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Speakers 
 Mohammed Afkhami,
Founder,
MA Partners
Mohammed started his career in 1996 at O'Connor & Associates, a derivatives trading house, based in Chicago where he traded currency and commodity options on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. He remained with O'Connor as it was acquired by Swiss Bank Corporation and subsequently merged within UBS Warburg. He held various positions within the currency and commodities risk management groups covering corporates, hedge funds, and sovereign institutions. In 2000, Mohammed founded Silk Road Ventures, the first Turkey & Middle East focused technology incubator fund. In 2001, Mohammed joined Standard Bank as MENA Regional Head of Energy derivatives where he served until 2005. Currently, Mohammed is the Managing Director of MA Partners DMCC, a Mideast based commodities consultancy and serves as Managing Director of Tarchon Capital Management, a UK based $1.5 billion Fund of Hedge funds, and is Senior Middle East Advisor to Mitsui Energy Risk Management, the energy derivatives arm of Mitsui Bussan Commodities, a wholly owned subsidiairy of Mitsui & Co.
Mohammed obtained his Bachelors degree in Economics with a concentration in finance from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
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 Abdullah Almarzouq,
Co-founder and Managing Director,
Stocklord Investments Ltd
Mr. Almarzouq is Co-founder and Managing Director of Stocklord Investments Ltd., a regionally based hedge fund with a distinctive strategy focused on US listed equity/index options. Prior to founding Stocklord, Mr. Almarzouq worked at the National Bank of Kuwait from 1995 to 2004 in various roles, the most recent being Head of Corporate Finance. Mr. Almarzouq received his MBA from MIT’s Sloan School of Management and his BS in Mechanical Engineering from Tufts University.
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 Moaz Barakat,
Managing Director - Middle East, Turkey & Pakistan,
World Gold Council
Moaz Barakat is a graduate of the American University of Beirut where he obtained his Bachelor degree in 1984 and his Masters degree in 1986 in Business Administration.
After receiving his Masters degree, Moaz Barakat joined Gulf Eternit Industries in 1986 as the Finance and Administration Coordinator. In 1988 Moaz Barakat joined Price Waterhouse as Senior Manager, Audit & Business Advisory Services. In 1995 Moaz Barakat joined the World Gold Council as Regional Finance, Administration & Planning Manager for the Middle East & India Sub-Continent, a position he held till he was appointed to his current position in 1999 as the Managing Director of the WGC for the Middle East, Turkey and Pakistan.
Moaz Barakat is a US Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and received a Personal Acknowledgment letter from the President of California State Board of Accountancy.
Moaz Barakat is also a member of several professional bodies such as the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, Oregon Society of Certified Public Accounts, Virginia Society of Certified Public Accounts, Association of MBA Executives, American University of Beirut Alumni Association and American Management Association.
He is also a visiting faculty instructor to American University of Dubai, Buffalo State University, Becker CPA Review Course, Becker CMA Review Course and Becker CIA Review Course.
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 Mr Sean Corrigan,
Chief Investment Strategist,
Diapason Commodities Management, Switzerland
Having studied science and engineering - including an emphasis on metallurgy and materials science while at Cambridge - Sean Corrigan began a 20-year career in financial markets as a fixed-income trader, working mainly in a proprietary function at various City institutions.
Changing direction in the 1990s, he became chief strategist for the major markets division of a well-known third-party research provider, before striking out on his own and forming Capital Insight in late 1999, just in time to warn readers of his Capita Letter of the likely consequences of the impending tech & telecom crash.
He recently joined Diapason Commodities Management as Chief Investment Strategist, having performed a similar role for Sage Capital, Zurich, managers of the Edelweiss fund, over the previous two years.
As a long-time devotee of the Austrian School, Sean has been published by, and has spoken regularly at, the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and was honoured to deliver the Henry Hazlitt Memorial Lecture at its 2004 Scholars' Conference.
