Speakers 2019

 

 

CEO Roundtable

 

Derek Dobson, Chief Executive Officer and Plan Manager, CAAT Pension Plan

Kim Shannon, President and Co-CIO, Sionna Investment Managers

 

Derek Dobson, Chief Executive Officer and Plan Manager, CAAT Pension Plan
He has more than 25 years of experience in the pension industry. In addition to being the CEO of one of Canada’s model pension plans, he serves as Co-Chair of the Canadian Public Pension Leadership Council (CPPLC), sits on the Board of Directors of the Association of Canadian Pension Management (ACPM), he is a contributor to the International Centre for Pension Management and is founding faculty of the Masters of Trust Management Standards (MTMS) of the International Federation of Employee Benefits and Pensions (IFEBP).
Derek is a featured speaker at pension conferences and you’ll see his articles in Plans and Trusts, Benefits Canada, HR Professional, HR Reporter and the ACPM Observer.
Derek is an Associate of the Canadian Institute of Actuaries (CIA) with a degree in mathematics from the University of Waterloo.

 

Kim Shannon, President and Co-CIO, Sionna Investment Managers
Kim founded Sionna in 2002 and has more than 35 years of industry experience. She is the president and co-chief investment officer at Sionna, and was previously chief investment officer and senior vice president at Merrill Lynch Investment Managers Canada. Kim serves as a board member with the Canadian Coalition for Good Governance and is the Chair of its Governance Committee. She is also on the board for the Brandes Institute, the Ontario Arts Foundation, United Corporation (a listed closed-end fund), a member of the C.D. Howe Institute’s National Council and the CFA Institute Board of Regents (she previously served as its chair). Kim is also a past president of the CFA Society Toronto. She was awarded Morningstar Fund Manager of the Year (2005), the RBC Canadian Woman Entrepreneur Award, the Women’s Executive Network’s Canada’s Most Powerful Women: Top 100 Award (2007, 2017), continuously listed as one of Profit Magazine’s Top 100 Female Entrepreneurs over the last several years and a recipient of the 2015 Rotman Women in Management Association Top 10 Awards (Entrepreneur Category).

 

Industry Experts (by lastname)

 

Juan Carlos Artigas, Director, Investment Research, World Gold Council

Pat Bolland, Media Consultant

Karl Cheong, Head of ETFs, Canada of FT Portfolios Canada Co.

Andrew Croll, Vice President & Director, Alternative Investments, TD Greystone Asset Management

Professor Raphael Douady, Former Frey Endowed Chair Professor, Stony Brooke University and Fellow of the Economic Centre of Sorbonne

Bobby Eng, Vice President, Head of SPDR ETFS Canada, State Street Global Advisors

Thomas Hassl, Senior Associate, Responsible Investment, BMO Global Asset Management

Professor Gordon Houlden, Director of the China Institute, Professor of Political Science, Adjunct Professor of the Alberta School of Business, University of Alberta

Ela Karahasanoglu, Visiting Researcher, Bodhi Research Group

Chris Lawless, Chief Economist, Investment Strategy & Risk, BCI

George Milling-Stanley, Vice President, Head of Gold Strategy, State Street Global Advisors

Millan Mulraine, Chief Economist, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan

Momtchil Pojarliev, Ph.D., Head of Currencies, BNP Paribas Asset Management

Tom Record, Head of Global Equities, Majedie Asset Management

William Robson, President and Chief Executive Officer, C.D. Howe Institute

Michael S. Rulle, Jr., Founder and CEO, MSR Investments, LLC

Blake Walker, Investment Board Member

 

 

Juan Carlos Artigas, Director, Investment Research, World Gold Council
Juan Carlos Artigas is the Director of Investment Research for the World Gold Council. His responsibilities include managing the global Investment Research team and providing oversight of research initiatives related to positioning gold as an integral part of investor portfolios. Juan Carlos has contributed significantly to reshaping World Gold Council’s approach to investment research through robust financial analysis and the introduction of ideas such as gold as a tail risk hedge which have helped further gold’s case among professional investors.
Juan Carlos previously worked for JPMorgan Securities, as a US and Emerging Markets fixed income strategist, where he oversaw the US cross-sector strategy first and the Latin American sovereign debt and Mexico local market strategy later. In this role, he developed Latin American sovereign-debt valuation frameworks and contributed to leading US and Emerging Markets strategy publications.
Juan Carlos holds a BS in Actuarial Sciences from ITAM (Mexico), and an MBA and MS in Statistics from the University of Chicago. He was also a candidate for Doctor of Philosophy in Econometrics and Statistics from the University of Chicago.

