FINforums

***Please note that registration is now closed***

FINforums, the events arm of FINalternatives, is holding its Annual Hedge Fund Summit on Sept. 20, 2012 at the Sentry Centers in New York City.

Industry experts will gather to speak candidly about the biggest issues affecting fund managers and investors today. Don’t miss out on this chance to meet and mingle with the top decision makers and investors in the alternative asset management industry. Download the agenda (PDF)

Keynote Address: Mark Yusko, Chairman and CIO, Morgan Creek Capital Management

Event Chairman: John Seigenthaler, Former NBC News Anchor and current CEO of Seigenthaler PR-NY

Topics covered include:

• The Global Macro Outlook for Q4 and Beyond
• Money Manager Insights (top fund managers tell us their investment ideas)
• Consultants Roundtable
• Regulatory and Compliance Updates
• Successful Capital Raising
• Fund Of Funds Roundtable
• Manager/Investor Meetings
• and more

 

Speakers Include:

• Mitch Ackles, Hedge Fund PR
• Justin Baer, The Wall Street Journal
• Q Belk, Cambridge Associates
• Jim Conklin, QFS Asset Management
• Ron Geffner, Sadis and Goldberg
• Alan Glatt, Protocol Capital Management
• Marne Gorman, Cliffwater
• Warren Hatch, Catalpa Capital Advisors
• Richard Heller, Thompson Hine
• Lou Kahl, Aon Hewitt
• Gary Kaminsky, Rothstein Kass
• David Katz, Larch Lane Advisors
• Mark Kenyon, Kstone Partners
• Eric Lazear, FQS Capital Partners
• George Lucaci, Direct Access Partners
• Scott MacDonald, MC Asset Management
• Michael Marcus, Prelude Capital
• Christian Menegatti, Roubini Global Economics
• Rachel Minard, Minard Capital
• Sal Naro, Coherence Capital Partners
• Anne-Gaelle Pouille, PAAMCO
• Gary Purwin, Grassi & Co.
• John Seigenthaler, Seigenthaler PR-NY
• Neil Sheth, NEPC
• Don Steinbrugge, Agecroft Partners
• Daniel Sternoff, Medley Global Advisors
• Josh Weintraub, Cerberus Capital
• Mark Yusko, Morgan Creek Capital Management
• More speakers to be listed shortly

   

New This Year — Manager-Investor Meetings: A select number of hedge fund managers will have the opportunity to meet with potential investors in prearranged meetings. Please note that these meetings are now full.

If you are interested in sponsoring the FINforums Annual Hedge Fund Summit, please contact Diane Sacken at +1 (917) 421-9053.

­­­­FINforums and its parent company, FINalternatives, are strictly conference and news outlets, respectively. FINforums and FINalternatives do not endorse any specific fund managers, nor do they collect fees should a manager and investor meet at one of their events and subsequently decide to do business.

 View the list of speakers, their bios and the agenda
from the 2011 FINforums Annual Hedge Fund Summit

Agenda

8:00 – 8:45	Check-in and Continental Breakfast
8:45 – 9:15	Opening Keynote
9:20 – 10:00	The Big Picture: The Global Macro Outlook for Q4 And Beyond -- Economists and global macro managers discuss the global credit crisis and predict its short-term and long-term impact on both the U.S. and world economies.
10:00 – 10:30	Coffee Break
10:30 – 11:00	Managing The Media: Hedge Fund In The Headlines Award winning former NBC Anchorman John Seigenthaler leads a discussion with journalists and marketing execs about how hedge funds should interact with the media, preferably before a headline crisis hits.
11:05 – 12:00	Best Ideas: Focus on Sectors and Strategies Find out where top hedge funds are putting their money. Seasoned veterans share their best investment ideas and tell us why they are so bullish/bearish on certain sectors and strategies.
12:00 – 1:05	Lunch
1:05 – 1:55	Best Practices for Fund Managers: Regulatory and Compliance Updates Lawyers and compliance experts discuss the newest rules and regulations affecting the fund management industry. They discuss operational best practices that funds should employ, even if they aren’t mandated by law.
2:00 – 2:50	Consultants Roundtable Investment management consultants from leading firms representing some of the top pension funds, foundations and endowments discuss how they make their investment decisions. They touch on when and how fund managers should approach them, as well as give advice on what managers should and should not do once then have landed a meeting.
2:50 – 3:20	Coffee Break
3:20 – 4:10	Successful Capital Raising Asset allocators and marketing professionals share their expert advice on the dos and don’ts of raising money and growing your hedge fund.
4:15 – 5:00	Fund of Funds Roundtable Executives from two fund of hedge funds and a hedge fund seeding firm discuss how they source their hedge fund investments (i.e. managers). They also talk about which strategies they are allocating to, which strategies they are avoiding, and why.
5:00 – 7:00	Cocktail Reception
	* Manager-Investor Meetings: Select managers present their funds to potential investors. These sessions will run throughout the day