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 Dr Tilak Doshi,
Executive Director – Energy,
Dubai Multi Commodities Centre
An industry expert with over 15 years of international experience in leading oil and gas companies, Dr. Tilak Doshi joined DMCC as Executive Director for Energy. With his wealth of experience Tilak is tasked to specifically drive regional market and product development for the energy sector.
Dr. Doshi was a Consultant for Saudi Aramco in its crude marketing and corporate planning department. He has also held senior positions as Director of Industry Analysis at the Atlantic Richfield Company in Los Angeles, and Chief Energy Economist at the Unocal Corporation’s Asia office in Singapore.
As Executive Director for the energy sector, Dr.Doshi serves to intensify links between DMCC and the energy industry. He is in charge of creating industry-specific physical and market infrastructure products whilst providing innovative concepts to facilitate the growth of the energy business in Dubai.
He also will be leading the development and launch of energy contracts for the Dubai Gold and Commodities Exchange - Dubai's new electronic commodities derivatives exchange - in association with key players across the energy sector.
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 Stan Ehrlich,
President,
Solid Gold Financial Services
Stan Ehrlich started in the Futures industry in 1971 as a runner on the Chicago Futures Exchanges. In 1978 Stan Ehrlich invented the Ehrlich Cycle Finder™, a universal technical analysis tool, and now the oldest physical technical analysis device in the Investment Industry world wide. He writes the “Ehrlich Report” (www.chartpattern.com), a daily technical analysis and trade recommendations market letter covering Indexes, Commodities and Forex markets. Stan has brokered for some of the most famous market analysts in the world, including Robert Prechter, the Elliot Wave Theorist, in addition to Beatrice Foods Corp., and other large corporations. He has been quoted in many financial papers, magazines, is written up in about 20 different books, and has appeared on television including CNBC, national financial TV, and many other television and radio station nation wide. In addition, he has lectured at approximately 80 technical analysis seminars and conferences worldwide since 1975 for the “International Federation of Technical Analysis”, www.chartpattern.com, Reuters, Dow Jones Telerate, Futures Magazine, and TradeStation, as well as many other organizations. Stan is now the president of Solid Gold Financial Services, Inc. (www.sgfs.us), a commodity futures commission merchant, in the San Francisco financial district.
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 Dr Taha Eltayeb,
Head, Islamic Finance Learning Center,
Bahrain Institute of Banking and Finance
A career spanning 26 years in teaching, consultancy, training and research in issues related to banking, finance and Islamic banking. He is currently Head of Islamic Banking Studies Department at the Bahrain Institute of Banking & Finance.
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 Dr Marc Faber,
Investment Advisor, Publisher & Best Selling Author,
"The Gloom, Boom and Doom Report" and "Tomorrow's Gold"
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Stefan Garcia,
ETF Securities
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 Prof Hélyette Geman,
Professor of Finance,
Birkbeck, University of London and ESSEC Business School
Hélyette GEMAN is a Professor of Finance at the University Paris Dauphine and ESSEC Graduate Business School. She is a graduate of Ecole Normale Superieure in mathematics, holds a Masters degree in theoretical physics and a PhD in mathematics from the University Pierre et Marie Curie and a PhD in Finance from the University Pantheon Sorbonne. Professor Geman has been a scientific advisor to a number of major energy companies for the last decade, covering the spectrum of oil, natural gas and electricity as well as agricultural commodities origination and trading. She was previously the head of Research and Development at Caisse des Depots. She has published more than 60 papers in major finance journals including the Journal of Finance, Mathematical Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Banking and Finance and Journal of Business. She has also written a book entitled Insurance and Weather Derivatives and is a Member of Honor of the French Society of Actuaries. Professor Geman's research includes asset price modelling using jump-diffusions and Lévy processes, commodity forward curve modelling and exotic option pricing for which she won the first prize of the Merrill Lynch Awards. She was named in 2004 in the Hall of Fame of Energy Risk. Her latest book Commodities and Commodity Derivatives was published by Wiley Finance in January 2005.
