2019 Speakers

Jean-Pierre Vidal is Head of the Policy and Strategy Division of the European Investment Bank. He was Counsellor to the Executive Board of the European Central Bank from September 2016 to June 2019.

Prior to this, Jean-Pierre was Chief Economic Advisor to the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, and a member of the cabinet of the first President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy. He held several positions at the European Central Bank: Head of the ECB Representative Office in Brussels (2011-2012), Deputy Head of the Monetary Policy Strategy Division (2007-2011), and Head of the Fiscal Analysis Section (2004-2007).

Before joining the ECB as an economist in 2000, he worked as a senior researcher at the ‘Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique’ (CNRS). Jean-Pierre holds an MBA from ESSEC business school (‘Ecole Supérieure des Sciences Economiques et Commerciales’) and a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge.

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.

Katie Lee is Head of Hedge Fund Distribution at UBS Wealth Management UK based in London. She leads the hedge fund advisory effort in UBS UK and Jersey, and is responsible for advising high net worth individuals on investing in hedge funds and managing portfolios across a broad range of hedge fund strategies.

Katie has over 11 years of investment experience at UBS. Prior to moving to London in 2016, she spent 3 years in Zurich, Switzerland covering clients in the EMEA region and 5 years in Hong Kong covering Greater China clients.

Katie holds a bachelor degree in Business - Finance & Marketing from the Chinese University of Hong Kong and is fluent in Cantonese, Mandarin and English. She is also a committee member of the 100 Women in Finance organization.

Shamik Dhar is Chief Economist at BNY Mellon Investment Management, as of September this year. Prior to this, he was the Chief Economist and Director from Economics at the UK government's Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

He has more than 30 years of experience as a professional economist, alternating between private and public sectors. He began his career at the HM Treasury, the UK government's Economic and Finance Ministry, in the late 1980s, moving on in the 1990s to Oxford Economic Forecasting and the Bank of England (where he ran the UK forecast team and was a senior manager in Monetary Analysis).

In 2000, he moved to Morley Fund Management, then in 2004 co-founded Fathom Consulting, a leading economics consultancy, before moving back into asset management with Aviva Investors in 2009.

Shamik has a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford University, and a Master's in Economics from Queen Mary College, University of London.

Ralf Donner is Head of FICC Execution Strategies at Goldman Sachs. He is responsible for the firm’s client FICC algorithmic execution offering, pre- and intra-trade liquidity and transaction cost analytics, and post-trade reporting.

Ralf started his professional career at ABN Amro in 2006 as an FX options quant, followed by 8 years with Morgan Stanley in London and New York, first in model validation of options pricing models and then in quant sales, focusing on systematic FX trading strategies and FX market microstructure. From 2014-2016 he ran Morgan Stanley’s QSI team in New York.

Ralf holds a Masters in Physics and a Doctorate in Theoretical Physics from Oxford University.

Laura joined British American Tobacco in 2015. After covering various roles in Group’s Treasury, in Romania and United Kingdom, she is now heading up the Financial Risk & Dealing Room team, part of Group Corporate Treasury, located in Romania. She is responsible for defining the risk management strategy  (fx and interest rates), as well as for managing short term liquidity and dealing execution.

Before joining BAT, she worked for 4 years for Raiffeisen’s Romanian building society bank (Sparkasse) as Head of Risk Management and Organisation. Prior to this, she worked for 7 years in GE Capital in the Romanian mortgage business in credit risk area.

Laura is a CFA charterholder since 2018.

David Page is head of macroeconomic research at AXA Investment Managers. He manages a global team of 10 economists and strategists, is a regular guest on Bloomberg TV and other global media. Page joined AXA Investment Managers in July 2014 as a senior economist to provide economics coverage on US and UK economies. He has written extensively on the US economy, covering elections, fundamental monetary policy debates and issues of fiscal stimulus. Before joining AXA Investment Managers, Page worked for four years at Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking as a senior economist, primarily covering the UK economy. During this time, he was twice voted the top forecaster in the region in 2011 and 2012 (and came third in 2013). Prior to this, Page worked for 10 years at Investec Bank as a global economist, primarily covering the UK and European economies. Before this, he spent five years in the Government Economic Service, initially working for the energy regulator before joining the UK Debt Management Office – an executive agency of HM Treasury – at its inception in 1998, considering issues of primary issuance for the UK gilt market. Page holds a masters of science degree in economics from the University of Warwick, UK and a bachelor's degree in Economics from the University of York.