Speaker Bios

Mark Yusko (Keynote)
Founder and CIO, Morgan Creek Capital Management

Mark Yusko is the Founder, CEO and chief investment officer of Morgan Creek Capital Management. Prior to forming Morgan Creek, Yusko was president, CIO and founder of UNC Management Company, the endowment investment office for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, from 1998 to 2004.

Throughout his tenure, he directly oversaw strategic and tactical asset allocation recommendations to the investment fund board, investment manager selection, manager performance evaluation, spending policy management and performance reporting. Total assets under management were $1.5 billion ($1.2 billion in endowment assets and $300 million in working capital). Until 1998, Yusko was the senior investment director for the University of Notre Dame Investment Office where he joined as the assistant investment officer in October of 1993. He worked with the CIO in all aspects of endowment management.

Yusko received his Bachelor of Science Degree, with Honors, in Biology and Chemistry from the University of Notre Dame and a Masters of Business Administration in Accounting and Finance from the University of Chicago. He is an advisory board member of a number of private capital partnerships and alternative investment programs and has served as a consultant on alternative investments to a select group of institutions.

Yusko is currently a Board member of the MCNC Endowment and The Weaver Foundation.

John Seigenthaler (Chairman)
CEO of Seigenthaler Public Relations-NY

John Seigenthaler, CEO of Seigenthaler Public Relations-NY, develops and manages strategic communications programs for his clients. His extensive background as an award winning network television journalist provides clients with a unique perspective. He specializes in crisis communications, reputation management, new media strategies and executive media training.

Seigenthaler spent more than a decade at the NBC television network as NBC News Special Correspondent and anchor of the top-rated “NBC Nightly News Weekend Edition.” He has won numerous awards including the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for a series on the civil rights movement, the Headliner Award and the TV News Award from the President’s Committee on the Disabled. Seigenthaler is a graduate of Duke University.

Mitch Ackles
Founder and CEO, Hedge Fund PR
President, The Hedge Fund Association

Mitch Ackles is founder and CEO of Hedge Fund PR. With over 20 years experience, Ackles has executed winning campaigns for hedge funds, political and economic leaders, service providers, luminaries, conference organizers, charitable organizations and local, national and global hedge fund groups.

Before founding Hedge Fund PR in 2005, Ackles was marketing director for vFinance, VP of hedge fund capital introduction for Global Partners Group and worldwide marketing manager for Dow Jones TradeStation.

Ackles is the president of the non-profit trade group the Hedge Fund Association, and he also serves as the primary media contact for Hedge Funds Care, a global charitable organization which raises funds for programs that work to prevent and treat child abuse.

Justin Baer
Investing Editor, The Wall Street Journal

As Investing Editor for The Wall Street Journal, Justin Baer is responsible for the newspaper’s coverage of subjects ranging from hedge funds and public pensions to life insurers and stock exchanges.

Before joining the Journal in 2011, he was the Wall Street correspondent for the Financial Times. In his four years with the global newspaper, Baer wrote extensively about the world’s largest banks, as well as airlines, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, and industrial conglomerates such as General Electric Co.

At Bloomberg News, where Baer worked from 1999 until 2007, his beats included banking, mergers and acquisitions, telecommunications and the stock market. His work has appeared in Bloomberg Markets magazine. He has also served as an award-winning reporter for Journal Gazette, in Fort Wayne, Ind.

