MMF Symposium 2020

MMF SYMPOSIUM 2020

BLUE MOUNTAIN RESORT
JANUARY 9-12, 2020

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SPEAKERS

We bring together industry leaders, visionaries, and leading researchers, to share with us their insights on new trends, global perspectives and inspire us in a rapidly changing world.


Jessica Clark Barrow Executive VP, Investor Relations Waratah Capital Advisors Jessica joined Waratah Capital Advisors in 2013. Jessica is a shareholder as well as a member of the firm’s Executive Committee, and leads the Investor Relations team. She has more than 20 years of experience in capital markets and alternative investment strategies, having worked on institutional trading desks at CIBC World Markets, and BMO Nesbitt Burns, as well as her own consulting firm, First Element Capital. Jessica holds an Honours Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Western Ontario, has completed the Richard Ivey School of Business Investor Relations program, and is registered as a Dealing Representative. Jessica also sits on the Ontario Emerging Managers Board, is the former Toronto Chair of 100 Women in Finance, and was Co-Chair of the first-ever True Patriot Love Women’s Expedition to Baffin Island.	Bonnie-Lyn de Bartok Founder and CEO The S Factor Co. Bonnie-Lyn is the Founder and CEO of The S Factor Co., a MacCormick Inc. company. She brings over two decades of Social Impact, International Business, Finance and Technology background to the leadership of MacCormick Inc. and The S Factor Co. Bonnie Lyn has won several entrepreneurial and technology awards, led the creation of both firms, expanding globally and has worked across 57 countries, and has led the creation of several proprietary products including the MSPI™ and the S Factor™ Solutions. Her company has developed and is bringing to market, a proprietary algorithm and index that measures corporate social impact against, international standards, public sentiment and financial performance. She is a widely acknowledged expert and much sought after speaker on social impact and risk issues. A graduate from Saint Mary’s University, in International Development Studies (Development Economics) and International Politics, Marketing, Finance and Micro-computer Technology.	Mario Schlener Partner, Lead Financial Services Risk Management (FSRM) Practice Canada and Global AI Validation Lead Ernst & Young LLP Mario is the Canadian leader of EY’s Financial Services Risk Management Practice and Co-leads the Global AI Validation Team. He is leading several EY asset developments using ML/AI applications and solutions for risk management (i.e. credit-, market- ccr- liquidity risk models), AML/Fraud/Cyber (i.e. TM models, CRR models, Sanctions, fraud, cyber/resiliency models) and Compliance (i.e. trade surveillance models.) He brings over 22 years of experience in risk and capital markets modelling and quantitative risk management (i.e. 10 years at Erste Group in the Fixed Income Product Structuring and Corporate Finance departments in Vienna and New York and 10 years in Advisory as Partner for Deloitte in Germany/Austria and Navigant Capital Markets Advisors in London). During 2009-2013 he was leading several large litigation cases (i.e. Lehman OTC close outs, Structured Credit close outs). Mario focuses primarily on the development and validation of risk and pricing models (incl. deep learning) for market, credit, liquidity, counterparty credit, operational risk and for the FinCrime space. Additionally Mario has a key role in developing ongoing thought leadership thinking approaches especially for the risk domain.


