2023 Speakers

One of the most widely respected and quoted currency experts, Marc Chandler has been covering the global capital markets for more than 30 years. As a keen observer of the interconnection of international politics and economics, Marc appears daily in the financial press - CNBC, CNBC Asia FOX Business, Bloomberg TV and Radio, Barron’s, The Financial Times, The Washington Post, and more – where he provides his colorful take on the day’s global financial and economic news.

Throughout his career on Wall Street, Chandler has advised private businesses, hedge funds and asset managers on navigating the foreign exchange market, and most recently joined Bannockburn Global Forex as Managing Director and Chief Market Strategist in their New York City office.

Keep up with Marc Chandler's ongoing analysis on his blog, www.marctomarket.com, or follow him on Twitter, @marcmakingsense.

John Velis is a member of BNY Mellon Markets' global strategy team and serves as FX and Macro Strategist for the Americas. He leads BNY Mellon's continued investment into North American commentary.

He joined BNY Mellon from State Street in Boston, where he was instrumental in running a Macro Research function that applied proprietary data on investor behaviour, market-risk modelling and real-time inflation analysis to the firm’s client base. Prior to his role as a senior multi-asset strategist at State Street Global Markets, John was based in London and worked at Vanguard Asset Management, Russell Investments and ABN Amro.

He holds a PhD in Applied Economics from Indiana University and a B.A. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania. He was also a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.

Don Cummings is head of G10 and EM Asia FX trading at Mizuho Americas (MSUSA). In his current role he is responsible for overseeing the provision and management of a broad portfolio of FX hedging products to MSUSA’s corporate and institutional clients. Since joining in 2017 Don has worked to build and develop MSUSA’s capabilities across the spectrum of FX derivatives. Prior to joining Mizuho Don worked in FX and Macro rates trading at Nomura securities. Don holds an MSc. In Economics from the London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE).

Peter is a senior portfolio manager in the Currency Management team. His role is to generate alpha using currency forwards and options in overlay strategies, active hedging strategies, and pure currency alpha strategies. He is experienced in the development, evaluation and analysis of quantitative trading strategies as well as discretionary currency investing. Peter has over 10 years of investment experience and has specialised in currencies throughout his career. Prior to joining BNPP AM, via its predecessor firm FFTW in 2013, he was a currency options trader at J.P. Morgan. Peter holds a BSc in Mathematics & Economics from the University of Nottingham and a Master of Finance from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Neil has been in the foreign exchange market for 38 years. He started his career with Texas Commerce Bank (now JP Morgan) in 1985 as Chief Dealer, specializing in trading USD/MXN. He then joined Zions Bancorp in 2014 and turned his focus to FX sales. He spent his career in FX in the great state of Texas. Neil is also second generation FX, as his father was in the market for over 40 years.

Reem has an in depth depth knowledge on international currency, FX markets, commodities, and management risk. She is an expert in technical analysis and mentoring. She has taught courses and coached novice traders in technical analysis and trading psychology. 

Christopher is co-head of Global G10 Spot and Americas Emerging Markets (EM) Foreign Exchange (FX) One Delta Trading. He is also responsible for the FX and Commodities Systematic Market Making business. He is a member of the Regional Securities Division Automated Trading Controls Committee (Americas). Previously, he worked in FX Strats, FX Spot Trading and FX Technology. Christopher joined Goldman Sachs in 2001 as an analyst and was named managing director in 2011. Christopher is chairman of the Board of LiquidityMatch LL, a bank-owned consortium for FX aggregation and execution services. Christopher earned a BA in Computer Science from Cornell University in 2001 with a concentration in Math and Business.

Bob Savage runs Americas FX Sales for BNY Mellon.  He joined the firm in April 2019 adding to his 30+ years of experience in the industry. He is an foreign exchange thought leader writing about markets daily throughout his career and actively speaking at conferences and events. Bob has a broad set of experience from the variety of roles he’s held across in the industry, from the hedge fund space (FX Concepts and IKOS), to the sell-side (with more than 20 years at Goldman Sachs both as a FX trader and as an MD running institutional FX sales), as a consultant (McKinsey) and most recently at a quant-based FX advisory (CC Track Solutions). 

