In our nineteenth year of hosting the leading quantitative event worldwide, the Battle of the Quants, has become the definitive event in the quantitative space for allocators, managers, data buyers and data providers looking for key industry influencers, decision makers and investment opportunities. The Battle of the Quants curates highly relevant discussions leading the way into the new world of artificial intelligence, machine learning and alternative data. Immerse yourself in the forefront of groundbreaking conversations, where you will not only witness but actively engage with the brilliant minds steering the course of the global financial future. 

New York City

May 9th, 2024  I  University Club

Join us for an exclusive event starting with our Welcoming Cocktail Reception, an invigorating evening designed for forging valuable connections and revitalizing past business relationships. Network with industry leaders and key players, setting the stage for an eventful day ahead. The momentum continues the next morning with our ‘invitation-only’ Allocator Breakfast and Data Breakfast, each offering a unique blend of insights. Indulge in a sumptuous English breakfast as quantitative allocators delve into discovering the strategies of top-notch quantitative managers, while data buyers, portfolio managers, and quantitative analysts actively engage with leading data providers to explore how cutting-edge datasets intersect with the dynamic world of quantitative finance. 

The breakfasts are followed by the Main Event which include riveting panel discussions and presentations that uncover the pulse of the quantitative hedge fund space. Numerous networking opportunities abound throughout the day, including two coffee breaks, and a luncheon, allowing ample time for follow-up discussions and fostering new and valuable business relationships. Stay ahead of industry trends, connect with visionaries, and elevate your understanding of the evolving quantitative landscape and meet the humans behind the machines.

SPEAKERS

KEYNOTE

Matt Griffin

MATT GRIFFIN

Futurist

311 Institute

MATT GRIFFIN

Matthew Griffin, one of the world's most renowned futurists and foresight experts, is the Founder and Futurist in Chief of the 311 Institute, a global Futures and Deep Futures advisory firm working across the next 50 years, and XPotential University, the world's first free to attend futures and foresight university that's open to all. 13 times author of the Codex of the Future Series, with his latest book authored by Artificial Intelligence and all profits going to charity, Griffin is a distinguished international keynote, and host of the hit FanaticalFuturist podcast.

A rare talent Griffins ability to identify, track, and explain the impacts of hundreds of emerging technologies and trends on global business, culture, and society has earned him a powerful reputation and a roster of clients that include royalty, world leaders, G7 and G20 governments, and many of the world's most respected brands including ABB, Accenture, Adidas, AON, ARM, BCG, Centrica, Citi Group, Coca Cola, Dentons, Deloitte, Disney, DLA Piper, EY, KPMG, Lego, Legal & General, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Pepsi Co, Qualcomm, RWE, Samsung, T-Mobile, UBS, VISA, and many others.

Regularly featured in the global media including the AP, BBC, Bloomberg, CNBC, Discovery, Forbes, Telegraph, TIME, ViacomCBS, and WIRED, Matthews mission is to help organisations create a fair and sustainable future whose benefits are shared by everyone irrespective of their ability, background, or circumstances.

LUNCHEON KEYNOTE

Professor Rama Cont

PROFESSOR RAMA CONT

Scientific Advisor and Co-Founder

Oxford Algorithms

Professor of Mathematics

University of Oxford

PROFESSOR RAMA CONT

Professor Rama CONT is one of the leading and globally renowned researchers in Quantitative Finance with over 100 papers and books ttackling various aspects of mathematical modeling in finance and the application of machine learning in systematic trading. He is the Head of Mathematical and Computational Finance at the University of Oxford. Professor Cont is an Adviser to Oxford Algorithms and a member of the Risk and Investment committees.

Yury Rojek

YURY ROJEK

Executive Director, Head of Systematic Strategies

MSIM AIP

YURY ROJEK

Yury serves as a Head of Systematic Strategies at Morgan Stanley Investment Management AIP which is a fund-of-hedge-funds business unit. Yury spent the last 7 years as an investment officer in fund of funds industry performing investment due diligence on quantitative portfolio managers. Previously, Yury worked as a quant analyst and software developer on electronic trading desks in sell-side institutions and in a proprietary trading firm. Before coming to finance, Yury was an algorithm designer in a bioinformatics company. Yury holds PhD degree in Mathematics from Voronezh State University (Russia).