Naeem Siddiqi Senior Advisor, Risk and Quantitative Solutions SAS Institute Inc. Naeem Siddiqi is the author of Credit Risk Scorecards (Wiley & Sons, 2005), and Intelligent Credit Scoring (Wiley & Sons, 2017), and has advised and trained bankers in over 20 countries on the art and science of credit scoring. Naeem has worked in retail credit risk management since 1992, both as a consultant and as a risk manager at financial institutions. At SAS, Naeem played a key role in the development of products relating to credit scoring. He is currently responsible for advising customers on issues pertaining to credit scoring and decisioning, risk strategy, model governance, AI/ML in credit risk as well as modernizing analytics infrastructures. He continues to meet and advise C-level bankers in between 40-50 top lending institutions worldwide annually. Naeem has an Honours Bachelor of Engineering from Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine at the University of London, and an MBA from York University in Toronto.	William Smalley President and CEO Route Five International Inc. William Smalley is an international facilitator, consultant and keynote speaker with a passion for helping individuals and organizations see conflict as an opportunity. A top-rated seminar leader with the Canadian Professional Sales Association and the Management Performance Centre of Toronto, and he is also a guest lecturer in Executive Programs at the Rotman School of Management. He teaches negotiation skills at the University of Toronto and has been featured on Financial Post Media, CBC News, and Marketplace as a negotiation consultant. He is the author of “Intelligent Selling” a next generation sales program based on collaboration that teaches sales professionals to think like leaders. He has worked with a diverse group of clients from entrepreneurs to multinational corporations including RBC Financial Group, Reebok CCM, Symantec, AMJ Campbell Van lines, the Canadian Olympic Association, the Canadian Football League, and Air Canada. His international experience includes business development work in the Middle East and Singapore. He holds an Executive MBA from the Rotman School of Management, and a Certified Sales Professional Rating (CSP) (with Distinction) from the Canadian Professional Sales Association.	Lois Tullo EIR Global Risk Institute Lois is the Canadian expert in the research and management of Nonfinancial risk including Cyber Quantification, AI/ML, Quantum. She is co-author of “Distribution Analysis for Information: A Cyber Quantification Framework”, “Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning:The CRO’s Agenda”, “Climate Change Tops Risk Correlation Ranking”, “Back to the Future: 2007 to 2030”, “The Global Risks and Trends Framework”, and “Risk Management – Canadian Best Practices, How did they get there?”. She is CFRO/CCO at Novera Capital Inc. Novera Capital is a Virtual Currency capital firm focusing in the area of providing liquidity to the market through synthetic derivatives. She also an advisor for JVerify a KYC/AML blockchain developer using AI/ML to verify identities in the AML space. Lois has been teaching risk management at the Schulich School of Business for the past 23 years. Schulich has awarded her the John Peace Prize for outstanding contribution to teaching. Ms. Tullo was previously CRO & CCO at Smart Contracts Capital Inc. and BlockMine Development Inc. SSC/BMD developed a blockchain platform to issue Regulated Security Tokens (STO’s). She was CFO at CIBC Finance Inc, responsible for Finance, Treasury, HR and interim risk management. She was Director of HR, Finance and Business Process Redesign at Unitel Communications; a management consultant at Nolan, Norton Canada/KPMG where she consulted on the link between business strategy and information technology architecture. Ms. Tullo worked in Ethiopia with Food for the Hungry, a relief and development organization. At TCPL, she provided systems design and data analysis.


Marcos López de Prado Founder and CIO True Positive Technologies Prof. Marcos López de Prado is the CIO of True Positive Technologies (TPT), and Professor of Practice at Cornell University’s School of Engineering. He has over 20 years of experience developing investment strategies with the help of machine learning algorithms and supercomputers. He launched TPT after he sold some of his patents to AQR Capital Management, where he was a principal and AQR’s first head of machine learning. Marcos also founded and led Guggenheim Partners’ Quantitative Investment Strategies business, where he managed up to $13 billion in assets, and delivered an audited risk-adjusted return (information ratio) of 2.3. Concurrently with the management of investments, between 2011 and 2018 Marcos was a research fellow at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science). He has published dozens of scientific articles on machine learning and supercomputing in the leading academic journals, is a founding co-editor of The Journal of Financial Data Science, and SSRN ranks him as the most-read author in economics. Among several monographs, Marcos is the author of several graduate textbooks on Machine Learning.	Mario Grech Advisor, Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences Entrepreneur and Philanthropist Adjunct Professor, Department of Computer Science DCS Innovation Lab Co-Founder and Director Mario Grech is a high-technology business executive, entrepreneur, and investor with international leadership experience in large Silicon Valley tech companies, including CRAY Research, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, as well as co-founding/co-funding four successful privately-held startup ventures. He also serves as an adviser to U.S. government departments and agencies on export and repatriation control policy for advanced supercomputing technologies. Currently, Mario is impacting Canada by helping the Fields Institute position itself as an innovation hub nationally and around the world by commercializing the world-class applied research from Fields and its extensive network. He is an Adjunct Professor teaching entrepreneurship and an Associate Graduate Faculty Member at the University of Toronto's Department of Computer Science (DCS). He is a co-founder and Director of the DCS Innovation Lab. He guest lectures at Rice University's Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business and is a member and sponsor of the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship in Houston Texas.	Naveen Kalia Senior Consultant TD Bank Mr. Naveen Kalia is a senior Consultant at the TD Bank, Toronto. He has lectured at New York University and has an ample experience in the areas of trading, banking and finance, having worked at the Citadel Investment Group in New York, at Deutsche Bank in Singapore and London, at Bank of America, Singapore where he was an Oil Products trader, and Goldman Sachs, Toronto. He is a graduate of the Masters in Mathematical Finance at the University of Toronto and holds a CFA.


