Keynote | DeFi: Opportunities and Risks
Campbell R. Harvey
Professor of Finance, Duke University
Professor of Finance, Duke University
Campbell R. Harvey is a Professor of Finance at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He served as President of the American Finance Association in 2016 and as Editor of the Journal of Finance from 2006 to 2012. Harvey has received nine Graham and Dodd Awards/Scrolls for excellence in financial writing from the CFA Institute, including in 2021. He is the recipient of the best paper award in the Journal of Portfolio Management in 2015, 2016, and 2021. The recent award recognized his paper on inflation risk.
Over the past seven years, Professor Harvey has taught Innovation and Cryptoventures which focuses on decentralized finance and blockchain technology. His book DeFi and the Future of Finance was published in 2021 by John Wiley and Sons. He just launched on Coursera a four-course specialization under the same name.
Harvey serves as the Investment Strategy Advisor to Man Group PLC, the world’s largest, publicly listed, global hedge fund provider. He is also a Partner and Senior Advisor to Research Affiliates, LLP, which oversees more than $180 billion in investment products.
Fireside Chat | Crypto, Macro, and Geopolitics
Marko Papic
Partner & Chief Strategist, Clocktower Group
Partner & Chief Strategist, Clocktower Group
Marko is a Partner and Chief Strategist at Clocktower Group, an alternative investment asset management firm based in Santa Monica, California. He leads the firm’s Strategy Team, providing bespoke research to clients and partners on geopolitics, macroeconomics, and markets.
Prior to joining the firm, Marko founded BCA Research’s Geopolitical Strategy practice (GPS) in 2012, the financial industry’s first dedicated political analysis investment strategy. The GPS service generated geopolitical alpha by identifying gaps between the market’s political expectations and the firm’s forecasts. Marko was a Senior Vice President and the firm’s Chief Geopolitical Strategist.
Marko began his career as a Senior Analyst at Stratfor, a global intelligence agency where he contributed to the firm’s global geopolitical strategy as well as its analyst recruitment and training program. In his academic work, he helped create the Center for European Union Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Marko holds an MA in Political Science from the University of Texas at Austin and an MA from the University of British Columbia.
He is the author of Geopolitical Alpha: An Investment Framework for Predicting the Future, a book that introduces his constraints-based framework to investors.
Panel | Expanding the Remit to Crypto Strategies
There's no denying that more and more allocators are investing in digital assets, but how, and who are they? If you find yourself on the sidelines bullishly envious or bearishly critical, you owe it to yourself, and your managed assets, to consider the experiences from allocators currently investing in the crypto space. Luckily, we have lined up for this panel, institutional investors who have gone through the process and education needed to build the necessary framework required to invest in this space. Hear firsthand why some of your peers have decided to take the leap.
Panelists
Partner, President, Thalēs
Edouard Robbes is a Partner at Thalēs where he leads the firm's manager sourcing, capital introduction, and capital raising efforts. Before Thalēs, Edouard held a similar position at Société Générale in New York. Prior to this, he was a hedge fund analyst and portfolio manager at AXA Investment Managers and began his career in 2002 as a hedge fund analyst at SG Asset Management. Edouard received a B.S. in Economics and a M.S. in Finance from Université Paris-Dauphine, France.
Head of Systematic Macro Trading, Walleye Capital LLC
Anuraj Dua joined Walleye in January 2021 as Managing Director and Head of Systematic Macro Trading. He is building out a trading business focused on medium-frequency systematics strategies involving liquid futures and FX instruments. His role spans business development, infrastructure creation, capital allocation, and risk management for the strategies in his portfolio.
Prior to joining Walleye, Mr. Dua was the Chief Investment Officer for Asset Management at GTS, which he joined in 2015. He led their portfolio allocation, risk management, new alpha development, and sourcing efforts. He was also heavily involved with fundraising and business development. Prior to joining GTS, he worked at Barclays from 2008 to 2014, where he was a Director and managed a $500mm portfolio of diversified cross-asset systematic strategies. He ran a team of traders and quants focused on developing and executing new alpha strategies in the FX, rates, and equities markets. Prior to joining Barclays, he was an Associate at Lehman Brothers from 2007 to 2008.
Mr. Dua graduated with a Master’s of Engineering degree with a concentration in Financial Engineering and Finance from Cornell University in 2007 and a Bachelor’s of Science degree, summa cum laude, from Cornell University in 2006.