Baer earned a bachelor’s degree from Syracuse University, and master’s from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

Samuel E. “Q” Belk IV
Director of Diversifying Investments, Cambridge Associates

“Q” Belk serves as Director of Diversifying Investments at investment consultant Cambridge Associates. Before joining Cambridge in 2011, Belk was a Managing Director at the Dartmouth College Investment Office, where he was responsible for hedge fund and distressed portfolios and private equity. Prior to joining Dartmouth in 2008, he was a Managing Director at Lehman Brothers Japan, where he served on the Asia risk management committee and headed a pan-Asia group focused on hedge funds, sovereign wealth funds and Asian fixed income, foreign exchange and futures products.

At Cambridge Associates, Belk evaluates investment opportunities and oversees a team of research consultants and analysts covering investment managers in diversifying asset classes and strategies. They include high-yield credit, bank debt, GTAA, active currency, lower-beta hedge funds, global macro and tail risk hedging.

Before Belk started at Lehman Brothers Japan in 2000, he was Managing Director, Absolute Return, at Stanford Management Company, which manages Stanford University’s endowment. He had previously been at Credit Suisse First Boston in San Francisco, New Zealand, Sydney and Tokyo. He holds a BA from Dartmouth College and an MBA from Stanford Business School.

Jim Conklin, PhD
Managing Director, Director of Research
QFS Asset Management

Dr. Jim Conklin joined QFS in 2011 and manages research in collaboration with Dr. Sanford Grossman. Prior to joining QFS, Dr. Conklin was Head of Investment Research at FX Concepts and member of the Management Committee there. He was a Portfolio Manager at Fortress Investments in the Liquid Markets group, where he ran a quant-macro portfolio and headed an 8-person quant investment team.

With 14 years of investment experience, Dr. Conklin has worked as a quant-trader and strategist in FX volatility trading, currencies, commodities, fixed income relative value, and equity long-short at various institutions.

A native of Northern California, Dr. Conklin has an A.B. in Economics from Princeton University (1986) and a PhD in Economics from Stanford University (1993). He held faculty positions at the University of Texas and the University of Madrid Carlos III prior to entering the field of finance. He has scholarly publications in the Journal of Political Economy and Econometrica.

Ron Geffner
Partner, Sadis & Goldberg

Ron S. Geffner is a member of the firm’s Executive Committee and also oversees the Financial Services Group. He regularly structures, organizes and counsels private investment vehicles, investment advisory organizations, broker-dealers, commodity pool operators and other investment fiduciaries. Geffner also routinely counsels clients in connection with regulatory investigations and actions. His broad background with federal and state securities laws and the rules, regulations and customary practices of the SEC, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Commodities Futures Trading Commission and various other regulatory bodies enables him to provide strategic guidance to a diverse clientele. He provides legal services to hundreds of hedge funds, private equity funds and venture capital funds organized in the United States and offshore.

Geffner began his legal career with the SEC, where he investigated and prosecuted violations of the federal securities laws with an emphasis on enforcement in connection with violations of the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 and the Investment Company Act of 1940. He also assisted federal and state criminal agencies, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Attorney General’s Office, in their investigations of possible criminal violations of federal and state securities laws.

Geffner is often interviewed as a legal expert in the securities industry. He has been interviewed on Fox News, CBS Morning Show, CBS Evening News with Dan Rather, Squawk Box, Power Lunch and Closing Bell on CNBC, British Broadcasting Channel and Bloomberg Radio. He is regularly quoted in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News, Barron’s, Barron’s Online, Reuters, Dow Jones, Financial Times, New York Newsday, London Daily News, TheStreet.com, Private Equity Week and other national and international publications.

Alan Glatt
Managing Partner, Protocol Capital Management

Alan Glatt is the managing partner of Protocol Capital Management. Protocol is a bespoke capital placement and consulting firm. Prior to establishing Protocol, Glatt was a partner at Alpha Equity Management (“AEM”), a quantitative hedge fund firm that was a pioneer of the 130/30 investment discipline. In early 2008, Trusco Capital Management, the $75 billion dollar asset management division of SunTrust Bank, purchased a significant minority interest in the firm.