 

Pat Bolland, Media Consultant
Longtime business commentator Pat Bolland has been a business thought leader north and south of the border. Pat worked his way up in the investment industry from floor clerk on the Toronto Stock Exchange to VP with a top tier firm before moving into broadcasting. Pat’s been business editor at four major networks, currently Sun New Network on ‘AM Agenda’. He has parlayed his TV hosting skills into media training, corporate PR as well as hosting, moderating and webcasting for events and conferences. Not to mention a lot of lacrosse coaching. Despite all his business and sport acumen he’s best known as “the guy with the ‘stache”. Follow him at @patbolland.

 

Karl Cheong, Head of ETFs, Canada of FT Portfolios Canada Co.
Karl is an ETF pioneer who has been at the forefront of some of the industry’s recent change. Karl is responsible for setting the strategic direction for the region and leading a team of First Trust investment professionals delivering ETF solutions to investment advisors and portfolio managers and has organically raised over $1 billion in ETF assets in Canada since inception in 2013.
Previous to First Trust, Karl was the Head of Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) and Structured Product Development for Claymore Investments, one of the fastest growing asset management firms in Canada's history.
Karl provides insightful market commentary on a variety of topics including current events and industry trends as a regular guest on BNN, Bloomberg Canada and more recently Bloomberg. He has also been featured in a variety of publications such as The Financial Post, Globe & Mail, Reuters, Morningstar, Wealth Professional and The Investment Executive.
Mr. Cheong is bilingual, holds a Bachelor’s degree in Finance from McGill University and is a Charter Financial Analyst charterholder CFA®. Karl is also a member of CFA Institute and CFA Society Toronto.

 

Andrew Croll, Vice President & Director, Alternative Investments, TD Greystone Asset Management
Andrew is Vice President & Director, Alternative Investments at TD Greystone Asset Management, and is part of the Senior Management Team overseeing the Alternative Investments platform.
Andrew joined the Toronto office in early 2013. In his role, Andrew leads the Client Portfolio Management team responsible for maintaining in-depth knowledge of the firm’s alternative investment strategies. The Client Portfolio Management team also serves as a strategic liaison between the TD Greystone Alternative Investments Team and the rest of the firm.
Andrew actively works with clients and the investment consulting community to ensure they are well informed regarding TD Greystone’s alternative investments platform.
Prior to joining the firm, Andrew worked at Mercer Investments in Manager Research, where he was responsible for evaluating and recommending investment managers for Mercer’s institutional clients. Prior to that, he worked in the Investment Consulting practice at Aon Hewitt.
Andrew holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) from McMaster University and is also a CFA and CAIA charterholder.

 

Professor Raphael Douady, Former Frey Endowed Chair Professor, Stony Brooke University and Fellow of the Economic Centre of Sorbonne
Raphael Douady is a French mathematician and economist specializing in financial mathematics and chaos theory at the University of Paris I: Panthéon-Sorbonne. He formerly held the Frey Chair of quantitative finance at Stony Brook university, and was academic director of the French Laboratory of Excellence on Financial Regulation. He earned his PhD in Hamiltonian dynamics and has more than 20 years of experience in the financial industry. He has particular interest in researching portfolio risks, for which he has developed especially suited powerful nonlinear statistical models, and systemic risk. He founded fin tech firms Riskdata (risk management for the buyside) and Datacore (quantitative portfolio of ETFs). Douady is a member of the Praxis Club, a New York-based think tank advising the French government on its economic policy and other related topics and sits on the board of Friends of IHES, a foundation supporting the Institute des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques (the French brother of Princeton IAS). He is a former fellow of Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris and was awarded a gold medal at the International Mathematical Olympiads in 1977.

