Commodities Week Asia 2012 - list of speakers

Mr Vivek Agarwal has a Masters in Engineering from Trinity College, Cambridge University, UK. He was a senior consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton, a global strategy-consulting firm, in London. He joined the VISA Group of Companies in July 2004 and is currently responsible for its Commodities vertical, including trading, shipping and mining of...

Mr Backlund is in charge of the management of a €12 bn fixed income portfolio, a € 8 bn currency overlay program and liquidity management at Varma mutual pension insurance company. Since 2007 he is also responsible of an up to 1.5 bn commodities mandate. Commodities were given to the fixed income team because of the (at least perceived) connection ...

Mr. Brian Baker is head of Asia ex-Japan, chief executive officer and director of PIMCO Asia and a managing director in the Hong Kong office. He oversees servicing of PIMCO’s institutional clients as well as business development in the region. Mr. Baker is also co-head of PIMCO's official institution business, overseeing investment services to...

Mr. Ian Bowler has over 20 years of international trading experience. He currently manages an agricultural hedge fund for Henderson Global investors. Prior to joining Henderson, he managed an agricultural fund for Attunga Capital out of Singapore and Sydney for 3 /12 years. For more than 10 years prior to that, Mr. Bowler managed his own fund...

Mr. Butler is responsible for supporting development and distribution of Parametric’s institutional investment products. Prior to joining Parametric in 2011, Reuben was Director, APAC for Russell Indexes, where his responsibilities included the development and management of the Russell Index business throughout Asia and Australia/NZ. At...

Mr. Peregrine Cust is the founder and Chief Investment Officer of Prana Capital Pte Ltd in Singapore. Prana was founded in the UK in 2005 before relocating to Singapore in early 2010. The Prana Fund seeks to exploit global macro themes and their impact upon a broad range of financial markets including commodities, equities, currencies and fixed...

Mike has over 20 years of experience in the trading and analysis of a wide diversity of global derivatives markets. He is a former proprietary trader of financial futures and options on London's LIFFE derivatives exchange. Mike joined ICE in November 2008. He has responsibility for the development of both new and existing futures and OTC...

Adrian Day is a British-born writer and money manager who has made a name for himself searching out unusual opportunities around the world. A graduate of the London School of Economics, he is president of his own money management firm, Adrian Day Asset Management, where he specializes in global diversification and resource equities for individual...

Mr. James Dick joined QIC in November 2004 and is currently Head of Alternative Investments. Mr. Dick oversees the alternative asset program for QIC including all commodity exposures. Specific responsibilities in the alternative space include research into the various alternative risk premia and the management of the ‘Diversified Alternatives’...

Mr. Kris Douma (1961) joined Mn Services as Head of Responsible Investment & Active Ownership in April 2007. Before that he worked 15 years at Dutch FNV trade unions, lastly as head of strategy and consultancy at FNV Bondgenoten, the largest Dutch trade union. From January 2003 till November 2006 he was a Member of Parliament for the Dutch...

Responsibilities - Managing Partner of Tiberius Asset Management - Head of Trading - Head of Sales Work Experience - Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, Frankfurt, Germany, Commodity Trader, Vice President - Baden-Württembergische Bank, Stuttgart/ Germany, set up of a trading desk in commodities, responsible for proprietary trading in commodities ...

Mr. Hwa Erh-Cheng, Ph.D. Cornell University is Chief Economist of Baoshang Bank, China. He researched econometric models of the U.S. economy at National Bureau of Economic Research. In the International Monetary Fund, he developed models of global commodities markets to stabilise export earnings of developing countries. In the World Bank, he...

Mr. Mederic Gehl is a specialist in commodities, working closely with corporate and institutional clients over the last 9 years to develop tailor-made commodity solutions. Mr. Gehl joined BNP Paribas in 2004, in the Equities and Commodity Derivatives Structuring team in New York. In 2005, he started working specifically for corporate clients in...

Dr. James Gifford is Executive Director of the PRI and has been guiding the initiative since its inception in November 2003, working from 2003-2006 for UNEP FI in collaboration with the UN Global Compact on the development process, and since then for the PRI Secretariat. He has a PhD from the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of...

Mr. Simon Glover is Partner and Member of the Board of Merit Commodity Partners and responsible for corporate and product development. Merit Commodity Partners AG, based in Switzerland, is an affiliate of the Merit Group of companies specializing in the Physical Commodity Sector. For over 25 years, the group has provided investment and risk...

