Kevin is responsible for trading desks in Asia Pacific, Europe and the Americas and responsible for global trading activities including fixed income, equities, equity derivatives, FX, other derivatives and commodities. Managing almost 50 traders on 9 desks in7 countries, he has vast experience in running a successful trading desk, and managing an overall AUM of about $800 billion, with at least two-thirds of that within his purview.

Mike has a core focus on technology innovations for improved execution globally. He is currently developing and further educating his trading desk on market structure and risk management as well as implementing an innovative sector trading approach. By encouraging portfolio construction, Mike looks to improve intellectual capital on the trading desk as well as increasing smart trading.

Dale has responsibility for equity, fixed income, currency and futures execution for SSgA in London. His career started in trading fixed income and equities at ANZ Grindlay's Bank, and then global equities and derivatives at Sarasin. Prior to joining SSgA, he was with Legal and General Investment Management where he was trading UK / European equities, LDI instruments and Macro Hedge fund strategies. He is also current chair of the IMA’s Buyside Trading Committee and is a member of the Consultative Working Group for the ESMA Secondary Markets Standing Committee.

Capital Group is one of the world’s largest investment management organisations with assets of around one trillion USD under management. In his new role Simon will provide insight on how Capital Group is dealing with increased regulatory pressures on best execution. He will also share how this impacts their current broker partnerships and how they can be truly pioneering regarding order routing.

From his experience working at the number 17 firm in the top 20 global assets under management, David will offer insight and contribute on discussions to how current regulations are changing and evolving trading strategies for 2015.He will also  how processes and technology need to develop in one of the leading and largest global firms.

Rupert Fennelly is a managing director and Co-Head of Morgan Stanley's Electronic Trading, Europe. Previously he was Head of US Sales for MSET in New York. Prior to joining Morgan Stanley, Rupert led US Northeast and Midwest Sales for the Advanced Execution Services Group at Credit Suisse. Rupert has also held senior sales and sales management positions at NYFIX, Corillian and Reuters.

Paul joined Vanguard in 2005 and held various portfolio management positions at Vanguard Asset Management in Europe and the Vanguard Group in Valley Forge Pennsylvania prior to his current position. Paul and his team manage about $30 billion in fixed income assets across the globe. He has oversight over the European Credit Research team which contributes to managing nearly $100 billion in actively managed assets based in the United States.

Hubert is responsible for managing all dealing desks across all asset classes. The organisation focuses solely on the search for liquidity across all markets and all asset types, in response to investment firms’ increased regulatory pressures. With experience in managing global dealing strategies, Hubert is well placed to discuss how to find liquidity in an increasingly fragmented market, in an efficient and cost effective way.

Ralston joined Goldman Sachs as a managing director in 2015, having previously been chief operations officer of SunGard’s brokerage business, responsible for SunGard’s real-time market data business, MarketMap and the SunGard Global Network. He helped shape the strategic direction of SunGard’s trading business in the United States, exploring integration opportunities across product lines and defining new product offerings. Ralston is knowledgeable in the areas of equities trading technology and the corresponding trading strategies that leverage product advances.

Mark has over 30 years’ experience in the financial services industry. His last role was Managing Director, Head of Senior relationship Management EMEA and for 10 years prior to that he ran Merrill Lynch’s EMEA equity advisory business globally. In December 2012 he joined the global institutional equity trading network, Liquidnet, as Head of EMEA. Under Mark’s leadership the business in EMEA has grown business by over 150% as a result of strengthening relationships with institutional members, increasing its UK and Continental European footprint, driving innovation and improving member behaviour. Mark gives back to the community through his role as Chairman of the October Club – a committee of city brokers who run annual fundraising events for fledging charities in the UK. Since the club launched in 1987, the committee has raised over £10.5 million for transformational projects enabling small charities to kick-start groundbreaking research, raise their profiles and expand their reach to support those in need.

Damien is currently responsible for Cash Equities Trading, Micro Execution, Macro Execution, Listed Derivatives Execution, Electronic Trading (GSET), Sigma X – MTF, Transition Management and Client Commission Management in EMEA. He is also responsible for Global Institutional (Cross Asset) Sales & Trading and Synthetic Products Sales Trading. Damien is a member of the Equities Best Execution Committee. He joined Goldman Sachs in 2000 in the Equities Division in Sydney and spent 5 years in Hong Kong before relocating to London in 2006.

Chris currently head's up of Liquidnet’s EMEA’s Execution and Quantitative Services Group which involves setting the strategic direction of the European Trading Desk and Algorithmic Services Group, as well as heading up the senior sales effort for Liquidnet’s global algorithmic offering with European clients. With over twelve years at Merrill Lynch where he was latterly Head of Sales across program, transitions and electronic trading, Chris has extensive experience in execution sales.

Natixis Asset Management is the second biggest French asset manager with just under €300 billion in assets under management. Laurent manages global execution, leading 3 teams and 20 market operators. This includes management and first level control of clients, banking counterparties and brokers. He is also a Member of the Executive Committee, NAM Finance, participating in the risk and compliance committees and is on the Board of Directors.

Aquis Exchange is a pan-European cash equities exchange. It is approved and regulated by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority, to operate as a multilateral trading facility. Aquis Exchange offers trading in securities from 14 European countries and intends to reshape radically the economics of trading by introducing the concept of subscription pricing to the industry. Currently fees in Europe are charged on an ad valorem basis.