 

Bobby Eng, Vice President, Head of SPDR ETFS Canada, State Street Global Advisors
Bobby is a Vice President at State Street Global Advisors, Ltd and Head of SPDR ETF Business Development for Canada. Bobby is responsible for the distribution of SPDR ETFs to institutional investors throughout Canada including pension plans, endowments, foundations, insurance companies, investment consultants, asset managers and banks.
Prior to this role, Bobby was Senior Vice President and Head of Sales at First Trust Portfolios Canada responsible for overall sales and distribution.
He also spent 10 -years at Blackrock Asset Management, most recently as Director & Vice President, Head of National Accounts responsible for asset managers and brokerage senior executive relationships. Bobby was instrumental in the success of the iShares, Exchange Traded Funds business in Canada being responsible for sales and business development across Canada. Bobby also held sales and relationship management roles at Fidelity Investments and National Bank of Canada.
Bobby holds a Bachelor's degree in Finance from Concordia University and holds the Certified Investment Management Analyst (CIMA) designation from the Investment Management Consultant Association (IMCA).

 

Thomas Hassl, Senior Associate, Responsible Investment, BMO Global Asset Management
Thomas is an ESG specialist that joined BMO Global Asset Management (GAM) in 2016. He is primarily responsible for developing and enhancing BMO GAM`s integration suite, including portfolio risk reports, company profiles, carbon foot printing and industry reports. He is also involved in marketing BMO’s range of responsible investment products and managing client relationships in Germany and Italy. Thomas also has industry responsibility for the Industrials sector and supports BMO GAM`s climate research. Prior to joining BMO GAM, Thomas worked for the responsible investment research provider Sustainalytics, where he conducted quantitative and qualitative analysis on a variety of ESG-related themes. In addition, Thomas was also a member of the Sustainalytics` product innovation team, designated to extend and further develop the product offering of the company. Thomas holds a Master's degree in Banking and Finance from the University of Innsbruck as well as a Bachelor degree in Management and Economics. Thomas is a CFA Charter holder.

 

Professor Gordon Houlden, Director of the China Institute, Professor of Political Science, Adjunct Professor of the Alberta School of Business, University of Alberta
Gordon Houlden is the Director of the China Institute, Professor of Political Science and Adjunct Professor of the Alberta School of Business at the University of Alberta.
Professor Houlden joined the Canadian Foreign Service in 1976, serving in Ottawa and abroad. Twenty-two of his years in the Canadian Foreign Service were spent working on Chinese economic, trade and political affairs for the Government of Canada including five postings in China. He also served at Canadian Embassy in Havana and Warsaw, and at Canada National Defence College. His last assignment before joining UAlberta in 2008 was as Director General of the East Asian Bureau of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, responsible for Greater China, Japan, the Koreas and Mongolia.
Under Professor Houlden’s leadership, the China Institute has focused on contemporary China studies, with an emphasis on Canada’s trade, investment and energy linkages with the PRC, and Asian security issues.

 

Ela Karahasanoglu, Visiting Researcher, Bodhi Research Group
Ela Karahasanoglu is an independent Advisor to pension plans, family offices and other institutional investors globally providing portfolio construction, risk management, asset management and asset allocation advice, particularly in the absolute return/alternative investments space. Previously, Ela was a Managing Director, Multi-Asset Strategies at Investment Management Corporation of Ontario (IMCO), an entity established recently by the Ontario government to manage the assets of Ontario based non-corporate plans. IMCO currently oversees c.$60bn of assets across its first two clients, Ontario Pension Board (OPB) and Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB).
At IMCO, Ela oversaw the $8.5bn Multi-Asset Strategies portfolio, comprising risk parity and absolute return strategies, including hedge funds as well as non-hedge fund mandates. She also led the investment team that managed WSIB’s $35bn portfolio.
Prior to the transition of the management of WSIB’s assets and investment team to IMCO in July 2017, Ela had a similar role at WSIB.
Before joining WSIB in 2016, Ela was the Vice President of Currency and Asset Allocation team at CIBC Asset Management, responsible for currency management, asset allocation, and absolute return strategies. Before that, Ela was a Principal and Senior Manager Research Consultant in the Alternatives team within Mercer, covering a broad set of absolute return and hedge fund strategies, including currency, managed futures, commodities, global macro, multi-strategy, risk parity and multi-asset strategies.
Ela was previously the Head of Research and Trading for six years at a New York-based quantitative macro hedge fund and prior to that worked in the areas of credit derivatives and asset management at Merrill Lynch, New York. Ela started out her career as a currency and bond trader in Turkey. She also worked in Germany as a liaison between the European Union and the Turkish Ministry of Finance. Ela has over 20 years experience in the investment industry with over 13 years dedicated to research, trading and portfolio management in the absolute return and hedge fund space.
Ela is a frequent industry speaker with various publications and podcasts available online and she has recently won the well-respected Institutional Investor Hedge Fund Rising Star Award.
Ela holds a Master of Business Administration from Georgetown University. She has been a CFA charterholder since 2002 and a CAIA charterholder since 2010. Ela serves on CAIA’s Gender Diversity Advisory Board and is also the Co-Head of CAIA’s Toronto Chapter.

