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Speakers 
 Claudio Albanese,
Chair in Mathematical Finance,
Imperial College London
Claudio Albanese holds a Chair in Mathematical Finance at Imperial College London where he manages an Executive Doctoral programme. His PhD is from ETH Zurich. He was previously on the faculty at NYU, Princeton and the University of Toronto. His research is equally divided between stochastic volatility and credit correlation models and spans derivatives across several asset classes.
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 Anthony Ashton,
Head of Global Client Development,
Hewitt Associates
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 Ylva Baeckstrom,
Head of Customised Investments,
Coutts & Co
Ylva Baeckstrom, Head of Customised Investments, Coutts
Ylva heads a team who focus on finding structured product solutions for the Coutts client base. They offer products covering all the main asset classed structured using different types of vehicles. The team looks after idea generation, structuring, marketing and execution of their range of products offering both tailormade and more general client solutions. In addition to this they also offer a risk management service using options for hedging clients' interest rate and fx exposure.
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 Andrew Baum,
Principal and Chairman,
Oxford Property Consultants
Andrew Baum is Principal and Chairman, Oxford Property Consultant (OPC) and Professor of Land Management at the University of Reading Business School. Andrew is a chartered surveyor and qualified investment professional.
Formerly a property research manager for Prudential Portfolio Manager, Managing Director of consulting company Real Estate Strategy and CIO (Property) and Director of International Property for Henderson Global Investors, he is a member of the supervisory board for the Schroder Exempt Property Unit Trust and a non-executive director of Grosvenor Ltd. He established OPC in 2001.
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 Vincenzo Bochicchio,
Senior Structurer, Structured Client Solutions,
Man Investments
Vincenzo Bochicchio is a senior member of structured clients solutions at Man Investments, based in Switzerland.
Prior to joining Man Investments in 2004, he spent three years with Swiss Re Financial Products on the trading floor in New York and London as a senior structurer responsible for the idea generation, structuring, pricing and execution of investment linked products providing insurance companies, asset managers and pension funds leveraged participation in actively managed traditional investments with the full benefit of capital protection. Before that Mr Bochicchio spent two years at Swiss Re Financial Services as a senior stucturer responsible for the structuring of alternative risk transfer and risk financing solutions for corporates and insurance companies taking into consideration various tax, legal, accounting and capital requirements and another two years as a quantitative analyst on the pricing and risk management of hybrid (re)-insurance/capital markets products providing balance sheet and P&L protection.
Mr Bochicchio received a diploma in theoretical physics, a certificate in business administration and a master’s degree in banking and finance from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland.
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Damien Bombell,
Commodity Fund Manager,
Titanium Capital
Damien joined Titanium Capital in 2005. He is the portfolio manager of the Titanium Commodity Fund. He has over 13 years experience in the commodities markets. He has worked for Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, and UBS in senior commodity derivatives trading roles. More recently, he was the CIO of an asset management business where he focussed on commodity related equities. He holds both an MBA and a BA in banking and finance.
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Patrick Casters,
Senior Vice President - Head PFS Structuring,
Dexia Private Banking
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 Martin Cech,
Senior Investment Manager and Fixed Income Manager,
VBV - Pensionskasse AG and ESPA Financial Advisors, VBV Group
Martin is the head of competence centre for fixed income and Fund manager for Absolute Return Bond fund and Sustainable Bond Fund at VBV Group. Since 1998 he has been Deputy Chief Investment Officer at VBV - Pensionskasse. From 1989 till 1993 Martin was part of the Institutional Sales team at Volksbank (Vienna) and worked in private banking at a regional Austrian bank between 1994 and 1998. Martin is a graduate of the Economic High School in Vienna. In 2001 he passed CPM (Certified Portfolio Manager) Level and is now a candidate for CFA programme.
At the beginning of 2006 Martin was delegated to ESPA Financial Advisors, a subsidiary of VBV Pensionskasse and Erste Sparinvest KAG where he is responsible for Fixed Income Management, SRI-investments and the real estate investments of VBV group.
