Agenda

Arnab Das is Global Market Strategist at Invesco in the EMEA region, based in London, and a member of Invesco’s Global Thought Leadership team. He helps develop and communicate analysis and insight on the global economy and financial markets across asset classes for clients, media, governments and central banks.

He works with Invesco’s investment teams across disciplines and regions and is a member of Invesco’s Global Investor Forum Advisory Council with a focus on global macro and emerging markets. Arnab’s research interests span economic policy, performance and reform; and economic and financial history.

Arnab joined Invesco in 2015 as Head of EM macro research for Invesco Fixed Income. He began his career in finance in 1992, and has served as Co-head of Economic Research & Strategy at Roubini Global Economics; Co-head of Global Economics & Strategy, Head of Global FX Research, and Head of EM Economics & Strategy at Dresdner Kleinwort; and Head of EEMEA Research at JP Morgan. He has also been a private consultant in global and emerging markets, as well as consulting with Trusted Sources, a specialist EM research boutique.

Arnab’s studies were in macroeconomics, economic history and international political economy. He received an AB from Princeton University in 1986 and completed his postgraduate and doctoral work at the London School of Economics in 1987-1992.

James is Head of Investments for SSGA Europe Limited and Global Head of Currency. He joined the company in January 2016 as Head of Currency for EMEA. Since January 2019 he has expanded his role to include Head of Investments for Ireland, providing leadership and governance to SSGA investment management activity in Ireland and other EU jurisdictions. As Global Head of Currency he continues to provide strategic leadership to the Currency team from a business, investment and research perspective and is ultimately responsible for all currency strategies.

James has worked in the industry since 1990, predominantly in the management of global fixed income and currency, with a focus on the development and implementation of investment and risk processes. He has worked on or led teams at investment firms including Brevan Howard, Gartmore and County NatWest Investment Management. He advised investment managers and asset owners regarding the development of investment and risk management processes while at ABN AMRO and Lloyds Banks. He also created and implemented a manager of managers product at ABN AMRO and while at Lloyds Bank he was trustee of both a DB and DC pension plan.

James graduated with a first in Engineering Science from Oxford University.

Philippe Waechter is Chief Economist at Ostrum Asset Management and head of the Economic Research Unit. He was previously head of economic research at Banque Populaire Asset Management, a predecessor company to Natixis.

He began his investment career as an economist at BRED Banque Populaire. He currently lectures at the Ecole Normale Supérieure of Cachan.
Mr. Waechter was an associate professor at the Université d'Evry in 2003, is co-author of Subprimes, the Global Bankruptcy (May 2008), and is frequently quoted in the financial media.

He holds a graduate degree in economics and in econometrics from Université Paris I.

• David is Head of Macro Research at AXA Investment Managers. He manages a global team of 10 economists and strategists. He is a regular guest on Bloomberg TV, as well as appearing in other global media. He has recently written on a range of topics including How Vaccines will Affect Global GDP and Assessing the Costs of Climate Change as well as writing regular research on global and US macro developments.
• David 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, including covering elections, fundamental monetary policy debates and issues of fiscal stimulus.
• Before joining AXA IM, he worked for 4 years at Lloyds Bank Commercial Banking as a Senior Economist covering primarily the UK economy. During this time, David was twice voted the top forecaster in the region (Bloomberg) in 2011 and 2012 (3^rd in 2013).
• Prior to this, he worked for 10 years at Investec Bank as a global economist. David primarily covered the UK and European economies. During this period David regularly appeared on CNBC, Bloomberg and Reuters TV.
• Before this, David spent 5 years in the Government Economic Service, initially working for the energy regulator, OFFER, before joining the UK Debt Management Office at its inception in 1998 – an executive agency of HM Treasury – considering issues of primary issuance for the UK gilt market.
• David holds an MSc in Economics (1995) from the University of Warwick, UK and a BA in Economics (1994) from the University of York.

Beata Harasim, Director, is a Senior Investment Strategist for BlackRock and a member of the BlackRock Investment Institute (BII). She is responsible for developing tactical asset allocation frameworks and contributing to related thought leadership. Ms. Harasim represents BlackRock's multi-asset views based on the insights of our investment community.

Prior to her current role, Ms. Harasim worked at BlackRock for nine years, most recently as a global macro portfolio manager with the Diversified Strategies team. She ran a discretionary fundamental investment process, with a primary focus on currencies and fixed income. Prior to that, she worked as a portfolio manager with BlackRock's Global and European Fixed Income teams.