 

Chris Lawless, Chief Economist, Investment Strategy & Risk, BCI
Chris Lawless is chief economist at the British Columbia Investment Management Corporation, providing analysis and advice on economic and financial issues, and long-horizon investment strategy and risks.
With extensive experience analyzing policy and forecasting the British Columbia, Canadian and global economies, Chris has served as chief economist with the B.C. Ministry of Finance, with the Library of Parliament’s economic research service, and as an advisor to House of Commons and Senate committees.
Chris has an M.A. in economics from Carleton University in Ottawa, and holds the Certified Business Economist designation from the National Association for Business Economics.
Chris is a director and past-president of the Canadian Association for Business Economics, vice-president of the Pacific Northwest Regional Economic Conference, and a member of various boards, including the Border Policy Research Institute at Western Washington University and the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria.

 

George Milling-Stanley, Vice President, Head of Gold Strategy, State Street Global Advisors
George Milling-Stanley joined State Street Global Advisors as a Vice President and Head of Gold Strategy in November 2014. Before joining SSGA, George ran the independent consultancy George Milling-Stanley on Gold, LLC. He retired from the World Gold Council (WGC) in 2011 after a 15-year career there. Most recently at the WGC, he had been responsible for all programs involving central banks, governments, and regulatory authorities. Before that, he was a key member of the small team that pioneered the development of gold-backed Exchange Traded Funds.
His earlier career included six years on the precious metals trading desk of Lehman Brothers. Previously he worked for Consolidated Gold Fields in London, and before that spent 10 years as a reporter and columnist with the Financial Times. An acknowledged authority on all aspects of the gold business, George Milling-Stanley is a regular speaker at international conferences.

 

Millan Mulraine, Chief Economist, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan
Millan Mulraine joined Ontario Teachers' in 2016 after close to 10 years with TD Securities, most recently as their Deputy Chief Economist in New York where he was responsible for directing U.S. economic research and rates strategy. He leads the economics team and is responsible for designing and conducting macro-oriented research to inform the Fund's investment decisions.
Millan holds an undergraduate degree in Economics and Statistics from the University of the West Indies in Jamaica, a Masters in Economics from the University of Warwick in England and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Toronto.

 

Momtchil Pojarliev, Ph.D., Head of Currencies, BNP Paribas Asset Management
Momtchil is Head of the Currencies team at BNP Paribas Asset Management, where he is responsible for setting strategy for currency alpha, active hedging and overlay portfolios. He joined FFTW, a predecessor of BNP Paribas Asset Management, in 2013 and is based in New York.
Prior to his current position, Momtchil was Deputy Head of Currencies. Prior to joining us, he was a Director and Senior Portfolio Manager at Hathersage Capital Management and before that Head of Currencies for Hermes Fund Managers and Senior Portfolio Manager at Pictet Asset Management. He began his investment career at Invesco Asset Management, first as a Senior Economist and then as a Senior Portfolio Manager.
Momtchil has 17 years of investment experience. He holds an MSc in Finance from Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration, and a PhD in Financial Econometrics from University of Basel. He is a CFA Charterholder.
Momtchil has advised various asset management firms, including PIMCO and Goldman Sachs Asset Management, in the area of currency return analytics. In 2008, he coined the term “currency betas” to describe returns from generic currency investment strategies. He has published extensively in finance and investment journals, including the Journal of Portfolio Management and the Financial Analysts Journal. Most recently, Momtchil has co-edited the book The Role of Currency in Institutional Portfolios, published by Risk Books. He is a member of The Economic Club of New York and the Swiss Society for Financial Market Research. He recently served on the Editorial Board of the Financial Analysts Journal (2010-2016).

