Max Abend is Counsel at PDT Partners. PDT Partners is a global investment manager that develops and deploys quantitative, model-driven strategies to trade liquid assets using proprietary technology. At PDT, Max is responsible for, among other things, evaluating legal and compliance risk in connection with alternative datasets. Additionally, Max is the leader of the procurement arm of the FISD Alternative Data Council, where he leads efforts to establish best practices and standards to promote the ethical use of data and bring improvements to the data procurement lifecycle. Max began his career as a litigator at Cravath, Swaine & Moore in New York.  Max holds a BBA in Management Information Systems from Western Connecticut State University and a JD from the New York University School of Law.

Mark joined Schroders in 2014 where he has formed the Data Insights Unit, a team of data scientists. The team focuses on using big data, analytics and machine learning for investment and research, to enhance and complement the existing skills of our fund managers and analysts, and to give Schroders an ‘information edge’ over competitors.

 After his degree in Experimental Psychology from Oxford and masters in Operational Research, in 1999 he was recruited by the McLaren F1 team as a Race Strategy Analyst. In 2002 he moved to Tesco, initially reporting on trade performance and analyzing customer spending behavior and then heading up the analytics team in the Site Location Planning function. In 2007 he became Chief Technology Officer of Talent Innovations, a start-up selling online 360 degree feedback software. In 2012 he joined Telefonica Digital, as Head of Analytics of Smart Steps, their ‘big data’ monetization division.

Hamid Benbrahim is Head of Data and AI at Thomas, the primary source for industrial sourcing in the U.S. and Canada. He is leading the transformation of Thomas Publishing into a data business, developing new financial indexes and alternative data products for the financial industry, streamlining data operations, and deploying advanced analytics capabilities for sales, marketing, and operations.

His experience in the financial industry spans over a decade advancing investment management and systemic risk strategy with big data, machine learning, and systems thinking. He held senior leadership roles at Natural Numerix as CEO, TD Ameritrade as Chief Data Scientist, and Fidelity as Head of Applied Complexity Research leading business areas in systemic risk and data-driven strategy. Earlier in his career, Hamid assumed a number of business operations and technology leadership roles in Telecom at Verizon in the US and Internationally.

He holds an MBA in Finance from Columbia Business School, and a Ph.D. in Engineering and Machine Learning from the University of New Hampshire. He is fluent in English, French, Spanish, Arabic, and Berber. He holds a patent on dynamic call routing and filed 9 patents in financial services and communications.

Dr. Benbrahim is a frequent speaker on a number of complex topics including financial risk, and market dynamics.

Jonathan Berkow is the Director of Data Science in the equities division at AllianceBernstein.  He leads the research and adoption of alternative data in equity research and systematic strategies.  Prior to joining AB in 2018, he was a systematic portfolio manager and researcher at the hedge funds Element Capital and Kepos Capital.  He started his career at Goldman Sachs Asset Management where he managed quantitative research and was a portfolio manager for global equity portfolios.  His research has spanned both equities and macro asset classes.  He graduated from MIT with a degree in economics.

Bernardo Bravo is a Senior Quantitative Researcher at Yewno Inc, leading the research and product development of the Yewno Finance Vertical.

Yewno is a company specialized in knowledge extraction from alternative data leveraging its Knowledge Graph, the finance vertical has developed multiple products including indexes, data feeds and a front end platform.

Bernardo has a MSc in Financial Engineering at Columbia University, has published award winning research on network based models for systemic risk and has extensive experience in data science methodologies for finance and risk.

Sondra is the editor of Neudata's news platform. She covers the alternative data strategies of asset managers and data vendors, including new fund launches, product launches, fundraising, dataset usage and pricing. She takes a particular focus on legal, compliance and tax issues that impact buyers and sellers of alternative data.

Prior to joining Neudata, Sondra covered the machine learning and alternative data strategies of institutional investors for EQDerivatives/machineByte and commercial real estate debt markets for Real Estate Finance & Investment across the US, UK and Europe.

Sondra holds BA degrees in Economics and Public Communications from American University in Washington, D.C.