Director, Investments, Boothbay Fund Management LLC
Justin Joo is the Head of Digital Asset Strategies at Boothbay and is responsible for investment due diligence for digital assets as well as equity strategies. Mr. Joo joined Boothbay in June 2019 and is heavily involved in manager sourcing and evaluation, portfolio management and construction, and risk management.
Mr. Joo was previously at EnTrustPermal, a $20 billion alternative asset manager, as a Senior Analyst covering long/short equity, merger arbitrage and special situation equity strategies. Prior to that, he was at Morgan Stanley and Cambridge Associates.
Mr. Joo graduated from Boston College with a B.A. in Economics and Psychology. Mr. Joo is a CFA and CAIA Charterholder.
Head of Global Macro, K2 Advisors
Thomas Finnerty is the Head of Global Macro on the Investment Management (IM) team, overseeing the firm's investments in discretionary and systematic macro strategies.
Mr. Finnerty has been with K2 Advisors since November 2009, initially focused on credit, relative value and event driven strategies and subsequently across multiple other hedge fund strategies. He relocated to the firm's London office in 2013 to cover managers in the region across hedge fund strategies and was subsequently named Head of Global Macro in 2019. Mr. Finnerty relocated back to the United States in 2022.
Prior to joining K2, Mr. Finnerty worked as an investment associate for Chapin Hill Advisors, a private wealth manager, from 2008 to 2009. Before that, he was a middle office trade analyst at BGC Partners, Cantor Fitzgerald's interdealer broker-dealer, until mid-2008.
Mr. Finnerty received a Master of Arts degree in Economics from Fordham University's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and graduated cum laude from Fordham University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics.
Panel | Institutionalizing Crypto Assets
While more and more institutional investors begin allocating to crypto hedge funds, many more remain on the sidelines due to a fear of the unknown and the perceived risks involved. But, for how much longer can institutions remain undecided on an asset capable of causing such a paradigm shift? Join our crypto market participants in unmasking the institutional framework required to invest and hold digital assets.
Panelists
Managing Director, Thalēs
David Modiano is a Managing Director of Capital Strategies at Thalēs Capital Partners. Most recently, David was a Partner and Head of Business Development at Mill Hill Capital, a New York-based credit hedge fund launched in 2016. Prior to that, David spent ten years sourcing, seeding, onboarding and growing early-stage hedge funds as second in command of the seeding team at Investcorp and Lyxor Asset Management. During his time at Investcorp and Lyxor Asset Management, David has personally reviewed, met with or performed in-depth diligence on nearly 1,500 hedge fund managers as a senior investment professional. David negotiated and closed sixteen hedge fund seed deals and drove manager growth.
Special Counsel and Chair, Financial Markets and Regulation, Katten
Gary DeWaal focuses his practice on financial services regulatory matters. He counsels clients on the application of evolving regulatory requirements to existing businesses and structuring more effective compliance programs, as well as assisting in defending and resolving regulatory disciplinary actions and enforcement matters. Gary also advises buy-side and sell-side clients, as well as trading facilities and clearing houses, on the developing laws and regulations related to cryptocurrencies and digital tokens.
Previously, Gary was a Senior Managing Director and group general counsel for Newedge, where he oversaw the worldwide Legal, Compliance, Financial Crimes Prevention (including AML) and Regulatory Developments departments. He also worked for the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission's Division of Enforcement in New York. For several years, Gary taught a course in derivatives regulation as an adjunct professor at Brooklyn Law School. He currently serves as a practitioner, faculty and mentor for the State University of New York Buffalo Law School’s New York City Program on Finance & Law.
Co-Head, perfORM Due Diligence Services Limited
James is the co-founder and Director of perfORM Due Diligence Services Ltd (“PDDS”). James has spent 23 years as an allocator in Alternatives (hedge funds, private markets and crypto funds) responsible for operational due diligence on investment managers and service providers including administrators, crypto exchanges, crypto custodians and digital prime brokers. PDDS was established in 2019 and is now an award winning provider of due diligence services with an expansive strategy coverage in the alternatives space including crypto.
James is the former Global Head of ODD at Barclays Wealth, where he was responsible for developing and leading operational risk assessments across the bank’s retail and non-retail investment product offerings. Prior to Barclays, he was the Head of ODD for Liberty Ermitage Group, where he vetoed an investment in Madoff in 2008 preventing significant losses and reputational damage to the firm and its clients.
James has a BSc degree from Loughborough University and is a Chartered Certified Accountant.