Having spent almost 25 years managing bonds and equities for both institutional investors and private clients, Mr. Nick Greenwood moved to the Local Government Pension Scheme in 2004 when he joined the Environment Agency. Mr. Greenwood joined the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead in 2007 and is the Pension Fund Manager for the Royal County ...

Ms. Jodie M. Gunzberg is director, commodity indices, at S&P Indices. Ms. Gunzberg is responsible for the product management of the S&P Commodity Indices, which includes the S&P GSCI, widely regarded as the leading measure of general commodity price movements and inflation in the world economy. In addition, Ms. Gunzberg writes index...

Mr. Frederic Hervouet is a Managing Director at BNP Paribas, having joined Global Equity & Commodity Derivatives in 2007. He was responsible for Commodity Investor Derivatives Business in Asia before being the co-Global Head of Commodity Investors Derivatives (2008/2009) and finally Head of Commodity Derivatives Asian Platform in 2009 until now. ...

Frank Holmes is CEO and Chief Investment Officer of U.S. Global Investors, Inc., a registered investment adviser that manages U.S. mutual funds specializing in natural resources, emerging markets and global infrastructure. U.S. Global also manages the Meridian Global Gold and Resources Fund and the Meridian Global Energy and Resources Fund. ...

Mr. John T. Hyland, CFA is the Chief Investment Officer for United States Commodity Funds (USCF). USCF is a sponsor and manager of a family of exchange traded commodity funds, including the United States Oil Fund (ticker: USO), the United States Natural Gas Fund (ticker: UNG), the United States Commodity Index Fund (ticker: USCI), and six other...

Mr. Kazuhiko Inaba is a Senior Manager at the Frontier Strategy Planning and Support Division of Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corporation (MUTB). Before coming to the current division, he had been in charge of JDR Business in the Transfer Agency Division. His contribution led to the successful listing of The Japan Physical Precious Metals...

Vijay Iyengar is the Founder and Managing Director of Agrocorp International Pte Ltd, a Singapore based International Commodity Trading and Distribution House with a footprint across the globe. Armed with a management style of being open, accessible and inclusive, Mr Vijay has steered the company in less than two decades into a trading...

International Natural Resource executive and entrepreneur with a broad 22 year career in natural resources trading, investment banking and knowledge based services. He has shared his knowledge and successfully trained many 1000's of traders and management in the sector via regular public seminars, and through his work with universities. ...

Dr. Marcel Jeucken is Managing Director Responsible Investment and member of the Management Team of the portfolio managers unit at PGGM Investments. PGGM Investments is the fiduciary manager for amongst others Pensioenfonds Zorg en Welzijn, the second largest pension fund in The Netherlands and Europe, and has approximately 108 billion euro under...

Willem Klaassens is an executive consultant with Latour Commodities Advisory, specialised in providing a range of management consultancy services. He has more than 20 years of experience in the Commodities and International Trade and Finance markets. Willem has lived and worked in the global financial centres Hong Kong, Singapore, London and...

Mr. Seth Kleinman is Head of Energy Strategy on the commodities side at Citi, covering all aspects of global oil and gas markets. Seth has spent the last 15 years in the energy markets as an analyst, trader and researcher. He started in market analysis at PFC Energy in Washington DC, moved into physical and prop trading at Hess Energy Trading...

Mr. Tan Tien Leong is a Director and Chief Investment Officer of AN Capital. He is a portfolio manager who has extensive experience across a variety of commodity markets. Before setting up AN Capital, from 2007 to 2009, he was a portfolio manager at Millennium Capital Management. At Millennium, he managed a portfolio of commodity futures where he...

Mr. Daryl Liew is Head of Portfolio Management for REYL Singapore, a subsidiary of independent Swiss banking group REYL & CIE, holder of a Capital Markets Services Licence by the MAS under the Securities & Futures Act for Fund Management. With more than eight years of experience in the investment and wealth management industry, Mr. Liew is in...

Mr. Shayne McGuire manages the GBI Precious Metals Fund and is the Head of Global Research at Teacher Retirement System of Texas, one of the world's largest pension funds. With 18 years of financial experience, Mr. McGuire has managed a $2 billion European equity portfolio and was ranked among the best Latin American analysts by Institutional...