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Walter Cegarra,
Global Head of Alternative Managers Sales,
Calyon
Walter Cegarra is Global Head of Alternative Managers Sales for the Equity & Fund Derivatives activities of Calyon. He has been with the Group, initially with Credit Lyonnais, since 1998 in various capacities and locations: Global Head of Fund Derivatives in London from November 2004 to June 2005, in charge of Business and Strategy Development for the Equity and Credit Product Lines in London from November 2003 to November 2004 and previously as a Senior Credit Structurer for the Structured Credit product line, mostly in New York. Walter Cegarra gratuated from Ecole Superieure de Commerce de Paris (MBA) in 1998 with a specialization in Finance and Capital Markets.
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 Sebastian Dovey,
Managing Partner, Head of Consulting,
Scorpio Partnership
Sebastian Dovey heads consulting services at Scorpio Partnership, an eight-year old firm that acts as a wealth management solutions consultant between financial services firms and family offices and high-net-worth individuals. The firm has worked with family offices whose combined wealth exceeds $3 billion, and with vendors including UBS Private Banking, Capital International, Credit Suisse, HSBC Republic, JP Morgan Private Bank, Citigroup Private Bank, Deutsche Bank, ABN Amro, BNP Paribas, Lloyds TSB, Barclays, SEI Investments, Merrill Lynch, Bessemer Trust, UBP and Lombard Odier Darier Hentsch. As well, he has direct input into business development of competitive intelligence surveys and business solutions. He is also actively building education-based solutions for various client initiatives.
Dovey has been an advisory board member of the Wealth Congress since 2003. He is also the creator and faculty director of the International Wealth Management Academy, developed in association with the Financial Times group. Before establishing the firm in mid-1998, Dovey was the London based managing editor of Global Private Banking.
Dovey holds a first class BA (Hons) degree in modern history from University College London, and was awarded an MSc (Econ) from the London School of Economics.
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 Alex Fletcher,
Head of European Third Party Distribution,
GSAM
Alex Fletcher is Co-Head of Distribution in Europe. Since joining Goldman Sachs Asset Management in Jul-99, Alex has been instrumental in turning GSAM into the 7th largest offshore funds provider - with over £63 bn under management - and Europe's most highly regarded sub-advisor (source: PWM/ FT Business Jun-04). Prior to spearheading Goldman Sachs Asset Management's third party distribution business expansion in Europe, Alex headed JP Morgan Investment Management's (JPMIM) successful sub-advisory business, with particular responsibility for significant strategic relationships. Whilst at JP Morgan Alex established two of the largest sub-advisory relationships in Europe - with partners in both France and Germany.
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 Professor William Fung,
Centre for Hedge Fund Research & Education,
London Business School
Bill Fung is currently Visiting Research Professor at the Centre for Hedge Fund Research and Education, London Business School. Bill has a PhD in Mathematics from the University of London, and a PhD in Finance from the University of Manchester. He is currently co-CEO of PI Asset Management LLC, a joint venture with Ivy Asset Management LLC that specializes in managing hedge fund portfolios for Japanese investors. He also serves on the board of financial services companies and is currently Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Maple Financial Group, Canada and a member of the Supervisory Board of Maple Bank GmbH.
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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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 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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 David Hargitt,
Chief Executive Officer,
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 am 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 advices several Family Offices, Financial Institutions and High Net Worth Investors throughout the world about International Investments.
The Dunn & Hargitt and the Winchester Life International Groups specialise in the management of money in the Commodity, Precious Metals, Currencies and Financial Futures Markets for High Net Worth Individuals, Family Offices and Financial Institutions throughout the world.
The Dunn & Hargitt International Group was founded in 1965 in the United States and compiled the first Data Bank on Commodity Futures prices. The Dunn & Hargitt International Administration Offices were set up in Brussels, Belgium in 1975.
Winchester Life is a subsidiary of Dunn & Hargitt and also manages money in the Commodity Futures Market through the Winchester Life Umbrella Accounts and the Winchester Life Ten Year 100% Guaranteed Accounts, which both invest in a diverse portfolio that is invested in 45 different Futures Markets.