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 Colin Griffith,
Chairman,
DGCX
Colin has over 35 years of experience in the international gold and commodities markets. He started his career as a ring trader on the London Metal Exchange (LME) and is today a well known figure and one of the most widely regarded professionals in the world of precious metals.
From 1973 to 2003, Colin worked in the international bullion market in senior trading, marketing and managerial positions for different organisations which included the world’s oldest bullion trading house, Mocatta, now Scotia Mocatta, Credit Suisse and South Africa’s Standard Bank. Colin was a member of the management committee of the London Bullion Market Association from 1988 to 2003. He was also a member of the board & management committee of the London Metal Exchange for three years.
Having joined DMCC, the joint venture partner of DGCX, in 2003 as Executive Director – Gold, Colin has pioneered the introduction of the Dubai Good Delivery standard, the Dubai Gold Receipt alongside driving the implementation of Gold Sukuk DMCC, a US $ 200 million 5 years Islamic financing that was “A” rated by Standard & Poors.
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 Kona Haque,
Senior Commodities Editor,
Economist Intelligence Unit
Kona Haque has over ten years experience working in commodity analysis. Prior to working with the Economist Intelligence Unit she worked for a shipping consultancy as Director of Bulk Commodities Research. Before that she spent four years as Senior Analyst at Metal Bulletin Research, specialising in Base Metals research and analysis. She has also worked as an Economist for a grains market information provider and with the United Nations in Rome, Italy. She has an MSc in Economics from the London School of Economics.
Kona Haque is the Economist Intelligence Unit's chief commodities analyst, responsible for research, analysis and forecasting of over 25 key hard, soft and energy commodities. These include: oil, gas, base metals (eg aluminium and copper), steel, precious metals, grains, coffee, sugar, tea, oilseeds, rubber, semiconductors and fibres. For each commodity, she produces forecasts on supply, demand and prices from both regional and global perspectives. Kona edits the Economist Intelligence Unit's flagship commodity reports World Commodity Forecasts: Industrial Raw Materials and World Commodity Forecasts: Food Feedstuffs and Beverages. These quarterly reports provide detailed forecasts on the key commodity markets and track the EIU's key commodity price indices. As the Economist Intelligence Unit's main oil analyst, she has an important role in monitoring developments in the oil market, offering market outlooks and forecasting prices.
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 Mr David Lee Hargitt,
CEO,
Dunn & Hargitt International Group
David Lee Hargitt graduated from Wabash University and was a Fulbright Scholar to France after which he taught at the University of California in Los Angeles. He subsequently worked for the Bank of America as a Loan Officer in the International Division in San Francisco. He then worked in Investment Banking with Lehman Brothers in the United States, Milan, Italy and in Paris, France. He was later a Vice-President and shareholder of Drexel Burnham Lambert as an Investment Banker in charge of Southern Europe and was located in Brussels, Belgium (where he was registered as a principal with the New York Stock Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade), before becoming the Senior Advisor to the Dunn & Hargitt and Winchester Life International Groups more than 20 years ago and then the CEO. Mr. Hargitt is an active member of the International Tax Planning Association and of the Asia Offshore Association and speaks at many Tax and Investment Conferences across the world. Mr. Hargitt advises several Family Offices, Financial Institutions and High Net Worth Investors throughout the world about International Investments.
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 Arshad Khan,
Director,
Dubai Gold Commodities Exchange (DGCX)
Arshad is a functional expert in the commodities, derivatives and spot markets and has successfully managed digital marketplaces. He has proven expertise in employing financial services technology as a platform for the automation of digital exchanges. Arshad has wide-ranging insight into transaction and business processing of trade cycles in Equity, Derivatives and Commodities markets.
Arshad is on the Board and Management team of DGCX besides being a Director of FTIL and MCX, the joint venture partners of DGCX. He was instrumental in setting up DGCX and has been actively involved since its inception. He also heads the Special Projects division of Financial Technologies (India) Limited (FTIL).