John holds a BSc (Actuarial Science) and a BSc(Hons) Advance Mathematics of finance both from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. He was previously the Head of Quant Investing at STANLIB, were he managed long only funds as well as hedge funds. John is currently the Head of Investments and Actuarial of the Government Employees...

Mr. Colin O’Shea joined the firm in April 2008. He is responsible for managing the Hermes suite of commodity funds and for driving the business forward into the third party asset management space. He has also implemented a commodity hedge fund manager program for the British Telecom Pension Scheme. Prior to Hermes, Mr. O’Shea worked as an...

Diego, brings 14+ years of experience and leadership in commodities trading and sales across industry leaders Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, and JP Morgan across London, Singapore, and NYC. Diego has held several leadership positions including CEO of Merrill Lynch Commodities Singapore, Managing Director and Global Head of Commodity Solutions at...

Prior to joining Duet, Mr. Arno Pilz was trading Commodities at Apollo Management International and before this Global Head of Metals trading at Lehman Brothers and Head of Metals trading and TZRM (Time Zone Risk Manager) of European commodities at UBS AG. Mr. Pilz comes from 16 years of trading experience covering FX options floor trading, EMFX ...

Ms. Puah Ser Sze is the Director of Investment Services, Malaysia and is responsible for Towers Watson’s investment services business. She provides investment advice to government/public funds, endowments, corporate surplus, social security, pension funds and insurance funds on a variety of investment issues. Her clients span ASEAN and the Middle...

Mr. Nicolas Robin joined Threadneedle in 2010 and is the Co-Manager of the Threadneedle (Lux) Enhanced Commodities Fund. Mr. Robin brings both hedge fund and commodity index trading experience to the team. He started his career at Barep Asset Management (SG Group) in 2002, helping to set up a Commodity Arbitrage hedge fund desk. He became...

Mr. Clyde Russell is the Asia Commodities and Energy Columnist at Reuters. He has been a journalist and editor for 22 years covering everything from wars in Africa to the current resources boom. Born in Glasgow, he has lived in Johannesburg and Sydney and for the past three years in Singapore. He has specialised in energy products for the past...

Peter completed his PhD in theoretical physics in 1998 and then started his business career at Sal. Oppenheim in Frankfurt as a developer for trading models. Since 1999, he built up and led the derivatives research group in the Investment Banking division until 2009. In 2009, he joined Fortinbras Asset Management as a Partner. At Fortinbras, he...

Lionel Semonin is the founder of Singapore based Four Elements Capital and the portfolio manager of its flagship “Earth Element” commodity fund. The Fund is a long-short systematic fund based on both fundamental and market analytics, the fund invests, through futures, in up to 30 commodities across Energy, Metals and Agriculture. Prior to this...

Mr. Greg Smith is the Managing Director of Global Commodities Limited and has over 25 years' experience in the commodity futures industry. After completing a trade certificate in 1980, he travelled to London where he was an accounts clerk at the International Commodities Clearing House. He returned to Australia in 1984 to gain a finance...

Mr. Jon Thorn is the director of the India Capital Fund which has invested in India since 1994 and is amongst the longest-standing India-only managers. The firm’s AUM has now reached US$500 million. Bolstered by a 17-year track-record, the India Capital Fund had net capital inflow in 2008 and 2009. This year, the fund was voted Best India Fund ...

Ms. Jing Ulrich is J.P. Morgan's Managing Director and Chairman of Global Markets, China. She is responsible for covering the firm’s most senior global clients across all asset classes, and for maintaining relationships with executives at the helm of China’s leading enterprises and government entities. Educated at Harvard and Stanford...

Michael Verhofen is Portfolio Manager in the Multi Asset team at Allianz Global Investors in Frankfurt. Moreover, he is part-time Lecturer in Finance at the University of St. Gallen (HSG), Switzerland. He is the lead manager for the “Allianz RCM Commodities” and the “Allianz RCM Systematic Multi Strategy” fund. Additionally, he manages various...

Prior to establishing Kendall Court in 2004, Ms. Yeo Kar Peng was a Managing Director at Citigroup Global Markets. She was responsible in the setting up and building of Citigroup's franchise in Malaysia. She was the key coverage banker in charge of Citigroup’s deal origination and execution with special focus in cross-border mergers and...