Helen Thomas CFA has worked in financial markets for over 17 years. She founded her own macroeconomic consulting firm, BlondeMoney, in 2017. Her team works out of offices in Oxford and London, and provides expert analysis on financial markets and politics. Before that she was a Partner at a Global Macro hedge fund and Head of Currency Alpha for State Street Global Advisors. She started her career in Foreign Exchange at Merrill Lynch before going on to work for Societe Generale and SEB. She has also worked in politics, as an adviser to former Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne during the financial crisis.

She is a CFA Charterholder and holds a degree in probably the least practical combination of subjects: Philosophy, Politics and Economics which she gained from Oxford University.

She is a Board Member of CFA UK where she is responsible for their sub-committee on the Value of the Investment Profession.

She was lead researcher on the book "Masters of Nothing" by the MPs Matthew Hancock and Nadhim Zahawi, which looked at how human behaviour caused the financial crisis and how to avoid it happening again.

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.

Kate Phylaktis is Professor of International Finance and Director of the Emerging Markets Group at Cass Business School, City, University of London. She previously held research and analyst positions at the London School of Economics and the National and Commercial Banking Group (now Royal Bank of Scotland).

Kate’s main research and teaching interests are in international finance and emerging markets finance. She is also interested in the development of financial markets, the interaction of corporate governance and asset pricing, and the interaction of capital flows and corporate finance. She is the author of 45 articles published in top finance and economics journals including the Journal of Corporate Finance, Financial Management, Journal of International Money and Finance, Review of Economics and Statistics, and the Journal of Development Economics. She has authored three books including “The Banking System of Cyprus: Past, Present and Future”, (Macmillan Press 1995), a seminal book on the development of the banking system of Cyprus and was the guest editor of four special issues of the Journal of International Money and Finance on “Emerging Markets Finance” (Elsevier, 2006, 2009, 2012, 2016).

In addition to teaching and doing research Kate has been involved in policy advising, training, research and consulting projects for a number of institutions, including the International Monetary Fund, Export Guarantees Advisory Council, University of Bordeaux, the Warsaw University, Crown Agents, Commonwealth Secretariat, and the Hellenic Capital Markets Commission. She has also acted as a consultant to the Ministry of Education and Religious Studies in Greece and the Ministry of Education and Culture in Cyprus advising on the development of tertiary education.

Kate has set up The Emerging Markets Group (EMG) in 2001, a forum for academic research on foreign exchange and financial markets with particular reference to emerging economies. EMG through a series of workshops and conferences has established a network of internationally respected finance academics, professionals and policymakers. EMG events have had extensive financial support by the ESRC, the Journal of International Money and Finance, the ECB, IMF, EBRD, the Stock Exchange, and various banks.

Kate has served as an Associate Editor of the Journal of International Money and Finance(2002- 2013), International Journal of Financial Analysis(2013-),Emerging Markets Review(2002-present), Pacific-Basin Finance Journal (2006-present), Financial Review (2004-2010), Multinational Finance Journal (2002-2008), Greek Economic Review(2002-2008) and Ekonomia (2000-2014).

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.

Marco joined State Street in May 2014 and is responsible for client servicing, development and growth of the Currency Management business within the EMEA region. During his tenure at State Street Marco was also responsible for Transition management Sales and a client relationship for the Italian market.