With over 25 years of experience in financial services, Glatt began his career with Smith Barney Harris, Upham, in the institutional sales area. He subsequently worked as a vice president in the Institutional and Individual Service Group at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette. In 1991, he joined Morgan Stanley in the Private Client Group and left as a principal of the firm in 2002. In late 2002, he joined Mariner Investment Group as president of Mariner Wealth Management.

Glatt is on the Board of Trustees of the Southampton Hospital Foundation and is a board member and past Treasurer of New York’s Henry Street Settlement as well as a longtime member of the Steering Committee of the Henry Street Armory Art Show.

Marne Gorman
Managing Director, Cliffwater

Marne Gorman is a Managing Director of Cliffwater LLC in our New York office and a member of our hedge fund research team.

Prior to joining Cliffwater in 2009, Gorman was a Principal in the Investment Group at Khronos LLC where she was responsible for all aspects of the hedge fund research process. Previous experience includes working in the Investment Banking Division at Goldman Sachs.

She earned a BA in Business Administration with high distinction from the University of Michigan.

Warren Hatch
Partner, Chief Investment Strategist, Catalpa Capital Advisors

Warren Hatch is a Partner and the chief investment strategist at Catalpa Capital Advisors, and has 14 years of industry experience. Previously, he was an investment strategist on the Global Strategy team at Morgan Stanley Investment Management and a portfolio manager for the Allocator and Global Thematic Opportunities funds.

Prior to joining Morgan Stanley in 1999, Warren was a research associate at Queen Elizabeth House in Oxford, England. Warren received a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Oxford, an M.A. in Russian and International Policy Studies from Monterey Institute of International Studies, and a B.A. in History from the University of Utah. He holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.

Warren is the author of Catalpa’s syndicated Macro Insights and a contributor to Bloomberg News and Business Insider.

Catalpa Capital Advisors is an independent investment advisory firm that specializes in asset management and macroeconomic research. The firm focuses exclusively on the identification and analysis of discontinuous change and its impact on the global economy and financial markets.

Richard Heller
Partner, Thompson Hine

Richard S. Heller is a partner in the firm’s Corporate Transactions & Securities practice group. He focuses his practice on securities matters. Heller’s experience includes the formation of private offerings including hedge fund offering documents and exhibits, and related securities filings; forming and registering broker-dealers with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) as well as ongoing compliance advice for broker-dealers.

Heller is a director in the Hedge Fund Association, where he serves as the HFA Government Regulatory Committee Chair.

Louis R. Kahl
Associate Partner, Hewitt EnnisKnupp

As a senior researcher with Hewitt EnnisKnupp’s Liquid Alternative group, Kahl is responsible for leadership efforts involving hedge fund and hedge fund-of-fund manager research. Kahl’s role includes working in coordination with Hewitt EnnisKnupp’s non-U.S. practices in sourcing, evaluating, conducting due diligence, and monitoring hedge funds on a global basis. Additional responsibilities include working with clients on education involving hedge funds, as well as advising clients on structure, selection, and implementation of hedge funds into their portfolios.

Prior to Hewitt EnnisKnupp, Kahl was a Director with Cliffwater LLC where he was responsible for hedge fund manager research across strategies. As part of his manager research responsibilities, he worked with the consulting staff on behalf of institutional investors, including public and corporate pension plans, and endowments and foundations on hedge fund allocations. Before Cliffwater LLC, Kahl was with Pfizer Inc.’s pension group, where he was responsible for multiple asset classes, including global equities and alternative investments for the U.S., select international pension plans, and the corporate foundation, which represented more than $20 billion in assets.

Kahl earned his BA in Economics from Villanova University and his MBA in Finance from Pennsylvania State University. Additionally, he holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation, and is a member of the CFA Institute and the New York Society of Security Analysts. Kahl joined Hewitt in July of 2009 and is based in New York.

Gary Kaminsky
Principal, Rothstein Kass

Gary S. Kaminsky is a principal with the Business Advisory Services Group at Rothstein Kass. He has over 25 years of experience in the securities industry, particularly with issues relating to the legal/compliance and operational infrastructure of alternative investment companies. Kaminsky works with investment management clients, including hedge funds, private equity funds and broker-dealers, to advise on regulatory/compliance issues and conduct independent reviews of operations and optimize reporting processes. He also assists in the development and maintenance of effective enterprise risk management systems that facilitate compliance with existing and new regulatory guidelines.