SAMUEL WEISSEN

Executive Director - Portfolio Manager Alternatives

LGT Capital Partners

SAMUEL WEISSEN

Samuel Weissen (Swiss) is an Executive Director on the Liquid Markets Multi-Manager team at LGT Capital Partners in New York. Mr. Weissen is responsible for manager selection with a focus on quantitative strategies. Furthermore, he is part of the portfolio management team for multi-alternatives portfolios.

Before joining the firm in 2017, Mr. Weissen was a senior associate at StepStone Group in Zurich, focusing on multi-alternatives solutions and research into alternative beta strategies. Before that, he was part of Vontobel’s Investment Banking division in Zurich and worked as an accountant for Bank Sarasin in Basel, after graduating from its apprenticeship program in 2011.

Mr. Weissen studied at the University of Applied Sciences in Zurich where he received a BSc in Business Administration with a major in Banking and Finance and graduated with distinction from London Business School’s MSc in Finance program. He holds the CFA, FRM and CAIA designations.

Edward Aw

EDWARD AW

Head of Quantitative Strategies, Managing Director

Bessemer Trust

Vincent Webe

VINCENT WEBER

CEO & Co-Founder

Resonanz Capital

VINCENT WEBER

Vincent Weber is the CEO and Co-founder of Resonanz Capital, a specialized investment advisory firm managing approximately $6 billion in assets under advisory (AuA) spanning hedge funds, illiquid credit, and liquid alternatives. Before founding Resonanz Capital in 2019, Vincent led the Absolute Return team at Prime Capital AG. He is an alumnus of Imperial College London, Goethe University Frankfurt, and Dauphine University Paris. He offers regular insights at Resonanz Capital.

Jackie Rosner

JACKIE ROSNER

Managing Director

PAAMCO Prisma

JACKIE ROSNER

Jackie Rosner (New York) joined the firm in 2013 and is a member of the Portfolio Management team, with a specific focus on global macro, relative value, managed futures, and quantitative strategies.

Prior to joining, Mr. Rosner was a managing director, head of global macro and systematic trading strategies, and a member of the executive committee at Union Bancaire Privee Asset Management in New York.

Prior to UBP, Mr. Rosner was a proprietary trader at BNP Paribas in New York. Mr. Rosner has also been a portfolio manager at both Archeus Capital Management and Millennium Partners, and was a founding member of a proprietary trading desk in the fixed income department of Chase Manhattan Bank/J.P. Morgan.

Mr. Rosner began his career at Salomon Brothers (Citibank) where he held various positions of increasing responsibility primarily focused on quant, trading, and fixed income strategies.

Mr. Rosner is on the advisory board for the MIT Sloane Department of Finance, volunteers as a master’s thesis supervisor at the Department of Mathematics at NYU Courant, and guest lectures at Columbia University’s Department of Financial Engineering.

Mr. Rosner holds a B.S. in Economics, a B.S. in Management Science, and an M.Sc in Management from the Sloan School of Management at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also holds an M.Sc in Mathematical Finance from New York University and is a CFA Charterholder, CAIA Charterholder, CMT Charterholder, and FRM Charterholder.

Shafiq Ebrahim

SHAFIQ EBRAHIM

Managing Director, Systematic Strategies Group

CPP Investments

SHAFIQ EBRAHIM

Shafiq leads the team responsible for research and management of quantitative equity mandates in the Systematic Strategies Group at CPP Investments.

Prior to joining CPP Investments in 2022, Shafiq was at British Columbia Investment Management Corp. (BCI) where he led the team that built BCI’s quantitative equity program and managed Global, Global ESG, and Canadian mandates. Previously, from 2009 to 2015, he was a partner and head of research at AJO, a quantitative institutional investment manager based in Philadelphia with over USD 25B in AUM. He also worked as a senior researcher at State Street Associates and Financial Engines. Shafiq began his career in 1999 at the Bank of Canada.