Prior to State Street Marco held a position of Head of Currency Portfolio Management with JP Morgan Asset Management. Earlier in his career, Marco was at JPMorgan Chase where he undertook various roles including Treasury Management, Operations and Project Management. After joining the industry in 1997, Marco has numerous years of experience in international finance and is an FCA approved person

Paris Pennesi is Head of Quant Strategies for Spot FX & Commodities for the electronic trading team, eRisk, at HSBC.  Previously, he has worked at MAN AHL, JP Morgan and RBS, creating systematic investments strategies and algorithms for market-making and execution across FX, Equities and Futures markets.

Paris is also an Honorary Associate Professor at UCL where he teaches Market Microstructure. He has had academic positions at London School of Economics and Cambridge University and holds a PhD in Artificial Intelligence and a Masters Degree in Electronic Engineering.

Saeed Amen is the founder of Cuemacro. Over the past fifteen years, Saeed Amen has developed systematic trading strategies at major investment banks including Lehman Brothers and Nomura. He is also the author of Trading Thalesians: What the ancient world can teach us about trading today (Palgrave Macmillan) and is the coauthor of The Book of Alternative Data (Wiley), due in 2020. Through Cuemacro, he now consults and publishes research for clients in the area of systematic trading. He has developed many Python libraries including finmarketpy and tcapy for transaction cost analysis. His clients have included major quant funds and data companies such as Bloomberg. He has presented his work at many conferences and institutions which include the ECB, IMF, Bank of England and Federal Reserve Board. He is also a visiting lecturer at Queen Mary University of London and a co-founder of the Thalesians.

“The markets’ market economist”, this is how Dr Peter Praet, ECB Chief Economist and Board member, describes Lena Komileva, founder and chief economist of City economic intelligence consultancy (g+)economics.

Lena is a veteran market economist widely credited for predicting the Global Financial Crisis and the global recession that followed it, with the new policy regime that has defined international markets and industry developments over the past decade.

She has spent two decades advising CEOs in banking, custodial, brokerage, and financial consulting services as head of market economics for the largest European government bonds broker in the world, as a regular voice at policy and industry forums, and as an economic adviser, working with such institutions as the CFA Institute, the World Gold Council, McKinsey & Co., and the UK Parliament.

Lena is a leading independent voice in the international policy debate on global growth themes focusing on global finance, capital flows, financial innovation, and regulation. She is a Financial Times and Bloomberg Opinion columnist and a regular expert voice on Bloomberg TV and the BBC, regularly quoted the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, Reuters and Bloomberg News. For her recent columns on the 2021 global inflation debate and the long term policy implications of Covid, visit https://www.gpluseconomics.co.uk/newsroom/ .

Philip Maton took up the role of VP Treasury, Head of Risk at Liberty Global in January 2018, having joined the firm the previous year. He leads the firm's strategic approach to risk management across all debt hedging, FX, cash investment, pensions, counterparty credit and liquidity risks. He is also responsible for the firm’s share repurchase and strategic equity activities.

He previously worked within Corporate Structuring at the Royal Bank of Scotland, thereafter as a VP within the Risk Solutions Group at Santander Global Corporate Banking. He is a CFA charterholder.

Federico Catasta was appointed Head of Risk Management at CNH Industrial N.V. in 2014 to oversee the Group FX and interest rate risk and insurance programs.

He has more than 15 years experience in Corporate Finance and Treasury functions both in Europe and the U.S. in the automotive and capital goods sectors.

Christoph Hock is Head of Multi-Asset Trading at Union Investment. He joined Union in April 2014 and, with his team, is responsible for all trading activities associated with portfolio management of cash equities, fixed income, fund and ETF business, FX, listed and OTC derivatives, and securities lending.

Christoph graduated with a Diplom-Bankbetriebswirt, and has more than 20 years of international investment banking, trading and management experience, having worked for companies on the sell- and buy-side, most recently as Head of Execution Sales at Barclays Bank and at Alpha Trading.

Prior to this, Christoph was founder, partner and co-CEO/Head of Portfolio Management and Trading at Tungsten Capital Management, a hedge fund company (2005-2010). He was Head of Proprietary Equity Derivatives Desk at J.P. Morgan in London and Frankfurt from 1998-2004. Christoph began his career at Dresdner Kleinwort Benson in Cash Equity Trading.