Max Chapados has spent the past 10 years working with alternative data, leading and building various teams. Most recently he was Head of Sector Data Analysts at Surveyor Capital, one of three equity businesses at Citadel. Prior to joining Citadel in 2015, he worked at M Science and served as Vice President and Data Lead for Market Research. He joined M Science in 2010 as a Telecommunications Research Associate. Max received dual bachelor’s degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Finance from the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Chen is a Director at PanAgora. In this role, he is responsible for novel alpha research and
model development across PanAgora’s Equity strategies, and daily management of firm’s Dynamic
Equity portfolios. Dr. Chen’s current research interests are in the areas of machine
learning/alternative data, ESG, and China A. Previously, he was a Portfolio Manager on PanAgora’s
Stock Selector Equity team.

Prior to joining PanAgora, Dr. Chen was a Portfolio Manager at BlackRock’s Scientific Active Equity
(SAE) team, where he was responsible for portfolio management and research into alpha insights for
use across the entire SAE platform. While at SAE, Dr. Chen won “Signal of the Year” award for a
signal he researched and developed. Prior to BlackRock, Dr. Chen worked at Google where he was
a member of the team that managed Google’s fixed income investment portfolio and FX exposures.

Dr. Chen started his career at Morgan Stanley in New York where he traded and managed a
portfolio of exotic US rates derivatives. While at Morgan Stanley, Dr. Chen researched, developed
and patented a framework that allowed for pricing of derivatives based on two rate curves with
dynamic multiplicative spread, one of the first such models on the street.
Dr. Chen graduated from the University of Illinois in 2005 with a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer
Engineering. He has published in leading engineering and applied mathematics journals, and had
been invited to talk at numerous academic and industry conferences.

Don is the General Counsel of Neudata. In addition to managing the company's legal affairs, Don leads the review of the compliance and regulatory aspects of new datasets and assists with product development. He previously served as Legal Counsel at Davidson Kempner Capital Management LP, where he onboarded third party research providers and conducted related due diligence. Don started his career as a research analyst on a merger arbitrage trading desk.

Don holds a JD from the Fordham University School of Law and a BA from Washington University in St. Louis. He has received CIPP/E and CIPP/US certifications from the International Association of Privacy Professionals.

Sanne de Boer is director of Quantitative Equity Research at Voya Investment Management responsible for overseeing the firm’s quantitative equity research agenda. Prior to joining the firm, he was a senior research analyst for quantitative strategies for Invesco. Previously, he was a research analyst for global quantitative equities at QS Investors as well as ING Investment Management, Voya’s predecessor firm. Sanne’s research has been published in the Journal of Asset Management, the Journal of Index Investing, and the Journal of Investing. He received a Ph.D. in Operations Research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an M.S. in Mathematics and an M.A. in Econometrics cum laude from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.

Poorya has more than ten years of experience in analytical and numerical analysis, mathematical modelling, in-house code development and client interfacing. He is highly experienced in designing numerical algorithms and computational methodologies in both research labs and industry. These methods have been proved to perform superior to the similar existing ones, the results of which have been published in various journal papers and presented at conferences. In his career, he has been addressing client needs by providing cost effective and timely efficient solutions.

Celia joined Capital Group (CG) in January 2020 to develop its Europe and Asia Insights & Analytics capability. An experienced finance and data professional, she was, prior to CG, a Risk & Analytics Manager at Lloyd’s Banking Group and also had consulting stints in Financial Analytics/FinTech at both PwC and Accenture. Her areas of focus at CG include building a best-in-class analytical function to provide the Europe and Asian distribution arm with the deepest understanding of CG clients possible by leveraging data and technology, ensuring the delivery of a superior client experience.

Celia is passionate about Women in Data as well as Diversity, Equity and Inclusion within Financial Services. Her extensive efforts in this space have led to recognition as a Yahoo Finance Top 100 Ethnic Minority Future Leader and, separately, an Investing in Ethnicity Top 10 Future Leader, both in 2020. An internationally-ranked junior tennis player, Celia obtained a 1st Class BSc Finance degree whilst on a 100% sports scholarship at the University of Houston.

Ryan Gross is the Head of East Coast Accounts for YouGov’s Data Products. He is responsible for renewal sales, client management and ongoing product development of YouGov’s Data Products offerings.

Prior to joining YouGov he was an Account Executive at Yelp driving the full sales cycle to attain new business and earned a BA at New York University.

Tony Guida is a Quantitative Portfolio Manager and researcher. Tony’s work is focused primarily on extracting market inefficiencies from different sources from traditional fundamentals, market signals, alternative data, and machine learning. His expertise is in mid to low frequency in equities. Tony started his career at Unigestion in 2006 where he joined the quantitative equity low volatility team to work as a research analyst. He evolved into a member of the research and investment committee for Minimum Variance Strategies, where he led the factor investing research group for institutional clients. In 2015, he moved to Edhec Risk Scientific Beta as a Senior Consultant for Risk allocation and factor strategies before going to a major UK pension fund in 2016 to build the in-house systematic equity, co-managing 8 billion GBP as a senior quantitative portfolio manager. He joined RAM-Active Investments in January 2019. 