Richard Kang Managing Director Sigma Analysis & Management Richard is Managing Director at Sigma Analysis & Management heading efforts towards product development and business development. Prior to this, he co-founded Emerging Global Advisors, a NYC based fund company managing ETFs focused on providing exposures to emerging and frontier markets, that was sold to Columbia Threadneedle (the investment arm of Ameriprise Financial) in 2016. Over his 25 years of buy-side experience, Richard has held senior roles at a traditional investment counselling firm as well as at a hedge fund, index provider and ETF issuer/manager most often as a co-founder and Chief Investment Officer. While in New York, Richard taught the “Fundamentals of Portfolio Management” course at NYU.	Dubie Cunningham Investment Partner ScaleUP Ventures Dubie Cunningham is an investment Partner at ScaleUP Ventures, one of Canada’s leading early stage venture funds focused on helping Canadian technology firms through the ‘scale-up’ phase of their growth path. ScaleUP is backed by 9 corporate and 4 Institutional LP’s, many of which are represented on ScaleUP’s unique Leadership Council. The Council is comprised of 35 of Canada’s most successful business leaders, entrepreneurs and tech investors including Dave McKay, CEO Royal Bank, Rick Nathan, Managing Director Kensington Capital Partners, Joe Natale, President and CEO of Rogers, and Elyse Allan President of GE Canada. The ScaleUP team and Leadership Council share one vision: to engage, coach and invest in the most promising start-ups to build a stronger Canada. To date the fund has invested in 27 early stage investments including Sonder, a virtual hoteling service; Coconut software, a Saskatoon headquartered enterprise calendaring application used by Telus and RBC; and Plooto, an all-in-one business payment solution used by many top Canadian Fintechs. Dubie has over twenty years of experience in financial services and technology. In her most recent role as Vice President of Innovation at Scotiabank, Dubie had an enterprise-wide mandate to accelerate the bank’s digital transformation, which included a Corporate Venturing portfolio of $100 Million USD with over fifty global investments. In addition, she established over forty Fintech partnerships and led Scotiabank’s Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence labs.	Kuno Tucker Chief Compliance Officer Virtu ITG Canada Corp & Triact Canada Marketplace LLP (MATCHNow) Mr. Tucker serves as Chief Compliance Officer for both the IIROC Broker Virtu ITG Canada (Virtu) and its affiliate marketplace known as MATCHNow. He has served on numerous IIROC & IIAC committees, and has been the Chair of both IIROC’s Ontario District Council and Institutional Subcommittee, as well as both IIAC’s Compliance Committee and FinTech committee. Mr. Tucker received his ICD.D from Rotman University of Toronto, LLM Securities Law from Osgoode, MA from York University, and his BA, Honours, from Bishop’s University. Prior to Virtu, Mr. Tucker has served as VP Institutional Compliance officer at an IIROC firm for 5 years, Surveillance & Trade Desk Review Officer at RS (now IIROC) for over 3 years, and spent 5 years at an IIROC retail firm where he was Trading Supervisor. Mr. Tucker volunteers on Boards, enjoys playing tennis and has been Captain for Virtu’s annual Ride For Heart cycling team for 8 years.