David Petitcolin joined Deutsche Bank in 2018 and is a member of the FX strategy team, focusing on Emerging Markets. David has worked in currency roles since 2009, more recently on the buy-side at Principal Global Investors as a Currency Strategist and Portfolio Manager. Before that, he worked as a Currency Strategist on the sell-side at RBS.

David holds a BSc degree in Mathematics and Economics from the University of Warwick and a MSc degree in Economics from University College London.

Kaan Nazli is Senior Economist and Portfolio Manager for Emerging Markets Debt at Neuberger Berman. He has previous positions in ING Investment Management and Medley Global Advisors, where he was responsible for macro research and sovereign debt credit views.

Before that, he worked as a research analyst for Eurasia Group where he advised financial institutions on east-central Europe. He played a key role in establishing the Lehman Brothers Eurasia Group Stability Index (LEGSI), a comparative political and economic stability index designed to measure stability in more than 20 emerging markets.

Kaan Nazli received a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the University of Ankara, Turkey and earned a Master’s Degree in Political Economy from New York University. He holds the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) designations.

Charles Goodman is Managing Director at Millennium Global. Before joining Millennium Global in 2017, Charles worked for Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management (EdRAM) for over twenty years, most recently as CEO of the London office.

Before moving to London in 2012, he held various roles in fund management, derivatives advisory and business development in the Geneva office, latterly as Head of Institutional Sales. He was also a board member for a Luxembourg umbrella fund with specific responsibility for risk management and compliance oversight. Prior to his roles at EdRAM, Charles was a futures execution trader and portfolio manager at a Swiss futures and options specialist in Geneva and Chicago.

Charles Goodman has been a regular contributor of articles to institutional investment publications and speaker at industry events. He is registered with the Financial Conduct Authority.

Julian Gladwin is Co-founder and Managing Director of Axiom Global Advisors. He is also an Associate Partner at Elixirr, the challenger consultancy, bringing his broad knowledge of financial market solutions and risk mitigation to the firm.

Prior to co-founding Axiom and his time at Elixirr, Julian was a Director of Relationship Management at CLS Group, the FX settlement financial market utility.

Julian has worked in Financial Markets for over 30 years and his career in leading client relationships spans FX, Risk, Transaction Banking and Securities Services. He has held multiple international roles at Standard Chartered Bank, Northern Trust, Lehman Brothers and Paine Webber.

Jeremy is the Global Head of Distribution at XTX Markets, the cross-asset electronic liquidity provider. Prior to this Smart worked at RBS for three years as MD – Head of Fixed Income Electronic Distribution. He moved there in August 2012 from Morgan Stanley, where he had been a Managing Director in Foreign Exchange and Emerging Markets and more recently, Head of Fixed-Income e-Commerce and Global Head of e-Commerce Sales.

Prior to Morgan Stanley, Smart worked at Deutsche Bank for nine years as a senior salesperson for its e-trading platform, Autobahn. XTX Markets is a leading quantitative-driven electronic market-maker partnering with counterparties, exchanges and e-trading venues globally to provide liquidity in the Equity, FX, Fixed Income and Commodity markets. We provide consistent liquidity, helping market participants throughout the world obtain the best prices in the various assets classes we cover, regardless of changing market conditions.

Stefan Hamberger is Global Head of eFX at Credit Agricole. Stefan is an experienced markets person with 25+ years’ experience in Sales, Trading and eBusiness across a variety of asset classes. He has worked in multiple positions for Banks like Dresdner Kleinwort, Commerzbank, ABN and BNP during the last decades.

Svante Hedin is currently Deputy Head and Chief of Staff for FICC at SEB, the leading Northern European FX bank. His previous roles have included Co-head of Trading, and Head of FX & Commodities. He moved with his family to Stockholm and joined SEB in 2013 - prior to this, Svante spent most of his career in London in several executive positions in consulting and banking, most recently as MD and head of e-trading for a leading American tier 1 investment bank. Svante has a long history of contributing to industry forums and advisory groups on both the private and public side. He is vice chair of the central-bank led Scandinavian FX Committee, and a member of the Global Foreign Exchange Committee.