Among the various projects in the last seven years, Arshad has designed and implemented India’s most sophisticated and widely used ‘Straight Through Processing’ (STP) market-wide platform approved by the Indian securities regulator. He was part of the core team that established MCX, the third largest bullion derivatives exchange in the world. Over the years, Arshad has visited leading Asian exchanges and conducted detailed studies of various trading and clearing systems.
Arshad holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Business Administration.
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 Gary King,
CEO,
Dubai Mercantile Exchange
Mr. King has more than two decades of experience across the energy and finance sector, working for leading companies such as Neste Oy (national oil and energy company of Finland), Morgan Stanley, and the Emirates National Oil Company (ENOC). In the private equity sector, he was instrumental in developing the Standard Bank/GIB GCC energy fund, one of the first products of the Dubai International Financial Centre, and most recently was seconded into the Treasury and Commodities joint venture between Macquarie Bank and Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank.
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 Mr Philip Klapwijk,
Executive Chairman,
GFMS Limited
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 Mr Thomas Leaver,
COO,
Dubai Mercantile Exchange
Tom Leaver is a leading energy industry executive and brings to the DME more than 20 years of experience in global refining, marketing, crude oil and petroleum product trading, marine transportation and logistics.
Tom began his career with the Edgington Oil Company in Long Beach, California, an asphalt refinery, where he was manager of sales and supply. From there, he moved into oil and products trading, first with Apex oil company, and then, in London, with Finnish national oil company Neste Oy. As a Director of the Crude Oil Trading Unit and later Managing Director of Petroleum Products Trading, he co-led the establishment and international expansion of a world class energy trading arm. Tom then became President of the global trading arm of TransCanada Pipelines Ltd.
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 Nicolas Maduz,
Tiberius Capital Management Ltd
Nicolas Maduz has worked exclusively with commodities and in the commodity trading field since 1989. In addition to periods spent working for Sucden Touton in Singapore, the Fimat Group in New York and the London International Financial Futures Exchange (LIFFE) he also gained practical experience with his family commodity brokerage company based in Paris.
Over the past two years Nicolas Maduz worked at Diapason Commodities Management SA where he contributed to the successful launch of new investment products tracking the Rogers International Commodity Index. In March 2006 he joined the Tiberius commodity trading group and founded Tiberius Capital Management Ltd in Zug, Switzerland.
The Tiberius group specializes in active commodity fund management and aims to offer investors an alternative to passive investment products.
Nicolas Maduz holds a B.A. in International Business from the Institut de Commerce et de Gestion (ICOGES) in Paris and a Master in Financial Markets from the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers (CNAM) in Paris.
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John Normand,
Strategist,
JPMorgan Securities Limited
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 Mr James Proudlock,
Vice President,
JPMorgan Securities Limited
James is Vice President Commodities at JPMorgan. He has extensive experience across the commodity spectrum having been a partner in the MPC Commodity Fund, Head of Exchange Traded Commodity Sales at UBS, Managing Director of ED&F Man New Zealand Ltd, CEO of Mackay Refined Sugars NZ Ltd, and a member of the board of ED&F Man Sugar Ltd. James also ran his own management consultancy firm for five years, advising multinational corporations, exchanges and governments on regional and global commodity issues. He has an Honours degree from London University's School of Oriental and African Studies in Chinese and Economics.
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 Dr David Rutledge,
CEO,
Dubai Multi Commodities Centre
Dr. David Rutledge has over 35 years of international experience in exchanges, corporate entities and his work on commodities and derivatives has been widely published. David has held key management positions including CEO of Sydney Futures Exchange, Vice President & Chief Economist of New York COMEX Exchange, Managing Director of Zurich Capital Markets, CEO of Queensland Sugar Corporation, and Senior Vice President of the New York Board of Trade. He joined DMCC, the joint venture partner of DGCX, in February 2003 as Executive Director of Commodities and David was appointed as CEO of DMCC in December 2004. As CEO of DMCC, he is responsible for the overall management of DMCC’s activities in the commodities, precious metals and diamonds sectors. David is also the Chairman of the Dubai Diamond Exchange.