Mazen is a Senior FX Strategist for the Global Strategy team. Based in New York, Mazen provides strategic macro perspectives and tactical trading recommendations in G10FX for a wide range of institutional and corporate clients, as well as TD's trading desk. Mazen ranked Top 10 in FX Strategy in the 2022 Institutional Investor Survey (USA) and 1^st in Canada in 2021. Mazen was previously a Senior Macro Strategist based in Toronto, focused on North American markets, where he was a top-ranked macro forecaster of Canada by Bloomberg News in 2012 and 2013. Prior to joining TD Securities, Mazen spent a number of years at BCA Research as the lead analyst for Global Fixed Income Strategy. In that role he was responsible for providing macro analysis and investment recommendations for the developed markets. Mazen holds a Masters of Finance degree and a B.Com in Finance with a major in Economics from the University of Toronto.

Steve Fenty is Global Head of Currency Management at State Street Global Markets. State Street’s Currency Management business delivers agency execution and foreign exchange hedging programs to institutional investors and today is a leading provider of outsourced FX solutions globally. Prior to his current role, Steve established and led State Street Global Markets’ Portfolio Solutions Strategy Team, responsible for client trade-strategy consulting and product development across State Street’s multi-asset agency trading businesses. Steve has a Bachelor of Science degree in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering from Cornell University. He is a CFA charterholder and holds FINRA Series 7 and 63 licenses.

Garth Appelt is a Managing Director, Head of Foreign Exchange at Mizuho Americas. Prior to Mizuho, Garth was a Senior Managing Director at UBS where he was the Global Head of Emerging Markets, Global Head of G10 Foreign Exchange Spot FX, and Global Head of Precious Metals Trading. At UBS, Garth was a member of the FRC Americas Executive Committee and FRC Global Management Committee. Garth also served as a board member for the Emerging Markets Traders Association (EMTA). Prior to joining UBS, Appelt was a Portfolio Manager at Moore Capital Management specializing in G10 and Emerging Market directional and relative value strategies in foreign exchange, interest rates, credit and equities. Over a 25-year career, Appelt has also held positions at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and JP Morgan in New York, Paris and London.

Ulf J. Lindahl, Chief Executive Officer, has 40 years of experience in currency research and in managing currency overlay and currency alpha portfolios for pension funds and family offices now applied at Currency Research Associates. The experience was gained at A.G. Bisset, which he co-founded in 1981. Ulf has published the Review of Emerging Trends since 1984 providing subscribers with advice they can trust on currencies, interest rates, equity markets and commodities. The Review of Emerging Trends is now published by Currency Research Associates.

Michael Babic is the head of e-FICC sales for the Americas at Bank of America. Based in New York, he joins from Goldman Sachs, where he worked for eight years, joining the bank as head of e-FX sales for the Americas in 2014 and most latterly serving as head of FICC execution services for the region. 

Babic joined Goldman from Citi, where he spent over five years in FX e-commerce sales, prior to that he spent almost two years with the joint CME/Reuters venture, FX MarketSpace, having started his career at Deutsche Bank in FX prime brokerage. 

Win Thin is the Global Head of Emerging Markets Strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH). He has a broad international background with a special interest in developing markets.  Prior to joining BBH in June 2007, he founded Mandalay Advisors, an independent research firm providing sovereign emerging market analysis to institutional investors.  Previously, Dr. Thin was a vice president and international economist covering major emerging markets in Asia and Latin America for Alliance Capital Management and HSBC. Earlier in his career, he worked at the U.S. Treasury and Columbia University.

Dr. Thin received a PhD in economics from Columbia University in 1995, specializing in International and Development Economics.  He received an MA from Georgetown University in 1985 and a BA from Brandeis University in 1983. His current research projects focus on developing and refining portfolio allocation tools for institutional investors.

Andriy is a Head of Algo Development for Equities and FX at Precision Algos, Cantor Fitzgerald where he primarily focuses on the software development effort for the Equities and FX products. He also contributes extensively to Precision’s cross-assets algorithmic offering.

Andriy joined the Precision team from FXall/Thomson Reuters where he ran the FX SOR and algorithmic trading engine development. Prior to FxAll/Thomson Reuters, Andriy held a position of VP, Equities/Derivatives DMA & Quantitative Technologies at Jefferies. He has extensive experience in building algorithmic systems for trading Equities and FX.

Andriy graduated with a B.S. in Physics from the State University of Ukraine, Chernivtsi in 1996.

Mike Harris is the Global Head of Cross Asset Electronic Distribution covering FX, Rates, Futures and Equities.  His primary responsibilities including building RBC’s electronic Principal market making distribution to institutional, corporate and commercial clients, establishing and structuring engagement standards, outlining and performing optimization standards, expanding RBC’s riskless Principal suite of algo and developing industry leading cross asset analytic tools.