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 Robert Hayes,
Head of Strategic Advice Services,
Merrill Lynch Investment Managers
Robert Hayes, a Managing Director, holds a Mathematics Degree from Southampton University. He is head of our Strategic Advice Service and joined MLIM in 2001 as a Relationship Manager for larger institutional clients. Before joining MLIM, he was a partner in Watson Wyatt Partners where he acted as investment consultant for a range of large pension funds and institutions, advising on the whole range of investment issues from strategic asset allocation to monitoring and selection of managers. He has 13 years experience as a UK equity investment manager at ICI Pension Fund and M&G Investment Management where he was Head of Institutional Investment.
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Jonathan Heller,
Managing Associate,
Heller & Associates Ltd
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Eric Hunt,
Head of Pensions,
BAA
Eric Hunt is Head of Pensions for BAA plc and has been with the Company in a pensions capacity for more than 25 years. Prior to this he spent 10 years as a consultant with Noble Lowndes (now part of Mercer)
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 Malcolm Kemp,
Head of Quantitative Analysis,
Threadneedle Investment
Malcolm Kemp joined Threadneedle in 1996 as a Director and Head of Quantitative Research responsible for the derivative desk and its portfolio risk measurement and management activities.
He is a leading expert on derivatives, performance measurement and risk measurement, on asset liability modelling and other quantitative techniques. Malcolm’s recent paper “Risk Management in a Fair Valuation World” presented to the Institute of Actuaries in April 2005 covered many of these topics.
Prior to joining Threadneedle, he was a partner at Bacon & Woodrow in the investment consultancy practice.
Malcolm holds a first class degree in Mathematics from Cambridge University and is also a fellow of the Institute of Actuaries.
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 Benno Meier,
Vice President, Institutional Products Sales,
Morgan Stanley
Benno Meier is part of Morgan Stanley's Commodities Group, where he is in the Investor Marketing team in London. Benno focuses on the investor business in Europe, and constructs solutions for institutional investors wanting exposure to commodities. He reports to Boris Shrayer who is the global head of Investor Marketing. Benno has been a strong advocate of commodity investing, and has been a key-note speaker and presented on commodities at numerous conferences over the last few years. Prior to joining Morgan Stanley, he had been working for Barclays Global Investors for five years, where he was in the Investment Solutions Group, before becoming the Head of Indexed Commodity Strategy in Europe. Benno has a Masters in Finance (Commerce) degree, completed the London Business School Investment Management Programme, and is a qualified chartered accountant CA (SA).
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Yoshiki Ohmura,
First Vice President - Head Alternative Risk Trading,
Bank Julius Baer & Co.
Ohmura joined Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd. as Head Alternative Risk Trading in 2004. He was responsible for setting up Baer Alternative Solutions Ltd. and acts as Managing Director of the firm and is a member of the board of directors. In this role he is responsible for fund derivatives, structured alternative investments products and proprietary trading in alternative risks and is supported by a group of trading, structuring and legal experts. He also set up the banks AI market making platform, which offers daily liquidity on all of the in-house hedge funds, fund of funds and fund derivatives. Mr. Ohmura is a part of Bank Julius Baer’s senior management and a member of the Markets Division (Investment Banking Unit) Management Committee.
Prior to joining Julius Baer, he served as Managing Director of the Institutional Product Development group at Kenmar Global Investment Management a leading US alternative investments product provider. His responsibilities included developing new financial products and business areas for the firm globally. Prior to Kenmar, Mr. Ohmura was an award winning financial engineer for UBS Warburg, where he designed and originated structured credit and fixed income products for the Swiss market. In 1999 he took charge of developing the credit derivatives business for the bank in Switzerland. Mr. Ohmura pioneered the hybrid financial structures market with products such as default protected equity structures, credit linked fixed income derivatives and alternatives linked fixed income products, which secured him the banks Cross Product Award, and the nomination as fixed income representative to UBS Warburg’s Swiss Derivatives Committee.
Mr. Ohmura received his B.A. in Economics from Northwestern University in Evanston, IL. and has absorbed various post graduate courses in quantitative finance and applied statistics.
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 Andrew Popper,
Group Head of Portfolio Management,
SG Hambros
In March 2001 Andrew Popper joined SG Hambros as group head of portfolio management. He has overall responsibility for investment policy and originating and implementing alternative investments and structured products for clients.