Ms. Harasim is a CFA and CAIA charter holder . She earned a MA degree in Finance and Banking from the Warsaw School of Economics in 2008 and completed post graduate course in Big Data: Advanced Analytics in 2016.

Phil is responsible for oneZero’s ongoing investment, growth, business development and expansion through building out its strategy and partnerships. Before joining oneZero, he served as CEO of FXall, lead the FX Rates and Credit business for Thomson Reuters, and was Managing Director of Global FX Derivatives Trading at JP Morgan. He has expertise in start-up ideation, attracting strategic investors, capital raising from the private equity community, acquisitions, public offering, company sale, merger integration, and turn around. Phil has served as a strategic advisor to oneZero since June 2018.

Morgan Beeson is a Product Manager for Aladdin’s multi-asset trading platform, responsible for its equity, FX and automation strategies. Morgan has 9 years of experience in various trading technology roles, having begun his career at BlackRock in 2012. Morgan holds an Interdisciplinary B.A. in Mathematics and Economics from Bucknell University.

Mrs. Heli Khandelia is leading Change Management at Apollo Global Management, London. She joined Apollo in July 2021 and she is responsible for managing and delivering portfolio of changes across various business areas in Europe. Mrs. Khandelia has around 19 years of experience in finance services. She has a proven track record of delivering broad range of large scale, cross functional business change and regulatory programs. Her expertise covers multiple asset classes, building and managing high performing teams and leading multi-disciplined projects from inception to delivery. She has worked for global banks and consulting firms such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank, Lloyds and KPMG. She is skilled in program and project management, governance, regulatory risk & compliance, business change, operations and technology.

Mrs. Khandelia holds a masters degree in Applied Computing Technologies from Northumbria University, UK.

Emin is an award-winning technologist and entrepreneur who brings to market cutting-edge digital financial products using a multi-disciplinary approach to design and development.

He co-founded FastFin in 2014 - a boutique financial markets consultancy - to help marquee clients across the globe increase productivity, reduce cost, and meet regulatory obligations through design and technology.

In 2019 he co-founded FX HedgePool - the first matching engine for the mid-market execution of FX swaps - setting out to transform the FX market by separating liquidity from credit - thereby allowing passive hedgers to provide vast amounts of pure liquidity to each other.

Previous leadership roles have spanned global banking institutions including Citadel in New York, UniCredit in London, and BTG Pactual in Sao Paulo. Emin holds a BSc in Computer Science and an MSc in Enterprise Systems Development - with a thesis focused on Artificial Intelligence that earned the prestigious Brunel-GoldTel Prize.

Michael Mollemans is a Research Principal at Chartis Research. Michael was a Senior Analyst at TABB Group, with over 20 years of trading and research experience across 5 countries. Before joining TABB, he was at Pavilion Global Markets and Credit Suisse Securities Japan. Prior to that, he worked at Daiwa Capital Markets America in New York and at Credit Lyonnais Securities in Japan and New York.

Michael has a PhD in Econometrics and holds CFA and CMT designations.

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.

Thomas has worked in the financial sector since 1997 in Nordea Copenhagen in various roles – within Portfolio Management, Trading and Sales.

After Nordea, he joined a top five insurance company in Denmark in 2005 and together with a colleague he built up a foreign exchange desk (trading, proprietary and sales). The initial team grew over the following seven years. He was appointed Head of Trading & Proprietary having the overall responsibility of all trading/risks (Foreign Exchange, Bonds, Credit and Equity) including headcount of 14 full-time employees.

In 2012 he was asked to join Woodman Asset Management in Switzerland as Head of Trading and to build up the trading activities in the newly established Woodman Asset Management and grow the business. In his various roles in Woodman was managing Woodman Group’s currency exposure and currency mandates plus the overall responsibility of the execution/trading.

Tim McCourt serves as CME Group’s Managing Director and Global Head of Equity Products and Alternative Investments.  He is responsible for leading the company’s global Equity Index product line.  He also serves on the S&P Dow Jones Indices U.S. Advisory Panel. 

Before joining CME Group in 2013, McCourt worked for the Royal Bank of Scotland, where he was responsible for building and managing the Americas Index and Delta One trading book.  Prior to RBS, he held a senior trading role with JPMorgan in New York, spending 10 years with the Equity Derivatives Group. 

McCourt holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Boston College and a MBA from The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.