Tony holds a Bachelor and Master degrees in Econometry and Finance from the University of Savoy France, is the editor-in-chief for the Journal of Machine Learning in Finance.

Tony co-wrote and edited the book “Big Data and Machine Learning in Quantitative Investment” Wiley 2018 and co-wrote “Machine Learning for Factor Investing” Chapman and Hall/CRC 2020.

He  is an advisory board member for the Financial Data Professional Institute and a machine learning lecturer for the CQF Willmott Institute.

Pauline is the Executive Director responsible for the Business: Risk, Culture & Resilience team at the Investment Association (IA). She supports IA member firms to shape and respond to policy issues.

Key responsibilities include;

Culture & Conduct
Talent, Diversity & Inclusion
Operational & Human Resilience

Pauline is leading the IA’s work on COVID-19.

Pauline has spent more than 20 years in the investment management industry seeing industry opportunities and challenges from adviser, in-house and trade body perspectives. Prior to joining the IA, Pauline was a Director at Aviva and Financial Services Partner at Deloitte.

David Hunt, a research director in Economics & Country Risk at IHS Markit, leads advanced analytics and predictive modelling capabilities for global political and security risks.

Edward Leung is a Quantitative Research Analyst for the Invesco Global Quantitative Equity
team.

Mr. Leung joined Invesco in 2007. Prior to joining the firm, he was an associate director at
Bear Stearns Asset Management focusing on hedge fund due diligence. Before that, he was a
director at Standard & Poor’s (S&P) focusing on the S&P hedge fund indexes. Mr. Leung also
taught at Columbia University from 2002 to 2005 and at New York University in the fall of
2009 as an adjunct assistant professor. He began his investment career in 1999 with Knight
Trading Group as a quantitative analyst.

Mr. Leung earned a BA degree from Northwestern University and a PhD in economics from the
University of Pennsylvania.

Robert Levy is Head of Business Development for Cboe Information Solutions at Cboe Global Markets, Inc. (Cboe). In this role, Levy oversees business development activities for Cboe Hanweck, the leading provider of risk analytics as-a-service. Levy is responsible for expanding the reach and scope of Cboe Hanweck's products in the financial industry, as well as seeking opportunities to develop new business lines.

Previously, Levy led Portfolio Risk Analytics at Merrill Lynch for six years. Levy also helped found MarketAxess, where he developed trading businesses in credit and rates products. Levy has held a number of senior positions in sell-side firms, including running fixed-income arbitrage desks. He began his career in finance at JP Morgan, trading U.S. Treasuries and rates derivatives for eight years.

Levy holds an MBA in Finance from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University.

Rado Lipuš, CFA is the founder and CEO of Neudata, an alternative data intelligence and SaaS provider. Prior to founding Neudata, Rado's professional experience spans 20 years of FinTech leadership, quantitative risk management and data innovation for the buy-side. An acknowledged expert, Rado is regularly invited to speak about alternative data at conferences and industry events.

Dr Chris Longworth is a Senior Scientist in GAM Systematic’s Cambridge team. He previously held the same role at Cantab Capital Partners, which became part of GAM Systematic in October 2016. Since joining the firm in 2010 Chris's focus has been on the development and improvement of investment strategies. Chris leads the firm’s efforts to incorporate novel or alternative data sources into the portfolio.

He also led the expansion of the firm’s tradable universe into new and unconventional markets and is responsible for the portfolio construction techniques used within GAM Systematic Discovery for trading exotic or less liquid assets. Prior to joining Cantab, Chris was part of the Machine Intelligence Laboratory at Cambridge University, where he obtained MPhil and PhD degrees. He also holds a BSc in Computer Science from Royal Holloway, University of London.

Dr. Darko Matovski is the CEO of causaLens. The company is leading Causal AI research, a way for machines to understand cause & effect, and serves some of the most sophisticated organisations. Darko has also worked for cutting edge hedge funds and research institutions. For example, the National Physical Laboratory in London (where Alan Turing worked) and Man Group in London. Darko has a PhD in Machine Learning and an MBA.