Andrew has spent the majority of his banking career in the US where, in the early years, he was a research economist at the Federal Reserve and a foreign exchange trader. In 1994, Andrew joined ED&F Man as executive vice president and director with responsibilities for marketing and product development in their subsidiary MINT Investment Management Co. In 1996 he then moved to the private bank of what was then Bankers Trust (which subsequently merged with Deutsche Bank) becoming regional product head for Deutsche Bank Private Banking in London prior to working for SG Hambros.
Andrew holds a degree in economics from the Institute of Economic Studies in Bucharest and worked on a PhD in economics at the New York University. He is married and a keen linguist speaking French, Italian and Romanian fluently.
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 Mark Powers,
President,
Powers & Dubin
Mark J. Powers is President of Powers & Dubin Asset Allocation and Management Co., a major multi-manager hedge fund trading management firm. Powers has been involved in the origination, development, and growth of the multi-manager hedge fund industry. He developed the first such fund in 1978 and has started and operated more than three dozen different hedge funds for various foreign banks and international firms. Currently, the company has about $600 million in hedge funds.
Powers is also the President of Powers Capital Corporation, a financial consulting firm specializing in financial risk management, strategic financial planning, and business and regulatory issues. Clients of Powers Capital Corporation include domestic and foreign government agencies, banks, savings associations, corporations and commodity and stock exchanges in the U. S. and in developing countries.
Dr. Powers earned a Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics from the University of Wisconsin in 1966. He became Senior Vice President of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in 1969 where he played major roles in the development of new futures contracts and in the creation of the International Monetary Market. Powers was appointed the first Chief Economist for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission when it was formed in 1975.
Powers has been a director of four U.S. commodity exchanges and of the Center for The Study of Futures Markets of Columbia University and has served on many industry committees. Dr. Powers authored numerous articles on futures trading, economic policy, financial regulation, agribusiness, and risk management and founded and was Editor from 1980-1998 of The Journal of Futures Markets, a refereed, academic, semi-monthly journal published by John Wiley & Sons. He has authored several books including, “Getting Started in Commodity Futures Trading,” Investor Publications, 1973, 1977, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983; “Starting Out in Futures Trading,” Probus Publishing, 2001. He is co-author of "Inside the Financial Futures Market,” John Wiley & Sons, 1981, 1984, 1991. Dr. Powers has conducted numerous U.S. and international seminars on hedge funds, derivatives and risk management.
In recognition of his role in the industry and his published work, Dr. Powers was awarded the Rose-Baratz Literary International Award for 1994. He has been honored by Futures Magazine as one of the most influential people in the development of the derivatives industry and has been cited as one of the "Founding Fathers of Financial Futures.”
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 Guy Ratcliffe,
Head of Property Derivatives,
Abbey Financial Markets
Guy Ratcliffe is Head of Property Derivatives at Abbey Financial Markets (the derivatives and product structuring business within the Abbey Group). The Property Derivatives business, set up by Guy in 2001, transacts House Price Index (HPI) derivatives with its clients
The Property Derivatives team has executed over £1bn of HPI-related transactions with many counterparties over the last 4 years and is behind many HPI-relat3ed products that have been issued by its institutional clients. Prior to joining Abbey in 2000, Guy spent 8 years at Barclays.
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 Sean Rogister,
Senior Vice-President, Fixed Income,
Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan
As Senior Vice-President, Fixed Income, Sean Rogister is responsible for all nominal and real fixed income holdings at the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, including debt obligations associated with real estate investments. Rated Pension Risk Manager of the Year by Risk Magazine out of the UK and one of Canada’s largest pension plans, with assets under management at the end of 2005 of $96.1 billion, Teachers’ currently allocates about $26 billion to a diversified fixed income portfolio.
Before joining Teachers’ in 1998 Sean worked for three years as fixed income proprietary trader with Deutsche Bank Canada. Prior to that, Sean worked with the institutional exchange-traded derivatives group at Nesbitt Burns for six years – the last two as manager of the department. Before entering the securities industry he worked for two years as a risk management consultant, providing statistical analysis of property/casualty loss histories for the large clients of the Canadian arm of Alexander & Alexander, an international insurance broker.
Academic achievements include an MBA in Finance from the University of Toronto, a B. A. from the University of Western Ontario and a Certified Directors designation form the Institute of Corporate Directors.