Shafiq holds a BA (Hons) in Economics from the University of British Columbia, and MA and PhD degrees in Economics from Queen’s University. He has also earned an MS degree in Computer Science from Columbia University. He is a CFA charterholder and holds the Associate of the Society of Actuaries (ASA), Financial Risk Manager (FRM), and Canadian Investment Manager (CIM) designations.

Shirin Dehghan

SHIRIN DEHGHAN

CEO & Co-Founder

Oxford Algorithms

SHIRIN DEHGHAN

Shirin is Oxford Algorithms’ Chief Executive Officer. Shirin has been leading Oxford Algorithms’ business since inception and is responsible for managing the overall operations and resources of the business. Shirin is a serial entrepreneur with a track record of creating and leading successful companies.  She was a founder and CEO of a successful telecoms software company, Arieso, where she and her team extracted weak signals from a sea of noise to manage multi-billion $ telecoms infrastructure.  This experience has been directly transferable to the financial markets where she and her co-founder at Arieso embarked on using machine learning to successfully detect the weakest of signals to predict and make smart investment decisions.  

Dr. Anne-Sophie van Royen

Dr. ANNE-SOPHIE VAN ROYEN, PhD

CIO - Quantitative Strategies

Asset Management One USA Inc.

Dr. ANNE-SOPHIE VAN ROYEN, PhD

Dr. Anne-Sophie van Royen serves as AMO USA’s Chief Investment Officer, Quantitative Strategies. She is responsible for overseeing all aspects of the firm’s quantitative investment programs including the research process, portfolio management, execution and risk management. Ms. van Royen manages AMO USA’s quantitative investment team. Prior to joining AMO, Ms. van Royen worked at la Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec in Montreal, first as Head of Global Tactical Asset Allocation then as Head of Quantitative Equity. Prior to CDPQ Ms van Royen served for 4 years as an Advisor in the Managing Director’s Office at the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, covering all matters pertaining to Tactical Asset Allocation. She was previously Head of Global Tactical Asset Allocation at Credit Suisse Asset Management in New York between 2004 and 2011. She began her career in Mergers and Acquisitions with Goldman Sachs in London.

Ms. van Royen hold a Ph.D and M.Sc in Mathematical Economics from the University of Paris – Sorbonne. She also holds a B.A in Psychology and an M.A. in Business from HEC Paris. She has published articles in a variety of professional investment journals, including the Financial Analysts Journal, Journal of Portfolio Management, Journal of Derivatives and Journal of Forecasting. She is a Past President of the Society of Quantitative Analysts in New York and served as an advisor in the Department of Mathematics at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

Wayne Ferbert

WAYNE FERBERT

Managing Director & Co-Founder

Alpha DNA Investment Management

WAYNE FERBERT

Wayne has spent his entire 30-year career in financial services. He founded Alpha DNA Investment Management to broaden the use of machine learning in the Hedged Equity space.

He previously co-founded ZEGA Financial to specialize in risk-management strategies using options. ZEGA’s founding principles grew out of the book Wayne co-authored entitled Buy and Hedge, the Five Iron Rules for Investing Over the Long Term.

Wayne spent 10 years in the online brokerage segment with TD Ameritrade. He managed Business Development as a member of the Senior Operating Committee-including M&A and Market Research--as well as ran Product Development. Previously, Wayne held planning & analytical roles at Fortune 500 insurance and banking firms.

Frederik Middelhoff

FREDERIK MIDDELHOFF

Investment Manager

Resonanz Capital

FREDERIK MIDDELHOFF

Frederik Middelhoff serves as an Investment Manager at Resonanz Capital, a specialized investment advisory firm overseeing around $6 billion in assets, encompassing hedge funds, illiquid credit, and liquid alternatives. Prior to joining Resonanz in 2020, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Munster, with a keen focus on Derivatives and Asset Pricing. He holds  a Dr. rer. pol. (PhD equivalent), as well as an MSc, both from the University of Munster. Frederik offers regular research insights at Resonanz Capital.