Chafic began his career as an actuary at Ernst & Young Actuaires Conseil before moving to
Axa Investment Managers where he headed the Quantitative Asset Analytics team in charge
of allocation and forecasting for the Global Fixed Income department. He joined Natixis
Asset Management in 2008 as a Senior Structured Credit and CDO Analyst. He became Head
of Credit Quantitative Research in 2012. Since 2018, he is Head of Engineering and
Quantitative Research at Ostrum Asset Management.

Chafic Merhy holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Montpellier. He also
graduated from the Ecole Nationale de la Statistique et de l’Administration Economique -
Institut Polytechnique de Paris. Chafic has contributed to various publications such as the
book Engineering Investment Process – Making Value Creation Repeatable, published in
2017 by ISTE.

Dean is responsible for leading, developing and expanding Neudata’s events programme.

Having spent the last decade creating, building and scaling conference and content businesses within the FinTech and Energy sectors, Dean has worked with some of the most recognisable global brands on B2B events of all sizes. Dean co-founded two conference companies in 2013 and exited through acquisition in early 2020.

Dean holds a BA Hons degree in Theatre and Performance Studies from Warwick University.

Matt leads Consumer Markets Business Development for the AWS Data Exchange by helping customers more easily find and connect to new data sources. Prior to AWS, Matt managed Data Distribution for 1010data (2016-2019) and was a Business Developer for Two Sigma’s Alpha Capture Strategy (2007-2016).

Dritan Nesho is an entrepreneur and business executive in the consumer technology, telecommunications, and media space. He is also a noted public opinion researcher affiliated with
Harvard University.

Dritan currently serves as the founding CEO of HarrisX, a leading TMT and public policy market research and data analytics company. He is also the founder and chief technologist of Telephia, a consumer data platform that operates under HarrisX. Both companies are backed by The Stagwell Group, a leading digital media and analytics private equity platform.

Post life on the ‘dealingrooms’ in NY, London and Amsterdam, Sebastian set out on an AI endeavour. His aim to fix the information asymmetry in financial markets led to the inception of HIPSTO; a deep tech development company with a focus on Alt-data and Information Discovery. Over the last few years, Sebastian has inspired data science & tech development teams in Ukraine, India and the US to challenge the paradigm on numerous topics. And quite successfully too. By breaking through text length and multilingual limitations,  Sebastian’s initial objectives have crystallized into a portfolio featuring a proprietary end-to-end Information Discovery pipeline, and an array of AI microservices geared for financial markets.

Andrii Pylypenko, CTO at HIPSTO, is known for pushing the envelope on AI-tech development and data science. As Andrii holds several academic degrees - ranging from data science to software development and project management - he knows exactly what is needed to successfully complete complex multi disciplinary products. Working from Kharkiv, Ukraine - considered one of the premier AI development hubs globally- his data architecture visions directly contributed to the success of highly innovative tech platforms in the US and Europe. Andrii leads the HIPSTO R&D team, tasked with making headway in groundbreaking NLU/NLG applications.

David Risinger, CFA, is a Managing Director in Equity Research at Morgan Stanley in New York. He has been highly ranked in multiple Institutional Investor categories over the past 17 years, including Major Pharmaceuticals, Specialty Pharmaceuticals, and Healthcare Distribution & Technology. Risinger rejoined Morgan Stanley as the US Major and Specialty Pharmaceuticals analyst in April 2009 after working for 10 years at Merrill Lynch, where he was the US Major Pharmaceutical analyst and Healthcare Team Leader. Prior to assuming coverage of Pharmaceuticals in 2002, Risinger was a top-ranked Healthcare Distribution & Technology analyst at Merrill Lynch from 1999-2002. From 1993-1999, David worked at Morgan Stanley, first as a Pharmaceutical research associate and then as a lead analyst covering Pharmaceutical Services companies. David started his career in Equity Research at Dillon Read as a Healthcare Provider research assistant in 1991 after graduating from Bucknell University with a political science degree. He earned his Chartered Financial Analyst designation in 1995.

Owen Schmidt is a Partner in the Investment Management Group at Schulte Roth & Zabel where his practice focuses on private fund formation and compliance as well as growth equity and venture capital investment transactions. He advises on the formation and operation of credit, hedge and private equity funds and co-investment vehicles, among many other types of investment management matters. Owen also has experience advising on legal negotiations for venture, early stage and late stage growth equity investment transactions (both control and non-control) in private companies around the world.