Rahul Raina Senior Data Scientist Microsoft Canada Rahul Raina is a Senior Data Scientist at Microsoft Canada specializing in AI / Computer Vision and Blockchain for Power & Utilities, Retail and Financial Services verticals. Previously, Rahul has implemented AI, Blockchain, Big Data & Analytics technology solutions for firms such as Bank of America, Bell Canada, Deloitte and EY. Rahul holds MSc and BSc in Computer Science from the University of Oxford, and the University of Toronto, respectively. He also holds MBA from York University.	Darren Cabral Co-Founder and CEO Clientelligent Darren Cabral is a co-founder & CEO of Clientelligent, a machine learning company dedicated to helping financial services companies better engage with their clients. Prior to Clientelligent, Darren was a financial services executive. He spent the majority of his career as a Partner and Director at Connor, Clark & Lunn Capital Markets Inc. (CC&LCM), a retail investment management subsidiary of Connor, Clark & Lunn Financial Group, one of Canada's largest asset managers. Darren held several senior leadership roles at CC&LCM, serving as CFO and later as President after a controlling interest in the company was sold to Aston Hill. As a portfolio manager, Darren managed quantitative and derivative-based strategies for CC&LCM and two Canadian banks. Prior to CC&LCM, Darren worked in Canada and the UK for a boutique investment management company. Darren has an MBA and a mathematics (operations research) degree from York University. He is also a CFA charterholder and a recipient of the Canadian Operations Research Society diploma.	Shez Samji Managing Director of Private Equity Services Silicon Valley Bank Shez Samji is the managing director of the Private Equity Services practice for Silicon Valley Bank in Toronto, where he is responsible for leading the bank’s practice across Canada. In his role, he works closely with existing and new venture capital and private equity firms, leveraging SVB’s specialized financing solutions to help them execute quickly. With SVB, Shez is positioned to leverage his deep understanding of client needs to increase their value by parlaying the bank’s unique platform, unparalleled expertise and powerful global network. Prior to SVB, Shez was a vice president at Third Eye Capital, Canada’s largest private debt and special situations investor. Shez has more than ten years of private equity and credit investing experience. He began his career at BMO Capital Partners, the Bank of Montreal’s principal investing division. Shez lives in Toronto with his wife and daughter. Outside the office, Shez serves on the Investment Committee for Community Development Venture Fund, a nonprofit micro-loan company founded to support entrepreneurship, particularly among immigrants to Canada.


Scott Margach Lead Portfolio Manager ESG Global Advisors Inc. Scott has more than 25 years investment experience managing both Canadian and US Equities. During that time he has been responsible for managing assets for institutional clients, mutual funds and most recently for high net worth private client portfolios. As lead Portfolio Manager, Scott was involved in and responsible for the proxy voting for ESG related issues for all of these various mandates.	James Burron Co-Founder and President CAASA James co-founded CAASA in response to industry support for a Canadian alternatives association to serve all aspects including: hedge / alternative strategies; private lending; private real estate; private equity; plus emerging areas where Canada is a leader such as digital assets / blockchain and robo-advisors. Prior to CAASA, James was the Chief Operating Officer of AIMA Canada where his team of three worked with 12 committees to produce 50-60 events per annum across Canada, organize 100+ committee meetings, and increase member numbers over his 7-year tenure from 66 to 164 corporate entities. James also has experience in research and writing for the CAIA Association as well as serving on CAIA’s Exam Council and as a grader for the Level II portion of the exam. He also had roles in institutional sales and FoHF structuring in Seoul, South Korea, as a Product Manager at ICICI Wealth Management, and an Investment Advisor at RBC Dominion Securities. He graduated from Simon Fraser University with a BBA (Finance).	Priscilla Tu Economist Ontario Securities Commission Priscilla Tu is an economist at the Ontario Securities Commission, conducting economic analysis of policy issues in Canada to foster efficient markets and protect investors. Prior to this, Priscilla held different roles at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank in Washington D.C. At the IMF, she performed macroeconomic research, conducted quantitative analysis on monetary policy. She published reports on the credit and deleveraging initiative which was a joint project with some of the important European financial institutions, such as the European Investment Bank, the Bank for International Settlements, etc. At the World Bank, she worked as a consultant to analyze investment climate in emerging markets. Priscilla graduated from Georgetown University with a MA in Economics and Policy Studies. She is also a CFA charter holder.