CEO, Co-Founder, Fireblocks
Michael is the CEO and co-founder of Fireblocks, a secure digital asset infrastructure company.
Prior to Fireblocks, he co-founded Lacoon Mobile Security, which was acquired by Check Point, and was then appointed the Head of Products, Mobile and Cloud Security for Check Point. Michael is a serial cybersecurity entrepreneur and investor. He is also a recognized industry speaker, delivering talks at RSA Conference, BlackHat and Infosec. Before his commercial endeavors, Michael pioneered the mobile security field in an elite military technological unit (8200), where he received the Israeli Presidential Excellency Honor for his contributions.
He holds a BSc in Computer Sciences and Physics from Ben-Gurion University, Israel.
Vadim Khramov
Founder and Chief Investment Officer, Edge Capital Investment Management LLC
Strategy: Opportunistic | Credit/Yield
Founder and Chief Investment Officer, Edge Capital Investment Management LLC
Vadim Khramov, Ph.D is Founder and CIO of Edge Capital Management, a global hedge fund specializing in digital assets with a focus on DeFi and venture capital. Prior to starting Edge Capital, he was a leading member of the investment team at a macro hedge fund, Trend Capital. Prior to that he led FI/FX strategy team at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in London and was Advisor to the Executive Director at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC.
Vadim has authored several academic publications in macroeconomics, and has been a frequent speaker and contributor at CNBC, CNN, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, and other financial media channels. Vadim holds a Ph.D in Economics from UCLA.
03:30 p.m. – 04:15 p.m.
Panel | Institutionalizing Crypto Assets
While more and more institutional investors begin allocating to crypto hedge funds, many more remain on the sidelines due to a fear of the unknown and the perceived risks involved. But, for how much longer can institutions remain undecided on an asset capable of causing such a paradigm shift? Join our crypto market participants in unmasking the institutional framework required to invest and hold digital assets.
Managing Director, Thalēs
David Modiano is a Managing Director of Capital Strategies at Thalēs Capital Partners. Most recently, David was a Partner and Head of Business Development at Mill Hill Capital, a New York-based credit hedge fund launched in 2016. Prior to that, David spent ten years sourcing, seeding, onboarding and growing early-stage hedge funds as second in command of the seeding team at Investcorp and Lyxor Asset Management. During his time at Investcorp and Lyxor Asset Management, David has personally reviewed, met with or performed in-depth diligence on nearly 1,500 hedge fund managers as a senior investment professional. David negotiated and closed sixteen hedge fund seed deals and drove manager growth.
Special Counsel and Chair, Financial Markets and Regulation, Katten
Gary DeWaal focuses his practice on financial services regulatory matters. He counsels clients on the application of evolving regulatory requirements to existing businesses and structuring more effective compliance programs, as well as assisting in defending and resolving regulatory disciplinary actions and enforcement matters. Gary also advises buy-side and sell-side clients, as well as trading facilities and clearing houses, on the developing laws and regulations related to cryptocurrencies and digital tokens.
Previously, Gary was a Senior Managing Director and group general counsel for Newedge, where he oversaw the worldwide Legal, Compliance, Financial Crimes Prevention (including AML) and Regulatory Developments departments. He also worked for the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission's Division of Enforcement in New York. For several years, Gary taught a course in derivatives regulation as an adjunct professor at Brooklyn Law School. He currently serves as a practitioner, faculty and mentor for the State University of New York Buffalo Law School’s New York City Program on Finance & Law.
Co-Head, perfORM Due Diligence Services Limited
James is the co-founder and Director of perfORM Due Diligence Services Ltd (“PDDS”). James has spent 23 years as an allocator in Alternatives (hedge funds, private markets and crypto funds) responsible for operational due diligence on investment managers and service providers including administrators, crypto exchanges, crypto custodians and digital prime brokers. PDDS was established in 2019 and is now an award winning provider of due diligence services with an expansive strategy coverage in the alternatives space including crypto.
James is the former Global Head of ODD at Barclays Wealth, where he was responsible for developing and leading operational risk assessments across the bank’s retail and non-retail investment product offerings. Prior to Barclays, he was the Head of ODD for Liberty Ermitage Group, where he vetoed an investment in Madoff in 2008 preventing significant losses and reputational damage to the firm and its clients.
James has a BSc degree from Loughborough University and is a Chartered Certified Accountant.
CEO, Co-Founder, Fireblocks
Michael is the CEO and co-founder of Fireblocks, a secure digital asset infrastructure company.