Brian Hurst

BRIAN HURST

CIO

ClearAlpha Technologies

BRIAN HURST

Brian is the Founder and CIO of ClearAlpha™. Brian is responsible for setting the firm's strategic direction and leading our portfolio management and trading teams. Before founding ClearAlpha™, Brian was a day one employee and was the first non-Founding Partner at AQR Capital Management. During his 21 years at AQR, Brian served as a portfolio manager, researcher, and head of trading for the firm. Brian was instrumental in designing and building AQR's trading platform and, as senior portfolio manager, was responsible for more than $15BN in hedge fund assets. During his tenure, Brian served on or led various management, operating, and investment committees, including the Strategic Planning Committee, the Operating Committee, and the Risk Committee.

Brian was Cliff Asness’ first hire in the Quantitative Research Group at Goldman Sachs Asset Management where he performed research and built portfolio management and trading technology for the Global Alpha Fund. As a long-time investor, he brings experience managing a variety of multi-asset portfolios through many market environments. Brian serves as a Member of the Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital Council. Brian graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with a BS in Economics.

Marc Vesecky

MARC VESECKY

Senior Managing Director, Quantitative Strategies

Verition Fund

MARC VESECKY

Marc is currently the Senior Managing Director, Quantitative Strategies at Verition Fund Management. Previously, he served as Head of Markets at Menai Asset Management and held the dual roles of Chief Investment Officer and Chief Risk Officer at Tower Research Capital for over ten years. Before these roles, he served as a Risk Manager at Citadel and Man Group. He started his career as an Options Trader at Societe Generale. Marc's academic credentials include a degree in Economics and an MBA from the University of Illinois.

KEN D'SOUZA

Managing Director and Quantitative Portfolio Manager

PGIM

KEN D'SOUZA

Ken D'Souza, CFA, is a Managing Director and Portfolio Manager for PGIM Quantitative Solutions working within the Quantitative Equity team. He oversees the portfolio managers and analysts that manage $51 Billion on the Quantitative Equity platform and is responsible for portfolio management, analysis and research. Prior to joining PGIM Quantitative Solutions, Ken was a Portfolio Manager at Batterymarch Financial Management where he utilized a blend of quantitative, fundamental and macroeconomic insights. Prior to Batterymarch, he was a research and development engineer and manager at Shaw Industries (Berkshire Hathaway). He is the Vice Chair and a member of the Board of Directors of CFA Society New York. He is also a past president and member of the Board of Directors of the Society of Quantitative Analysts and has served on the Board of Directors of CFA Society Boston. He has also lectured on Financial Risk Management at Columbia University. Ken earned a BS in chemical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, an MS in both management science and engineering from Stanford University and an MBA from the University of Chicago, graduating as an Amy and Richard F. Wallman Scholar

Philip Didio

PHILIP DIDIO

Portfolio Manager

SECOR Asset Management

PHILIP DIDIO

Philip DiDio is a Portable Alpha Portfolio Manager and leads SECOR’s hedge fund manager selection team. Prior to SECOR, Phil was Director of Research at Summit Private Investments, a fund of hedge funds. Before that, Philip managed hedge fund research and was a portfolio manager for Oppenheimer & Co.’s proprietary fund-of-funds. Philip has additional related experience at FRM Americas, a $13 billion fund-of-funds company, where he headed a team responsible for finding, recommending and monitoring relative value managers. He has authored a chapter for a hedge fund compendium published by Euromoney, as well as numerous articles and white papers. Philip received a B.A. in Mathematics and Philosophy of Science from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.A. in Statistics from the University of California at Berkeley.

Saeed Amen

SAEED AMEN

Author of ‘The Book of Alternative Data’ & Visiting Lecturer on Quantitative Finance

Queen Mary University of London

JIANJIAN JIN, PhD

Associate Director, Quantitative Research

UPP

JIANJIAN JIN, PhD

Jianjian is an Associate Director at the Ontario University Pension Plan (UPP) Public Markets, responsible for quantitative research in support of UPP Public Markets and Private Markets investment process.

Prior to joining UPP, Jianjian held various positions at the British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (BCI), where he specialized in macro and financial market research, risk mitigation strategies, and total fund management. Before that, he was a senior analyst in the Funds Management Department of the Bank of Canada, conducting research to support Foreign Exchange Reserve management, Canadian government debt management, and Employee Pension Fund investment.