Elliot MacGowan Co-Founder and COO Agnostiq Elliot is the Co-Founder and COO of Agnostiq, a Fields CQAM incubated startup building security software for users of quantum computers. At Agnostiq, Elliot is primarily responsible for identifying practical business applications for quantum computers and leading client engagements. Prior to Agnostiq, Elliot worked in the strategy group at Bell Canada and helped lead the global venture-recruitment effort at the Creative Destruction Lab.	Brandon Gill Senior Portfolio Manager, Strategic Relationships and Innovation Division OPTrust Brandon Gill New is a Senior Portfolio Manager in the Strategic Relationships and Innovation division at OPTrust. In her role, she provides strategic direction and oversight over a number of strategies within the plan’s portfolio of C$6B externally-managed public-markets funds. She also serves on the OPTrust’s Capital Markets Investment Committee. Prior to joining OPTrust in early 2018, Brandon was a Director at BMO Capital Partners, a proprietary private debt and equity fund at Bank of Montreal. She also spent a decade at Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan. There, she served as a Portfolio Manager in the Alternative Investments Division managing a portfolio of global hedge funds and esoteric investment funds, and as an Assistant Portfolio Manager in the Public Equities Division covering Emerging Markets equities. Brandon holds an MBA from London Business School and a B.A. in International Economics from Middlebury College in Vermont. She is also a CFA Charterholder.	Colin Kilgour Principal Kilgour Williams Capital Colin Kilgour is a principal at Kilgour Williams Capital and a portfolio manager of KiWi Private Credit Fund. He has been a leader in the Canadian credit market for almost 20 years. In 2001, he co-founded Efficient Capital Corporation (ECC) which provided securitization-based accounts receivable financing to corporations and funded that through a commercial paper conduit. ECC was sold in 2006 and, due to its robust structuring, the ECC conduit was one of the very few non-bank Asset Backed Commercial Paper issuers that did not default in the ABCP meltdown of 2007. Colin then founded Kilgour Williams in 2007 at the at the start of the global financial crisis to assist and advise investors affected by the ABCP meltdown. Over the years KWC has been the leading advisor in this asset class advising on or managing over $2 billion of restructured ABCP. In 2017, Kilgour Williams launched the KiWi Private Credit Fund which is focused on investing in the marketplace lending space. Colin has a Computer Science degree from the University of Manitoba and an MBA from Ivey Business School.


Estelle Chen Director BMO Technology & Innovation Banking Estelle is a Director, BMO Technology & Innovation Banking. She focuses on industry leading offers that meet the unique needs of technology companies, including venture debt and recurring revenue financing as a financial partner and advisor to help businesses grow fast. Know-how in advanced financial modeling, investment analysis, capital raising and senior debt financing, with a deep understanding of the innovation entrepreneurship ecosystems to help existing and future clients. Prior to joining the banking industry in the technology sector, Estelle spent several years on the corporate side accumulating experience on both a public level as a Financial Analyst, Investments for public-private partnerships in infrastructure, and a private level as a Corporate Financial Analyst in Cleantech to help the C-suite raise capital both in China and North America. Curious and very active in the community, Estelle has been mentoring young leaders and entrepreneurs for the past few years. She is also involved in several non-profit organizations, and the tech and innovation ecosystem as a speaker and advisor.	Sean Rogister CEO Cortland Credit Group Inc. Mr. Rogister is the CEO of Cortland Credit Group Inc. and brings over 30 years of front office leadership experience in managing investment strategies in the capital markets. Cortland specializes in providing private debt to mid-market borrowers in the area of supply chain and working capital finance, managing over $500 million in institutional, family office and retail capital and has a 6 year track record with no negative monthly returns. Major roles prior to Cortland include 10 years running the fixed income asset class at Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan where he was responsible for $38 billion in assets, with global exposures to public and private debt investments in industrialized and developing markets. His experience includes management of proprietary arbitrage trading in North American sovereign and derivatives for Deutsche Bank Canada, as well as the exchange traded debt derivatives division at BMO and adjunct instructor in Fixed Income for Smith School of Business at Queens University. Academic accreditations include MBA from U of T, ICD.D and BA from UWO	Sohail Farooq CEO BankingBook Analytics Sohail Farooq is CEO at BBA – BankingBook Analytics and is responsible for the definition and execution of the company strategy. Sohail is passionate about helping small to mid-sized financial institutions close the technology gap that separates them from market leaders. Sohail and his team specialize in developing cost effective solutions for capital management and profit optimization. Prior to founding BBA, Sohail led and managed Toronto-based Nexx Consultants - a specialist risk and capital management advisory firm. Before Nexx, Sohail worked as Principal with Oliver Wyman. Sohail holds a M.Sc. in Quantitative Finance from Frankfurt School of Finance and Management, and a M.B.A. in Finance from Dalhousie University.