Prior to Fireblocks, he co-founded Lacoon Mobile Security, which was acquired by Check Point, and was then appointed the Head of Products, Mobile and Cloud Security for Check Point. Michael is a serial cybersecurity entrepreneur and investor. He is also a recognized industry speaker, delivering talks at RSA Conference, BlackHat and Infosec. Before his commercial endeavors, Michael pioneered the mobile security field in an elite military technological unit (8200), where he received the Israeli Presidential Excellency Honor for his contributions.
He holds a BSc in Computer Sciences and Physics from Ben-Gurion University, Israel.
05:15 p.m. – 06:00 p.m.
Keynote | DeFi: Opportunities and Risks
In DeFi, users interact as peers with algorithms or smart contracts rather than through traditional intermediaries such as banks, brokerages, or insurance companies. This new technology has the potential to transform finance given it solves key problems such as lack of inclusion, inefficiency, opacity, centralized control, and lack of interoperability. DeFi is also the foundation of Web3. Professor Harvey will detail some of the key opportunities as well as the most important risks.
Professor of Finance, Duke University
Campbell R. Harvey is a Professor of Finance at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He served as President of the American Finance Association in 2016 and as Editor of the Journal of Finance from 2006 to 2012. Harvey has received nine Graham and Dodd Awards/Scrolls for excellence in financial writing from the CFA Institute, including in 2021. He is the recipient of the best paper award in the Journal of Portfolio Management in 2015, 2016, and 2021. The recent award recognized his paper on inflation risk.
Over the past seven years, Professor Harvey has taught Innovation and Cryptoventures which focuses on decentralized finance and blockchain technology. His book DeFi and the Future of Finance was published in 2021 by John Wiley and Sons. He just launched on Coursera a four-course specialization under the same name.
Harvey serves as the Investment Strategy Advisor to Man Group PLC, the world’s largest, publicly listed, global hedge fund provider. He is also a Partner and Senior Advisor to Research Affiliates, LLP, which oversees more than $180 billion in investment products.
06:15 p.m. – 06:45 p.m.
Fireside Chat | Crypto, Macro, and Geopolitics
Join us for a fireside chat with Marko Papic, Chief Strategist at Clocktower Group, as we discuss how cryptocurrencies fit into the macro framework and the increasing role that digital assets play in geopolitics.
Partner, President, Thalēs
Edouard Robbes is a Partner at Thalēs where he leads the firm's manager sourcing, capital introduction, and capital raising efforts. Before Thalēs, Edouard held a similar position at Société Générale in New York. Prior to this, he was a hedge fund analyst and portfolio manager at AXA Investment Managers and began his career in 2002 as a hedge fund analyst at SG Asset Management. Edouard received a B.S. in Economics and a M.S. in Finance from Université Paris-Dauphine, France.
Partner & Chief Strategist, Clocktower Group
Marko is a Partner and Chief Strategist at Clocktower Group, an alternative investment asset management firm based in Santa Monica, California. He leads the firm’s Strategy Team, providing bespoke research to clients and partners on geopolitics, macroeconomics, and markets.
Prior to joining the firm, Marko founded BCA Research’s Geopolitical Strategy practice (GPS) in 2012, the financial industry’s first dedicated political analysis investment strategy. The GPS service generated geopolitical alpha by identifying gaps between the market’s political expectations and the firm’s forecasts. Marko was a Senior Vice President and the firm’s Chief Geopolitical Strategist.
Marko began his career as a Senior Analyst at Stratfor, a global intelligence agency where he contributed to the firm’s global geopolitical strategy as well as its analyst recruitment and training program. In his academic work, he helped create the Center for European Union Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Marko holds an MA in Political Science from the University of Texas at Austin and an MA from the University of British Columbia.
He is the author of Geopolitical Alpha: An Investment Framework for Predicting the Future, a book that introduces his constraints-based framework to investors.
07:45 p.m. – 08:30 p.m.
Panel | Expanding the Remit to Crypto Strategies
There's no denying that more and more allocators are investing in digital assets, but how, and who are they? If you find yourself on the sidelines bullishly envious or bearishly critical, you owe it to yourself, and your managed assets, to consider the experiences from allocators currently investing in the crypto space. Luckily, we have lined up for this panel, institutional investors who have gone through the process and education needed to build the necessary framework required to invest in this space. Hear firsthand why some of your peers have decided to take the leap.