Kaminsky began his career in the financial services sector as senior counsel in the Enforcement Division of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Subsequently, he was founder and CEO of GSK Consulting, LLC, where he provided expertise in the establishment, maintenance and ongoing oversight of fund management infrastructure and systems. He has also served as co-founder, principal, COO, CCO and general counsel for two hedge fund management companies, Rose Glen Capital Group, Inc. and Rock Hill Partners, LLC. Prior to launching those funds, he was director of compliance and counsel for Susquehanna Investment Group, after having served as a white collar defense and regulatory attorney at Dechert, Price & Rhoads.

Kaminsky received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and his Juris Doctor from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

David Katz
President and Chief Operating Officer, Larch Lane Advisors

David Katz joined Larch Lane Advisors in 2011. Katz was previously a co-founder and partner of Rocaton Investment Advisors, an institutional investment consulting firm with $300 billion of assets under advisement. Prior to founding Rocaton, Katz was a managing director at BARRA RogersCasey, also an institutional investment consulting firm.

He began his career in 1989 at Goldman Sachs. Katz has more than 20 years of business development, sales, marketing, client service, operations, and management experience.

Katz received his B.A from the University of Pennsylvania and his M.B.A. from New York University’s Stern School of Business. He currently serves on the Board of Overseers of the Annenberg Center of the University of Pennsylvania and as member of the Investment Committee of the Westport (CT) Public Library Endowment.

Mark Kenyon
Chairman and CIO, KStone Partners

Mark J. Kenyon is the founder, chairman and chief investment officer of KStone Partners LLC. Kenyon is a well-recognized professional in the alternative asset management area and has experience in all investment and operational aspects of managing multi-manager funds. He has developed a number of sophisticated approaches for evaluating and monitoring investment performance and the measurement of risks associated with alternative investing. He has been the founder and lead executive at two highly successful and well-recognized fund of hedge fund enterprises.

In 1998, he founded UBP Asset Management (“UBPAM”) where he took the firm from startup to $15 billion in assets under management. At the end of 2007, Mr. Kenyon sold his minority interest in UBPAM back to its’ Swiss-based parent company.

After functioning as the chief financial officer at Blackstone for several years in the late 1980’s, Kenyon co-founded Blackstone Alternative Asset Management (“BAAM”) in 1992. He was instrumental in the creation and build-out of the fund of funds platform at Blackstone with $1 billion in assets under management before his departure in 1997. He was a managing director at Blackstone and was responsible for all investment and operational aspects of the BAAM’s business. Prior to his time at Blackstone, Kenyon worked at Kidder Peabody, JP Morgan, Refco and started his career at Price Waterhouse in 1976.

Kenyon received his B.S. degree from the University of California at Berkeley and his M.B.A. from the University of San Francisco. Kenyon has been board director at Kingdon Asset Management LLC (a hedge fund), board director at Modern Capital LLC (a hedge fund) and a senior Advisor to Protégé Partners (a fund of hedge funds).

Eric Lazear
Head of Operational Due Diligence, FQS Capital Partners

Eric S. Lazear is Head of Operational Due Diligence for FQS Capital Partners, which is a global fund of funds founded by former Renaissance Technologies managing director Dr. Robert J Frey. FQS takes a scientific approach to hedge fund investing, combining quantitative and qualitative investment techniques.

Prior to joining FQS, Lazear launched the operational risk due diligence practice as a director for Duff and Phelps, an independent provider of financial advisory and investment banking services. Lazear was responsible for managing a team that provided independent third party assessments of hedge fund manager’s operating policies and procedures to an array of investors allocating to alternatives.

Prior to Duff and Phelps, Lazear was head of operational due diligence for FIM, responsible for assessing the operational and business risk of hedge fund managers globally. Prior to FIM, he was head of operational risk with IAM (International Asset Management) in a similar role. Lazear joined IAM from JPMorgan Chase where he was AVP within the J.P. Morgan Performance Measurement, Analytics & Consulting Group between 1998 and 2005, specialising in performance analytics and manager searches.