 

Tom Record, Head of Global Equities, Majedie Asset Management
Tom Record is a fund manager and analyst with 17 years’ investment experience in international equity markets. Tom is responsible for co-managing both the Global Equity and Global Focus funds. Before joining Majedie in 2014, Tom had been an Investment Manager at Baillie Gifford, where his team was responsible for managing institutional portfolios with combined international equity assets of $30bn. While at Baillie Gifford, he also managed a range of Global Emerging Market funds. Tom holds Master of Arts and Master of Natural Sciences degrees, specialising in Biochemistry, from Pembroke College, Cambridge. He is a CFA charter holder.

 

William Robson, President and Chief Executive Officer, C.D. Howe Institute
Bill Robson took office as President and CEO of the C.D. Howe Institute in July 2006, after serving as the Institute’s Senior Vice President since 2003 and Director of Research since 2000. He has written more than 230 monographs, articles, chapters and books on such subjects as government budgets, pensions, healthcare financing, inflation and currency issues. His work has won awards from the Policy Research Secretariat, the Canadian Economics Association, and the Donner Canadian Foundation. He is a Senior Fellow at Massey College and holds an ICD.D designation from the Institute of Corporate Directors. He is a member of the Panel of Senior Advisors to the Auditor General of Ontario and the Ifo World Economic Survey expert group, and a regular commentator on BNN/Bloomberg. Bill taught public finance and public policy at the University of Toronto from 2000 to 2003, and currently teaches a Master’s level course in public finance at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy.

 

Michael S. Rulle, Jr., Founder and CEO, MSR Investments, LLC
Michael S. Rulle, Jr. is the Founder and CEO of MSR Investments, LLC. Prior to founding MSR in 2008, Mr. Rulle was President of Graham Capital Management from 2002 to 2007. While at Graham, Mr. Rulle chaired the Investment and Risk Committee and was directly responsible for the firm’s discretionary portfolio managers. Additionally, as part of the senior management team, he also worked closely with the firm’s quantitative research group. During his tenure, Graham’s total assets under management grew from $1 billion to $8 billion. From 1999–2002, Michael was President and CIO of Hamilton Partners, an internal $400 million “hedge fund” for the Bermuda reinsurance company, Stockton Inc., where he managed convertible arbitrage, merger arbitrage, volatility arbitrage, bond arbitrage and equity market neutral portfolios. From 1994-1999, Mr. Rulle was CEO of CIBC World Markets Inc. where he was primarily responsible for global derivatives, securitization, asset management and the U.S. loan business. He co-chaired CIBC World Market’s Global Risk Committee and was a member of the global bank’s Credit Committee. Prior to joining CIBC, Michael ran the derivatives business at Lehman Brothers and rose to become a member of the Executive Committee. While at Lehman, Mr. Rulle was one of the original representatives to the International Swaps Dealer Association (ISDA). Mr. Rulle received a BA from Hobart College and an MBA from Columbia Business School, where he graduated first in his class.

 

Blake Walker, Investment Board Member
Blake Walker has over 40 years experience managing pension funds and instutional investments in both the public and private sectors. Formerly as Deputy City Treasurer at the City of Calgary, he oversaw the management of a $4.2 billion multi-asset investment portfolio. Previous investment leadership roles include Director Investments and Liability Management with Saskatchewan Finance; Vice President and Treasurer at Farm Credit Canada; and Vice President Investments at the Local Authorities Pension Plan in Alberta.
Over his career, Mr Walker has served on several pension and endowment fund boards of trustees and is currently a member of the City of Edmonton’s and The Calgary Foundation’s investment committees.
Blake holds a bachelor of Administration degree and is a CPA and CFA charter holder.

 
 

Please note that NID2019 is strictly closed to the media
and governed by the Chatham House Rule.

 
 

 


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