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 Jignesh Shah,
Dubai Gold & Commodities Exchange
Jignesh is widely considered as a pioneer in the development of Indian commodity markets and is accredited in introducing a unique ‘change’ agenda that has set new industry standards for commodities and futures trading in the sub continent.
Jignesh is credited for conceptualizing and establishing the Multi Commodity Exchange of India (MCX). Since its inception, he has steered MCX into becoming India’s leading commodities and futures exchange which has now become the third largest bullion exchange in the world. He is presently the Managing Director of MCX.
Prior to setting up MCX in 2002, Jignesh founded Financial Technologies (India) Limited in 1999, as an IT ‘Products’ organization with a firm belief of creating, owning and licensing financial technologies. Jignesh broke away from the trend of setting up IT ‘Services’ companies and spearheaded the creation of a innovative and knowledge based IT ‘Products’ company. He is the Chairman and Managing Director of FTIL and also it's Chief Business Strategist.
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 Greg Smith,
Executive Director,
Global Commodities Ltd
Greg has over 26 years' experience in the commodity industry that began in London in 1980 at the International Commodities Clearing House. He returned to Australia in 1984 to study systematic investment techniques and option strategies.
From 1986 through to 1990, Greg was a commodity broker employed by Bain & Company. a company that evolved into a subsidiary of Deutsche Bank in the late 1980s. He advised clients on various speculative and hedging strategies that were applied in the commodity futures and options markets using statistically based models. From 1990 he managed funds in commodity markets for US, European and Asian investors as a CTA. During this time he also managed capital for Commodities Corporation.
In 1999, Greg co-established a commodity funds management company that utilised systematic risk management strategies within a commodity index framework. December 2004 he moved on to establish his own commodity management company, Global Commodities Limited. As managing director, he continues to research and improve the index enhancement methodology utilising futures and option strategies. Global Commodities Limited manages an innovative product offering for Non-US investors, “The Enhanced Commodity Index Fund” (ECI).
The ECI is benchmarked to the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index (GSCI) and the Commodity Research Bureau Index (CRB). The ECI is designed to out perform the benchmark offering higher returns with less volatility and lower drawdown characteristics.
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 Mr Jules Staniewicz,
Vice President and Senior Strategist,
John. W Henry & Company, Inc.
Jules Staniewicz is Senior Strategist for John W. Henry & Company, Inc. and a member of the JWH Investment Policy Committee. Since joining JWH in March of 1992, Mr. Staniewicz has held positions of increasing responsibility at the firm. His current responsibilities include business and investment strategy, as well as overseeing business development for institutional and high net worth clients.
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 Mr Kushal Thaker,
Consultant,
BRICS Commodities, India
Over the years, I have accrued experience as a Commodity Trading Consultant, and my practice has been concentrated in the areas of Commodity Trading, Commodity Research, and Hedging strategies, for clients from modest margins to very large margins.
A value driven approach to the commodity business has always provided me with the ability to ‘understand, discover, align and control’ the value chain and business processes. I firmly believe that a coordinated approach can align, aggregate and optimize the many opportunities that are available across commodities.
My professional experience can be defined in three distinct segments
– Commodity Trading
– Business Consultancy
– Education and Training
Commodity Trading:
I am an active trader in the commodities market, involved in both physical and futures trading of all commodities –Edible/Non edible Oils, Metals, Energies, Agricultural & Plantation products and Spices. I trade on all major 18-20 exchanges around the world spread over 60 agricultural and mining countries. My main strength in commodities trading comes through extensive networking and crop surveys. And, over the years, I have established a strong network that has enabled me to exchange information and understand well the global factors influencing the prices of the commodities.