Lazear is a member of the board of directors for the Hedge Fund Business Operations Association. He holds a BBA from Hofstra University (1992), and an MBA from Baruch College (2001).

George Lucaci
Senior Managing Director, Direct Access Partners

George Lucaci is the senior managing director responsible for Direct Access Partners’ Capital Alternatives Group. For a decade, Lucaci has been a successful capital raiser for a wide variety of specialized strategies in both fixed income and equities. He works in consultation with hedge fund managers to refine their strategies, focus their brand, and meet the needs of today’s institutional investors.

Both institutional investors and hedge fund managers alike benefit from his thirty years of experience profitably marketing new businesses and products on Wall Street in FX, Fixed Income and numerous derivative asset classes.

Prior to building the Capital Alternatives Group (formerly Channel Capital Group), Lucaci ran and developed Chemical Bank’s first FX Corporate Desk and headed up a proprietary FX Futures Arbitrage Trading Desk at Citibank. While at Citibank he was additionally part of the Mortgage Securitization Group that issued Citicorp’s first CMO.

Before Citibank, Lucaci was the national product and sales manager at Merrill Lynch’s Mortgage Backed Securities Group and ran U.S. Fixed Income Sales for Nomura Securities. In his career, he also managed risk at a multi-billion dollar FX and fixed income arbitrage hedge fund.

He received his BA from Duke University and his MBA from George Washington University.

Dr. Scott MacDonald
Senior Managing Director, MC Asset Management Holdings

Dr. Scott MacDonald is the head of research at MC Asset Management Holdings. Previously, Dr. MacDonald served as a senior managing director and head of research at Aladdin Capital Holdings.

Dr. MacDonald has an extensive background in credit and economics, having worked at the U.S. Comptroller of the Currency, Credit Suisse, and Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette. His experience covers banks, commodity companies, energy, sovereigns, and emerging markets. Historically, he was consistently rated as one of the top fixed income analysts by Institutional Investor. He is a commentator on PBS’s “The Nightly Business Report” and is often quoted in The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones and Reuters. Dr. MacDonald is widely published on international economic and financial issues with seventeen books to his credit. His most recent books, “When Small Countries Crash” and “The Rise of Asia in the 21st Century” were co-authored.

Dr. MacDonald received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Connecticut, an MA in Asian Studies from the University of London’s Oriental and African Studies Department, and a BA in Political Science (with Honors) and History from Trinity College. He is also currently an adjunct professor of Political Science at the University of Connecticut where he teaches European politics.

Michael Marcus
Director of Manager Research

Michael Marcus joined Prelude Capital in 2010 as the director of manager research. Previously, Marcus was a vice president and senior analyst in Deutsche Bank Asset Management’s ARS fund of funds group.

Prior to that, Marcus was a portfolio manager for Pergament Advisors, a New York based multi-family office. While at Pergament, Marcus managed both the fund of hedge funds portfolio as well as the firm’s fixed income separately managed accounts. Marcus began his career at Bear Stearns.

Marcus earned his BSBA from the John M. Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis and is a CFA Charter holder.

Christian Menegatti
Vice President and Head of Global Economic Research,
Roubini Global Economics

Christian Menegatti is a vice president and the head of global economic research at Roubini Global Economics. Christian’s areas of expertise are global macroeconomics, the U.S. economy, the U.S. housing sector, monetary policy and capital flows, and foreign-reserve accumulation and management. Previously, Christian spent three years as a research scholar at New York University’s department of economics.

Menegatti makes regular media appearances on CNBC, Forbes and Fox Business News, and is frequently quoted in the financial press. He has been an invited speaker at a variety of institutions including the Carnegie Council, Chatham House, Merrill Lynch and the Society for Quantitative Analysis. His research has been quoted by several scholars and institutions including the IMF and the European Commission. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Venice, Italy, and a master’s degree in economics and finance from Venice International University.

Rachel Minard
Founder and CEO, Minard Capital LLC

Rachel Minard is the Founder and CEO of Minard Capital LLC, a privately-owned, global institutional marketing firm headquartered in San Francisco, California with a satellite office in New York City. The firm offers outsourced institutional marketing and asset raising consulting services to hedge funds and fund of hedge funds around the world. The firm is not a broker/dealer nor a third-party marketer. The firm is paid by project, not on assets raised.

