bn under management. Guy started his career as a policy advisor at the Dutch Ministry of Finance, before moving to the banking industry, where he has worked as a senior fixed income portfolio manager, chief economist and head of strategy. He has a master's degree in economics from Erasmus University Rotterdam, specializing in monetary economics and finance.

Theo and his team are responsible for implementation of the risk and compliance framework in line with Cbus’ risk appetite. The team identifies new regulatory obligations that may impact Investments, undertake risk training, as well as Investment incident root cause analysis, operational due diligence of external investment managers, undertake risk assessments of new Investment initiatives and are responsible for internal and external mandate pre & post trade compliance.

James Wood Collins joined Record Currency Management in August 2008 as a senior member of the Client Team and was appointed Chief Executive Officer in October 2010. James also currently chairs Record's Executive Committee and is a member of its Investment Committee.

He was previously at JP Morgan Cazenove, where he was a Managing Director advising financial institutions on M&A, IPOs and related corporate finance transactions, including the December 2007 IPO of Record plc.