David Gong COO BankingBook Analytics David is Chief Operating Officer of BBA – BankingBook Analytics. He serves as Engagement Leader for the firm. Prior to joining BankingBook Analytics, David assisted clients by leading engagements in order to solve their financial services risk, regulatory and technology needs, both in the capacity of an independent consultancy, as well as being a part of a large consulting firm. David started off his career in 2004 in New York, at several large financial institutions before pivoting to roles at Financial Technology and Consulting firms. David is a graduate of the Master of Mathematical Finance program at the University of Toronto (’10).	Don Mumma Managing Director, Risk Management AxiomSL Don Mumma oversees the risk management practice at AxiomSL. Prior to AxiomSL, Don spent 20 years as a financial services executive, market participant and risk management specialist with JPMorgan Chase, Credit Suisse and Toronto-Dominion Bank, where he spearheaded its entry in the U.S. market. Don holds a B.Sc. in finance from Miami University and an M.B.A. in finance from Ohio State University. He is an active member of several professional organizations including GARP, PRMIA and IAFE.	Aaron Bennett Director & Senior Research Analyst - North American Equities Jarislowsky Fraser Aaron Bennett, CFA, has been a senior research analyst at Jarislowsky Fraser since 2014 and has more than 16 years of investment experience. In his role, Aaron covers North American Energy and Forestry Products equities. He is also a member of the firm’s Sustainable Investment Committee, and helps support the coordination of sustainable investing activities and the development of ESG tools across the firm. Jarislowsky Fraser has a long-term commitment to sustainable investing as demonstrated by its history of engagements and working with many associations advocating responsible investing. Among others, it was a founding member of the Canadian Coalition of Good Governance (CCGG), an active Alliance Member of the Sustainable Accountability Standards Board (SASB) and a signatory of PRI. Prior to joining Jarislowsky Fraser, Aaron worked for the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan in a variety of related roles for the Natural Resources sector, including the co-management of a private energy and timberland portfolio. He also served on the boards of many private investee companies in the energy space and was a founding and active member of the organization’s Responsible Investing Committee. Aaron also previously worked for a number of mid-sized Canadian boutique investment banks as an equity research analyst covering Health Care and Biotechnology. He is a member of the Advisory Committee for the PRI-coordinated collaborative global engagement on methane ‎risk and the Responsible Investment Association’s Toronto Steering Committee.


Daniel Mulet Investor Radical Ventures Daniel is on Radical’s investment team. He spends his time with founders leading companies that are exploring business models leveraging new knowledge that is generated by machine learning systems in language, vision, physics, and biology. Before Radical, he helped build and scale the Creative Destruction Lab, the world’s largest AI startup accelerator program, where he wore various hats including building a network of superstar scientists and entrepreneurs, sourcing companies, operations, and developing an incubation program for quantum technologies. Daniel was born and raised in Guatemala, holds a B.A. in Political Science & Economics from the University of Guelph, and an M.S. in Global Affairs focussed on energy policy from NYU.	John Fisher Equity Quantitative Specialist Bloomberg John Fisher, CFA, CMT is a 21 year veteran at Bloomberg in New York City, NY. He is a member of the Equity Quantitative Specialist team covering our North American buy side clients. He is focused on quantitative finance, portfolio structuring and risk analysis solutions across multiple asset classes. John is a leader in Responsible Investing and brings a mathematical approach to structuring efficient optimized portfolios customized to enhance investment in companies making a positive impact in their communities. John was a Capital Markets analyst for the US Treasury, a Credit Specialist & lender in high leverage asset based loans at a major US bank. He holds the Chartered Financial Analyst and Market Technician designation and earned his MBA at Michigan State University. John resides in the north shore of Boston.