Jianjian has published several papers in leading peer-reviewed financial research journals. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Northwestern University and is a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) charter holder.

Natalya Dmitriyeva

NATALYA DMITRIYEVA

Global Head of Data Strategy and Analytics

Schonfeld

Sheedsa Ali

SHEEDSA ALI

Managing Director - Head of Systematic Strategies

PineBridge Investments

Nicole Königstein

Nicole Königstein

Chief Data Scientist, Head of AI & Quant Research

Wyden Capital

Nicole Königstein

Nicole Königstein is a distinguished Data Scientist and Quantitative Researcher, currently working as Chief Data Scientist and Head of AI & Quantitative Research at Wyden Capital and as Head of AI and Quantitative Research at quantmate. Alongside her role in this organizations, she serves as an AI consultant across diverse industries, leading workshops, and guiding companies from the conceptual stages of AI implementation through to final deployment.

As a guest lecturer, Nicole shares her expertise in Python, machine learning, and deep learning at various universities. She is a regular speaker at renowned AI and Data Science conferences, where she conducts workshops and educational sessions. In addition, she is an influential voice in the data science community, regularly reviewing books in her field and offering her insights and critiques. Nicole is also the author of Math for Machine Learning published by Manning Publications and the author of the (forthcoming) book Transformers in Action published by Manning Publications.

Lee Morakis

LEE MORAKIS

Senior Quantitative Implementation Consultant

EPFR

LEE MORAKIS

Lee specializes in the incorporation and efficient utilization of alternative trading and market microstructure data within the investment process and is considered a subject matter expert for index implementation. Lee was the Global Head of Instinct Knowledge Trading Research at the Bank of America for seven years, providing alternative trading data research for institutional clients. Lee was previously responsible for the Institutional Algorithmic Sales and Execution Consulting teams for the Americas and the Portfolio Sales trading teams. Prior to joining BoA Merrill Lynch, Morakis managed the U.S. Portfolio Trading business at Credit Suisse and began his career at Smith Barney. Lee has a diverse set of skills that assist with both liquidity formation and alpha generation and believes differentiation is achieved by quantitative, data driven content. Lee received his MBA from NYU's Stern School and his B.S. from Lehigh University.

Mario Pardo

MARIO PARDO

Instructor

Columbia University

(Member Investment Committee and Risk Manager, Multi-Billion Dollar European Family Office)

MARIO PARDO

Mario Pardo’s extensive background includes risk management, consulting, and academia. Since 2020 he has sponsored the Causality Project at Columbia University's Operations Research Department, where he leads operations research students on Al capabilities, probabilistic modeling, linear and non-linear investment applications and scenario analysis. He has worked as the risk manager and advisor for a multi-billion-dollar single family office based in Europe, responsible for global portfolio allocation, strategy and fund research, manager selection, portfolio construction, and risk management. Prior to that he was a consultant at Booz Allen & Hamilton. Mr. Pardo graduated in 1997 from Massachusetts Institute of Technology with joint degrees in Engineering and the Sloan School of Management. He is the founder of Ryse, Inc., an investment risk management consulting company for institutional managers in US, Europe, and East Africa.

Gary Kazantsev

Gary Kazantsev

Head of Quant Technology Strategy

Bloomberg

Gary Kazantsev

Gary is the Head of Quant Technology Strategy in the Office of the CTO at Bloomberg. Prior to taking on this role, he created and headed the company’s Machine Learning Engineering group, leading projects at the intersection of computational linguistics, machine learning and finance, such as sentiment analysis of financial news, market impact indicators, statistical text classification, social media analytics, question answering, and predictive modeling of financial markets.

Prior to joining Bloomberg in 2007, Gary had earned degrees with distinction in physics, mathematics, and computer science from Boston University.

He is engaged in advisory roles with FinTech and Machine Learning startups and has worked at a variety of technology and academic organizations over the last 20 years. In addition to speaking regularly at industry and academic events around the globe, he is a member of the KDD Data Science + Journalism workshop program committee and the advisory board for the AI & Data Science in Trading conference series. He is also an adjunct professor at Columbia University, and a co-organizer of the annual Machine Learning in Finance conference at Columbia University.