Business Consultancy:
Involved in offering business consultancy, I have developed cutting-edge trading and hedging strategies for several MNCs.
As a consultant I offer my experience in analyzing timing and global situations for domestic and international commodities.
Education and Training:
As a visiting faculty member of most top ranked management institutions in India, I have been actively involved in educating and training students since the last 5 years.
In addition, I also address a multitude of seminars across Commodity Exchanges and International Commodity Associations around the world.
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 Sudhakar Tomar,
Director,
Hakan Agri Commodity
Sudhakar Tomar holds a BSc. in Plant sciences and MBA in marketing. He is Director of Hakan Agro Commodities Trading Company (LLC) flagship of HAKAN HOLDINGS an agri commodities supply chain multinational with offices in 17 countries. In addition to his corporate responsibilities Mr. Tomar serves as a Director of Hakan Holdings , Hakan Agro DMCC, Chairperson of e-communications and convention committees for CICILS/IPTIC (World Pulses Organization).Sudhakar has over 13 years extensive experience in agri-commodities business in the Middle East and Indian subcontinent. He has made presentations on pulses trade, agri commodities, trade barriers and doing agri-commodities business in the Middle East, in various conventions in UAE, Canada, Argentina, India and Egypt.
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 Graham Tuckwell,
Chairman,
ETF Securities
Mr. Tuckwell is the chairman of the ETF Securities group of companies. He is a founder and the chairman of Oil Securities Limited (Jersey), Gold Bullion Securities Limited (Jersey) and Gold Bullion Securities Limited (Australia), which companies obtained the world’s first listings of a commodity on a stock exchange. Oil Securities are traded on the London Stock Exchange (code: OILB), and Lyxor Gold Bullion Securities are traded on the London Stock Exchange (code: GBS) and on the Australian Stock Exchange (code: GOLD). Mr. Tuckwell is also the founder and managing director of Investor Resources Limited, a boutique corporate advisory firm established more than eight years ago, which specialises in providing financial, technical and strategic advice to the resources industry. He has more than 20 years of corporate and investment banking experience. Prior to establishing ETF Securities Limited and Investor Resources Limited, Mr. Tuckwell was Head of Mining Asia/Pacific at Salomon Brothers, Group Executive Director at Normandy Mining responsible for Strategy and Acquisitions and Head of Mergers and Acquisitions at Credit Suisse First Boston in Australia. He holds Bachelor of Economics (Honours) and Bachelor of Laws degrees from the Australian National University.
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 Stephan Wrobel,
Partner,
Diapason Commodities Management, Switzerland
Stephan Wrobel is a founding partner and CEO of Diapason Commodities Management, a Lausanne and London based asset management firm set up in 2003 to create, promote and distribute investment products designed around the Rogers International Commodities Index and the commodity asset class. Today, Diapason oversees $3bn in passive and active funds and in structured products.
Previously, Wrobel traded commodities at Société Générale in London using arbitrage strategies. He then joined BNP Paribas to develop and implement macro and arbitrage strategies for hedge fund clients, and this was followed by a similar role at Lehman Brothers in London. Before joining Diapason, Wrobel was with the Strategic Investment Group at Cargill.
Stephan Wrobel graduated from the Paris Graduate School of Management with a major in finance, followed by a macro economic programme at the London Business School. He is a regular lecturer at the Bordeaux, Reims and Paris Business Schools.
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 Mr Christopher Wyke,
EMD Product Manager, Emerging Market Debt,
Schroders
MA (Economics & Politics) from University of Edinburgh, and Kennedy Fellow in Economics from Harvard University Investment career commenced in 1981 when he joined Rothschild Asset Management. He became Head of US Marketing, New York in 1984. He moved to Bankers Trust Investment Management in 1988 as Head of Global Bonds. In 1991 he joined Paribas Asset Management, as Head of North America, and became Head of Australia in 1996. Joined Schroders in 2000 and is Product Manager for the Commodity Fund.
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