David Nicol leads the digital asset program at R3, responsible for strategy and business development. Corda is R3’s blockchain platform, which was designed specifically for business.

Before joining R3, David was a Product Manager in IBM’s Watson Commerce division, focusing on fintech M&A and product strategy.

Michael Fox is the EMEA Head of FX Prime Brokerage and FX Clearing at J.P. Morgan Chase. In this role, Mike oversees the region’s business and client relationships as well as the development of the product.

A 14 year veteran of J.P. Morgan, Mike brings extensive client-facing, risk and operational management experience from a number of roles across Markets, Prime Brokerage and Derivatives Clearing.

Mike graduated in 2004 with a BA (Hons) degree in Business Studies and Marketing from The University of Brighton.

Jan is an eFX Quant Trader at Deutsche Bank. Prior to his current role, he was a front office quant at HSBC in the electronic FX markets. Before joining HSBC team, he was working in the Centre for Econometric Analysis on the high-frequency time series econometric models and was visiting lecturer at Cass Business School, Warwick Business School and Politecnico di Milano.

He has also co-authored a number of papers in peer-reviewed journals in Finance and Physics, contributed to several books, and presented at numerous conferences and workshops all over the world.

During his PhD studies, he co-founded Quantum Finance CZ. He is a Machine Learning enthusiast and explores kdb+/q for this purpose.

Jonathan Healey has over 30 years of experience in Global Markets, leading projects and business initially in Corporate Treasury and subsequently at major banks.

Jon has held senior positions in eCommerce at HSBC, Lloyds and BBVA in FX and eCommerce where he led the creation of end to end digital platforms from inception. Jon is currently responsible for eCommerce globally across the asset classes at BBVA.

Thomas Wind is senior vice-president of Aros Capital, having worked in the financial sector for more than 20 years. Over the past seven years he helped start and run a multi-family office within wealth and asset management. Wind has worked primarily within investment advice, risk-taking, trading within currency, interest rates and money markets, and has headed departments in these areas. He has a strong focus on return optimisation and portfolio composition for his clients, as well as the banks he has worked for.

Victor manages the strategies and the portfolio for Quant Hedge a prop-trading fund. His experience in developing electronic trading platforms, and quantitative trading allows him to discuss how systemic and algorithmic trading can assist towards investment research, and act as a tool towards more controlled and smarter trading

Darryl Hooker is Founder and CEO of Harperdan Consulting a London-based forex consulting firm. He is also chairman of the International Ruble Settlement Forum as well as a committee member of the Financial Markets Association

He was previously a consultant for Capitolis. Before that, he was co-head of EBS BrokerTec Markets, ICAP's electronic foreign exchange and fixed-income trading business. Before it was acquired by ICAP and combined with BrokerTec, he was global head of EBS Market. He played a critical role in new business initiatives with a specific focus on emerging markets.

Hooker served at EBS and other ICAP subsidiaries for more than 15 years, most recently as head of strategic currency initiatives. He led many successful initiatives at EBS, including the launch of EBS’s Russian Ruble campaign. More recently, he managed the growth of EBS’s CNH proposition, which resulted in increased volumes, market share and presence. Earlier he was head of strategic currency initiatives at EBS

Chris has recently started his own consultancy, Harwood Alternative Investment Consulting, after several years at Allianz Global Investors developing the group’s alternative investment capabilities.

Chris has worked for over 10 years within alternative investments as an analyst, consultant and lawyer focused on strategies across both public and private markets. Chris is a UK qualified solicitor (non-practicing) who trained with Travers Smith LLP specializing in financial services, corporate finance, and derivatives and has acted on behalf of major pension schemes, asset managers and government institutions.

He holds a Masters in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Merton College, Oxford University.