Owen spent almost seven years as a partner, general counsel and chief compliance officer at two large investment fund managers, where he was responsible for all legal matters as well as the firms’ compliance programs. In addition to legal and compliance matters, he advised on all aspects of the firms’ operations and served on numerous firm committees, including valuation, conflicts, risk and cybersecurity. Owen holds a J.D. from Fordham University School of Law and a B.S. from University of Arizona.

Jeremy Scott is the Head of Investor Analytics in Similarweb’s Investor Solutions and manages the Stock Intelligence product. Prior to Similarweb, Jeremy was a Director and Senior Research Analyst at Mizuho covering Food, Restaurants & Delivery. He has worked in similar roles at CLSA and Morgan Stanley. Jeremy brings nearly a decade of sell-side experience to Similarweb and specializes in building robust predictive models for complex industries in order to generate investment opportunities for clients. He is a graduate of Lafayette College and a CFA charter holder.

Daryl is Head of Research at Neudata. He and his team are responsible for researching and discovering alternative datasets for a wide range of asset managers worldwide. In doing so, Neudata are able to deliver objective advice to clients on exactly which datasets are most appropriate for their investment strategy.

Dawson is Senior Director of Sales at LeapYear Technologies and leads the firm’s data commercialization business.  He works with data owners to securely monetize their data using LeapYear’s transformative software. Before LeapYear, Dawson held leadership positions at various alternative data and research organizations, providing solutions to institutional investors and corporate clients.  He graduated cum laude from Boston College with an honors degree in Philosophy.

Nico is a Sector Data Analyst at Surveyor Capital, one of Citadel’s three fundamental equities businesses, where he uses alternative data to enhance the investment process. Prior to joining Surveyor Capital, Nico was an investment data scientist at Ninety One (formerly Investec Asset Management) and head of financials research at emerging market hedge fund 36ONE Asset Management. Nico is a qualified actuary, a CFA charterholder and a published author in the fields of alternative data and AI. Nico holds an MSc in Computer Science with distinction from Imperial College London and a Masters in Finance from the University of Cambridge, where he received the Director’s Prize as the top-ranked graduate.

Jose is bilingual fluent in Spanish and English and holds a first-class degree in Advertising and Marketing Communications. His areas of research interest include alternative analysis of corporate filings, advertising expenditure, and the wider alternative data landscape in South America. Jose is currently working towards attaining CFA designation.

Lucas von Reuss, Co-Founder and CEO of Quant IP builds on 15 years experience in capital markets.
His early interest in rule based investing and the use of alternative data to build superior portfolios led
him to start Quant IP, an alternativedata and investment boutique focused on patent data and the
quantification of innovation. He started his career as a financial journalist at Axel Springer, one of
Europes biggest publishing companies. After various editorial positions, he led the team of €uro, a monthly financial magazine as Editor-in-Chief for four years. Lucas von Reuss holds a Masters degree in Economics from the Ludwig-Maximilans-Universität (LMU) in Munich and a Diploma in Journalism from Axel Springer Academy. He graduated from Executive MBA Program of the Stockholm School of Economics in 2014.

Ian heads the Client Engagement group at Neudata, as well as its busy programme of events. He has spent the last six years helping asset managers, investment banks and retailers to get value out of traditional and alternative data. Prior to that, Ian's experience encompassed analytical and commercial roles at Vodafone, Bank of Scotland and Liberty Mutual.

Ian holds an MA in Mathematics from the University of Oxford, and a Saltire Fellowship in Entrepreneurship from Babson College, Massachusetts.

Danny West leads a team of attorneys at Two Sigma that advise the firm’s research and engineering
teams on how to appropriately acquire and leverage big data in the financial markets. He is involved in
every aspect of the firm’s data onboarding process, including diligencing novel alternative datasets and
developing scalable data and privacy-related policies, procedures and controls.

Prior to joining Two Sigma, Danny was assistant general counsel at American International Group, Inc.
(AIG), working with the firm’s big data and science teams to develop cutting-edge healthcare / financial
tools and technologies, often utilizing strategically de-identified and/or aggregated data.

Helena is the Head of Asia Research at Neudata. She covers APAC alternative data suppliers with a particular focus on China. Prior to Neudata, Helena worked as sales operation manager at UBS Evidence Lab and alternative data product manager at 86 Research and Juwai.com. Helena has also worked at Pacific Epoch as Co-Head of Research and senior TMT analyst.

Helena holds a Master's degree in Political Economy of Late Development from the London School of Economics.