Charlie Flanagan

CHARLIE FLANAGAN

Head of Applied AI

Balyasny Asset Management

CHARLIE FLANAGAN

Charlie Flanagan, CFA, leads the Applied AI team at Balyasny, a diversified global investment firm with over $20 billion in assets under management. Charlie and his team of engineers and researchers are helping BAM’s investing teams leverage AI to drive efficiencies and discover new insights, while also preparing the firm for what’s next in AI technology.    

Prior to his current role, Charlie was Head of Data Science for BAM Elevate, Balyasny’s dedicated private investment team. Charlie joined BAM in May 2022 following five years at Google, where he worked as a Senior Data Science Technical Lead on Google Duplex. Charlie also worked at QuantRes Fund as a Quantitative Trading Manager. Prior to QuantRes Fund, he was an Equity Derivatives Dealer at ICAP Plc.

Charlie received an MBA from Columbia University and a Master’s in Software Engineering from Harvard University.

Stefano Pasquali

Stefano Pasquali

Managing Director, Head of Investment AI Modeling and Research

BlackRock

Giuseppe Russo

Giuseppe Russo

CEO & Co-Founder

EXVAi Research

Giuseppe Russo

Giuseppe Russo is the CEO and Co-Founder of EXVAi Research, an AI company based in Paris that develops systematic trading strategies for family offices and high-net-worth individuals. Before this, he worked as a quantitative researcher in the proprietary trading department of Société Générale, where he met his future business partners. 

He started his career at Bending Spoons in Milan, which is recognized as Europe's leading mobile app developer, where he was the first data scientist.

Winston Ma

Winston Ma

NYU Adjunct Professor and Partner

Dragon Global Family Office

Gene Reilly

Gene Reilly

CIO

Greenwich Quantitative Research

Gene Reilly

Gene Reilly is the Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Greenwich Quantitative Research LP. Gene has over thirty years of experience trading, investing, and managing risk across multiple products and geographies, with nineteen years’ experience in Asian financial markets.

As a career highlight, Gene was Partner and Head of Pan-Asian Equity Trading at Goldman Sachs and in that capacity developed a very successful Quantitative Trading business for GS. Additionaly, Gene was the Global Head of Quantitative Trading at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. He has always been at the forefront of the industry in quantitative investing, automated trading and algorithmic trading. Gene started his career trading at the Susquehanna Investment Group straight out of the Wharton School. Gene also ran a very profitable trading business in Japan leveraging automated trading for Deutsche Bank. Gene also founded and ran a standalone high frequency market making firm, Arxis Capital LLC.

Gene holds a Bachelor of Arts in History and a Bachelor of Science in Finance from the College and Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania respectively. Gene is also a CFA charter holder since 1994.

Kevin Chen

Kevin Chen

Chief Economist

Horizon Financial

Bartt Kellermann

Bartt Kellermann

CEO & Founder

Global Capital Acquisition

Bartt C. Kellermann

Bartt C. Kellermann is the Founder and CEO of Global Capital Acquisition. Global Capital Acquisition, founded in 2002, is a financial consulting firm assisting hedge funds in their marketing efforts. The firm also owns the Battle of the Quants events business which includes presentations, panel discussions and quantitative capital introduction meetings for quantitative based hedge fund strategies in North America, Europe and Asia.Mr Kellermann is a regular speaker at hedge fund conferences internationally and has appeared on MSNBC and Bloomberg TV reflecting on the current state of the hedge fund industry. Earlier in his career Mr. Kellermann worked for IBM in the Media and Entertainment Division where he pioneered the development of innovative computer based products for the television industry. He has an MIBA (Masters in International Business Administration) from the Monterey Institute of International Studies and an undergraduate degree from Gettysburg College.

AGENDA

Battle of the Quants New York City 2024 Agenda

We hope you can join us in “Leading the Discussion in Quantitative Finance and Connecting the Humans Behind the Machines” 

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