Before building Minard Capital, Rachel built and managed global institutional investment businesses for twenty years, including ten years building fund of hedge fund firms, notably Cadogan Management and Corbin Capital Partners. Having raised over $10 billion in her career, Rachel started her marketing career in 1991 after her company was hired to build the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

Rachel holds a B.A. in journalism with honors from Northeastern University with notable distinction as a Wesley W. Marple Distinguished Lecturer by the university. Rachel serves on several-high profile advisory boards, has been featured on CNBC and NPR, has won numerous industry awards for institutional marketing and serves on the Investment Sub-Committee of the Westover School Endowment. With the upcoming 2012 publication of her first book, Speaking in Thumbs: The Handbook of Empathy, Rachel Minard adds the title of “author” to her accomplished career.

Sal Naro
CEO and Managing Member, Coherence Capital Partners

Sal Naro, former co-managing partner of Sailfish Capital, a $4.8 billion asset management firm with approximately $2.5 billion in hedge fund assets, recently launched Coherence Capital Partners.

Naro was previously a shareholder in and vice chairman of Jefferson National Financial Corp. and chief executive officer of Jefferson National Asset Management. The creation of Coherence Capital Partners is the result of a management buyout of Jefferson National’s core insurance unit. He will now be chief executive officer of Coherence Capital Partners, which will be a registered investment adviser.

Founded in January 2012 by Naro, Vincent Mistretta and Greg Mackay, Coherence Capital manages traditional and non-traditional fixed income assets for a broad audience of investors. The firm seeks to exploit opportunities in bonds, loans, CDS, index and structured products across the fixed income markets.

Anne-Gaelle Pouille
Director, PAAMCO

Anne-Gaelle is a portfolio manager responsible for hedge fund selection and portfolio construction in PAAMCO’s event-driven strategies. She is also the Portfolio Manager for the firm’s Pacific Corporate Opportunities commingled fund. In addition, Anne-Gaelle is a member of the Portfolio Construction Group which decides top down portfolio strategy and construction across PAAMCO’s various portfolios. She is also accountable for certain institutional client relationships. Prior to joining PAAMCO in 2007, Anne-Gaelle was an investment banker based in Europe at UBS Investment Bank then DVB Capital, where she advised clients on M&A as well as capital raising transactions. Anne-Gaelle received her MBA from Harvard Business School, her MS (Distinction) from the London School of Economics, and her BS (First Class) from Imperial College London.

Gary Purwin
Audit Partner, Grassi & Co.

Gary R. Purwin is an Audit Partner at Grassi & Co. and has more than 25 years of experience in the accounting industry. His experience and expertise includes investment partnerships, broker dealers and other clients within the Financial Services Industry.

Purwin’s industry experience includes auditing investment partnerships, including private equity funds, as well as providing a host of services to registered investment advisors. He is also able to provide comprehensive solutions with regard to organizational structure and tax considerations to his clients operating in this complex area. In addition, Purwin holds a Series 27 license to be a financial operations principal (FINOP) with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). He is a FINOP for several broker dealers and is the engagement partner on many other broker dealer audits.

Purwin believes that his experience as being both a FINOP and an auditor of broker dealers allows him to better service his clients in this industry. He is also experienced in public company reporting and is the engagement partner in the firm’s public company audit practice. He is an active member in numerous accounting and industry trade organizations including the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and the New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants (NYSSCPA). He is the current chair of the NYSSCPA Stock Brokerage Committee, which he has been a member of for more than 10 years.

Purwin also serves on the Board of Directors of the Schools of the Sacred Heart in Yonkers. In addition to being a licensed CPA in New York, he is licensed in Connecticut as well. Purwin attended Stuyvesant High School and earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from Pace University.

Neil N. Sheth
Partner, Director of Hedge Fund Research, NEPC

Neil Sheth joined NEPC in 2009, and his investment experience dates back to 1993. Sheth is involved in NEPC’s hedge fund research and due diligence activities, in addition to providing consulting services for the non-traditional asset classes of various public, corporate, Taft-Hartley and endowment/foundation clients. In addition, he has experience evaluating and structuring private equity and real asset managers and portfolios. He is a member of the firm’s Alternative Asset Investment Committee.