Partner, President, Thalēs
Edouard Robbes is a Partner at Thalēs where he leads the firm's manager sourcing, capital introduction, and capital raising efforts. Before Thalēs, Edouard held a similar position at Société Générale in New York. Prior to this, he was a hedge fund analyst and portfolio manager at AXA Investment Managers and began his career in 2002 as a hedge fund analyst at SG Asset Management. Edouard received a B.S. in Economics and a M.S. in Finance from Université Paris-Dauphine, France.
Head of Systematic Macro Trading, Walleye Capital LLC
Anuraj Dua joined Walleye in January 2021 as Managing Director and Head of Systematic Macro Trading. He is building out a trading business focused on medium-frequency systematics strategies involving liquid futures and FX instruments. His role spans business development, infrastructure creation, capital allocation, and risk management for the strategies in his portfolio.
Prior to joining Walleye, Mr. Dua was the Chief Investment Officer for Asset Management at GTS, which he joined in 2015. He led their portfolio allocation, risk management, new alpha development, and sourcing efforts. He was also heavily involved with fundraising and business development. Prior to joining GTS, he worked at Barclays from 2008 to 2014, where he was a Director and managed a $500mm portfolio of diversified cross-asset systematic strategies. He ran a team of traders and quants focused on developing and executing new alpha strategies in the FX, rates, and equities markets. Prior to joining Barclays, he was an Associate at Lehman Brothers from 2007 to 2008.
Mr. Dua graduated with a Master’s of Engineering degree with a concentration in Financial Engineering and Finance from Cornell University in 2007 and a Bachelor’s of Science degree, summa cum laude, from Cornell University in 2006.
Director, Investments, Boothbay Fund Management LLC
Justin Joo is the Head of Digital Asset Strategies at Boothbay and is responsible for investment due diligence for digital assets as well as equity strategies. Mr. Joo joined Boothbay in June 2019 and is heavily involved in manager sourcing and evaluation, portfolio management and construction, and risk management.
Mr. Joo was previously at EnTrustPermal, a $20 billion alternative asset manager, as a Senior Analyst covering long/short equity, merger arbitrage and special situation equity strategies. Prior to that, he was at Morgan Stanley and Cambridge Associates.
Mr. Joo graduated from Boston College with a B.A. in Economics and Psychology. Mr. Joo is a CFA and CAIA Charterholder.
Head of Global Macro, K2 Advisors
Thomas Finnerty is the Head of Global Macro on the Investment Management (IM) team, overseeing the firm's investments in discretionary and systematic macro strategies.
Mr. Finnerty has been with K2 Advisors since November 2009, initially focused on credit, relative value and event driven strategies and subsequently across multiple other hedge fund strategies. He relocated to the firm's London office in 2013 to cover managers in the region across hedge fund strategies and was subsequently named Head of Global Macro in 2019. Mr. Finnerty relocated back to the United States in 2022.
Prior to joining K2, Mr. Finnerty worked as an investment associate for Chapin Hill Advisors, a private wealth manager, from 2008 to 2009. Before that, he was a middle office trade analyst at BGC Partners, Cantor Fitzgerald's interdealer broker-dealer, until mid-2008.
Mr. Finnerty received a Master of Arts degree in Economics from Fordham University's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and graduated cum laude from Fordham University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics.
08:45 p.m. – 09:15 p.m.
Edge Capital is an innovative alternative investment manager focused on digital assets, blockchain and DeFi markets. We seek to invest in digital assets that have substantial potential to expand boundaries of blockchain technology and exhibit compelling opportunities for investors. The Edge DeFi Fund strategy is a market-neutral yield farming strategy utilizing DeFi protocols. The Fund invests in: (1) stablecoin protocols, (2) non-stable coin protocols while hedging for directional risk, and (3) opportunistic market-neutral macro trades in cryptocurrencies.
Founder and Chief Investment Officer, Edge Capital Investment Management LLC
Vadim Khramov, Ph.D is Founder and CIO of Edge Capital Management, a global hedge fund specializing in digital assets with a focus on DeFi and venture capital. Prior to starting Edge Capital, he was a leading member of the investment team at a macro hedge fund, Trend Capital. Prior to that he led FI/FX strategy team at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in London and was Advisor to the Executive Director at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, DC.
Vadim has authored several academic publications in macroeconomics, and has been a frequent speaker and contributor at CNBC, CNN, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, and other financial media channels. Vadim holds a Ph.D in Economics from UCLA.