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 Marc Romano,
Deputy Chief Executive Officer,
Credit Agricole Structured Asset Management
Marc ROMANO is Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Crédit Agricole Structured Asset Management.
He started his career in 1989 as a financial modelling consultant at CDC, then at Andersen Consulting in 1993.
In 1995, he joined Axa group where he was Head of Strategy and Development (UAP holding group), Head of the Financial Risk department (Axa Global Risks) and, at the same time, Chairman of Axa Paribas Alternative Risk Finance. In 2000, he was a founding partner and member of the Management Committee of Strategic Risk Solution at Crédit Suisse group.
In 2002, he joined Calyon as head of the Risk Solution unit. In 2004, he was appointed to the Alternative Investment & Asset Management Entities division before being appointed Chairman of the Management Board of Equalt Alternative Asset Management in September of the same year. In September 2005, he was appointed Deputy Managing Director of CASAM.
Marc Romano is a graduate in Mathematics from Normale Sup Ulm (1988) and a graduate of the French Institute of Actuaries (1997). He also holds a PhD in Applied Mathematics (1992).
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 Markus Ruffner,
Chief Investment Officer,
NPB Neue Privat Bank
Markus Ruffner is a co-founder of NPB New Private Bank Ltd. (NPB), a Zurich based private bank. NPB’s primary focus lies in the area of asset management for international high net worth individuals as well as for Swiss institutional investors. Mr. Ruffner holds the position of chief investment officer and is the financial engineer for the wide range of structured products (related to fixed income, commodities, equity, hedge funds) offered by NPB. He is also the asset manager of several Luxembourg based mutual funds. Prior to joining NPB, Mr. Ruffner worked for Credit Suisse and other Swiss banks, covering the areas of investment research and investment management. He is a holder of PHD degrees in both, law and economics, of the University of Zurich. His career includes positions as: finance journalist at Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zurich; legal counsel at two of the leading Swiss law firms. Mr. Ruffner sits on several boards of Swiss companies and is also Associate Professor at the renowned University of St. Gall, Switzerland.
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Ashok Shah,
Chief Investment Officer,
London & Capital
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 Dirk Söhnholz,
Managing Director,
Feri Institutional Advisors
Dirk (1963) joined Feri in 1999 and today is managing director of Feri Institutional Advisors as well as a partner of Feri Finance AG (www.feri.de). Feri Institutional Advisors is the leading independent German adviser of customized traditional, hedge and private equity funds of funds and portfolios. Dirk is responsible for Feri’s alternatives and international activities. Until 1999, Dirk worked in positions such as CFO, Director for Operations and HR, Head of Controlling and IT for German companies and several years at the Boston Consulting Group in Germany and Mexico. Dirk is a Ph.D. and has a diploma in business administration (Mannheim) and an M.B.A. (C.U.N.Y.). Since 2002, Dirk is Co-Chairman of the Bundesverband Alternative Investments (www.bvai.de). Dirk is a frequent speaker at German and European investment conferences.
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 Jan Straatman,
Chief Investment Officer,
Pearl Group
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Sven Ulbrich,
Chairman,
KMS Asset Management
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 Burkhard Varnholt,
Head of Financial Products & Investment Advisory, Member of the Global Executive Council,
Credit Suisse Private Banking
Burkhard Varnholt is global head of Financial Products & Investment Advisory and member of the Global Executive Council of Credit Suisse. Prior to joining Credit Suisse, Varnholt held various investment banking positions with Morgan Stanley.
Varnholt holds a PhD from the University of St. Gallen (HSG) where he also lectured on Finance and Investments. He has also lectured at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Massachusetts and Stern School of Business, New York University, New York. He has published extensively and authored four books.
He is a passionate collector of contemporary art and served as a member of the Acquisition Committee of the Tate Modern in London. In 2004, Burkhard founded and built an orphanage for about 50 homeless children in Kampala, Uganda, for which he runs a Swiss charitable organisation (www.kids-of-africa.com).
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Amanda Williams Palmer,
Editor,
Hedge Fund Manager
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Koen Zoutenbier,
Director of Structured Products,
Economist Intelligence Unit
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