Prior to joining NEPC, Sheth worked at Berkshire Partners, LLC in Boston where he was a founder and co-portfolio manager of a fundamentals-based, concentrated, global value hedge fund. Previously, he spent 11 years in the private equity industry. He was a partner at M/C Venture Partners and an associate at General Atlantic, LLC; firms that focus on the global technology, telecom and media industries. He began his career as an investment banking analyst at Morgan Stanley & Co.

Sheth received his B.S. with honors from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1993.

Don Steinbrugge
Chairman, Agecroft Partners

Don Steinbrugge is chairman of Agecroft Partners, a global consulting and third party marketing firm for hedge funds. Agecroft currently has six hedge fund clients whose organizations average over $1.5 billion in assets under management.

Steinbrugge has served as the head of sales for one of the world’s largest hedge fund organizations and institutional investment management firms. He was a founding principal of Andor Capital Management, which was formed when he and a number of his associates spun out of Pequot Capital Management. At Andor, he was head of sales, marketing, and client service and was a member of the firm’s operating committee. When he left Andor, the firm ranked as the second largest hedge fund firm in the world.

Prior to Pequot, Steinbrugge was a managing director and head of institutional sales for Merrill Lynch Investment Managers. Before that, Steinbrugge was head of institutional sales for NationsBank (now Bank of America Capital Management). He began his career in 1984 with The Travelers.

Steinbrugge is currently a member of the investment committees for The City of Richmond Retirement System, Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens Endowment Fund, The Science Museum of Virginia Endowment Fund and The Richmond Sports Backers Scholarship Fund. He is also a member of the board of directors of The Richmond Ballet, and the University of Richmond’s Robins School of Business.

Daniel Sternoff
Senior Managing Director, Medley Global Advisors

Daniel Sternoff is senior managing director of Medley Global Advisors, the leading provider of macro policy intelligence to the world’s top hedge funds, asset managers and banks. Sternoff directs MGA’s Emerging Markets and Global Energy practices, leading coverage of macroeconomic policy, monetary and currency affairs, oil and gas, natural resources and political and regulatory risk in East Asia, Latin America and CEEMEA.

Sternoff’s primary research focus is on China, oil markets and the geopolitics of energy.

Prior to joining MGA in 2002, Sternoff covered the Middle East as a Jerusalem-based correspondent with Reuters, and subsequently led coverage of global macroeconomics and international capital markets as director of Reuters’ Foreign Exchange Group in New York.

Sternoff received a Fulbright Scholarship after completing his M.A. in international relations and economics from the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He also holds an undergraduate degree from Duke University.

Josh Weintraub
Senior Managing Director
Cerberus Capital Management

Josh Weintraub joined Cerberus in 2008, where he currently serves as a Senior Managing Director and Head of Residential Mortgage Backed Securities.

Prior to joining Cerberus, he spent eight years, from 2000 to 2008, at Bear, Stearns & Co. From 2000 to 2007, Weintraub headed the Agency CMO, Mortgage Derivative and Pass Through businesses, and, in 2008, he co-headed U.S. Residential Mortgage, ABS, and CDO trading.

Prior to Bear Stearns, from 1999 to 2000, Weintraub managed Agency and Non-Agency CMO and derivative trading at Greenwich Capital. From 1993 to 1999, Weintraub traded whole loans and Agency and Non-Agency CMOs at Lehman Brothers.

In 1993, Weintraub graduated from the Management Development Program for Operations and Systems at Chase Manhattan Bank. Weintraub is a graduate of Lehigh University, 1991.

Register

***Registration is now closed. No walk-ins.***

Sponsor

• Logo/link on the FINforums Web site AND the FINalternatives Web site
• Logo/link on all e-mails and marketing materials for the event
• Inclusion of your firm’s marketing materials in handouts
• Name included in pre-conference press release
• Tabletop exhibit and signage at the event
• List of attendees (pre and post event)
• Two or more attendees
• Banner ad in FINalternatives Daily for 1 week

For sponsorship opportunities, please call Diane Sacken at (917) 421-9053 or send her an e-mail at d.sacken@jamesgelliott.com