Miles is responsible for trading in Equities, Foreign Exchange, Fixed Income and Implementation at Nordea Investment Management. His 25 years of experience is from both buy and sell sides globally. Over the years, his responsibilities have ranged from quantitative portfolio management and electronic market making to trading & execution. He has an academic background in Computer Science, Robotics and Mathematics.

FinEx Capital is an integrated asset management business providing a full spectrum of investment solutions, including hedge funds, private equity investments, Commodities trading and hedging and Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) listed in Moscow, London and Amsterdam. The breadth of experience within the Partner Group gives FinEx Capital an unrivalled ability to identify value and then efficiently translate this into exceptional returns for our clients.

At the largest asset manager in Germany, with an AUM of $496 billion, Christoph oversees trading teams in the US, Asia and Europe and is a member of Allianz GI's European and Global Investment Management Group. He can provide insight on how the equity market is evolving from a global perspective, compared to the other markets he manages, including derivatives and foreign exchange. His is best suited to join the discussion on how buy side firms are prepping and complying to ESMA and new FCA regulations on commission unbundling.

Deana currently leads the equities trading team at TMX, and has served as Head of Strategy and Products at Alpha Trading Systems. She joined TMX Group following the acquisition of Alpha and was an instrumental part of the Alpha leadership team and has a unique perspective to the Canadian equities trading landscape. Prior to Alpha, Deana held increasingly senior leadership positions at E*TRADE Technologies Corporation, Bank of Montreal and Bell Sygma Telecom Solutions and has over thirteen years of experience in product management, strategic planning, and systems integration in the financial services industry.

Alistair Moran, CFA is a portfolio manager within the Multi Asset team. His primary responsibility is helping to set currency strategy both as an overlay component of global portfolios and in Global Tactical Asset Allocation (GTAA) strategies. Alistair is also involved in contributing to strategy setting across the full range of multi asset capabilities. Alistair joined UBS in 2013 and was previously a financial regulator where his later roles involved the analysis of risks within the asset management industry and the supervision of asset management companies.

BNY Mellon ranks 6th in the world’s largest global asset managers and Martin is responsible for improving and driving execution strategies in trading. With a current focus on developing multi-asset trading including FX and fixed income, Martin discusses how one of the world’s largest investment managers can establish processes and capabilities to cater for the increasing demands of their global clients.

Stéphane currently works in the Public Affairs department of Société Générale Global Banking & Investors solutions. He was also elected Chairman of AMAFI, the representative body for professionals working in the securities industry and financial markets in France in October 2014. Stéphane began his career at Societe Generale in 1996 as a member of General Audit before joining the Senior Audit team in 2001. He then joined the equity department in 2005 as Head of Development, then being appointed Head of Execution Services for the Paris platform in July 2008 and Chairman of SG Securities (Paris) SAS, a subsidiary group of SG in Paris which deals with cash equity activity.

Author, inventor and leader, David’s ideas have influenced the major trends in enterprise communications over the last 15 years. He defined Microsoft’s unified communications strategy (Lync) and as head of collaboration services at Thomson Reuters introduced federated communications to the financial services industry. Before founding Perzo/Symphony, he was VP and GM of Skype’s Enterprise Business.

Sam is responsible for several fin-tech innovation initiatives within the Financial & Risk business of Thomson Reuters. He has worked for the company in buy-side strategy and product development roles for 12 years in both New York and Hong Kong. Sam has a Masters in Financial Strategy from the University of Oxford and currently lives in Zug, Switzerland, where he is focused on crypto-currencies, blockchain technology and identity management.

With over 10 years experience on the trading desk, dealing with electronic execution, Alison now reports direct to the group COO, and leads the change and business management team, responsible for regulatory implementation, front office technology implementation, business integration and efficiency. As one of just a few women in a senior position at Man Group, Alison is in an ideal position to discuss how the skill set of traders is changing, and how companies should be driving initiatives to get more women into trading.

As Managing Director of Credit Suisse in the Equities division, Chris is responsible for AES Product development and Trading in Europe. With experience in creating and trading specialised equity derivatives and a strong background in trading system control, Chris is in a strong position to discuss Credit Suisse's approach and capabilities for block trading.

Valerie is responsible for the overall growth of the SMARTS Trade Surveillance, SMARTS Market Surveillance, and TradeGuard businesses providing market leading risk and surveillance solution to buy side firms, broker dealers, clearing firms, exchanges, and regulators. Previously, Valerie was in charge of the European Market Technology business and drove the expansion into new business segments.

Grigory is Head of Otkritie Capital’s Projects Office and will be responsible for managing projects associated with the development of the company’s products and services. With his extensive expertise in e-trading developments, he is an ideal position to discuss how an Russian investment bank can help investors capitilise in the fast developing Russian market.

Alun supports sales efforts by identifying product enhancements, 3rd party solutions and marketing campaigns. Previously, Alun was a senior business consultant for Charles River, responsible for meeting EMEA client requirements and assisting implementation consultants with workflow design and integration needs. Prior to joining Charles River, Alun held a variety of sales and consultant positions at Misys and SunGard Data Systems, served as a fund administrator for Morgan Grenfell Asset Management, and was a derivatives trader at the Nippon Credit Bank.

Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM) is the asset management unit of the Norwegian central bank (Norges Bank) and manages the Norwegian Government Pension Fund Stale joined NBIM, from a predominantly technical career, in 2008. Throughout his role he has covered fields such as cross-asset transactions cost analysis (TCA), cost-aware portfolio optimisation, impact modelling and short-term order flow analytics. His focus has shifted gradually up the value chain, from algorithms to optimal trading in order flow with different characteristics.

Amundi Asset Management ranks first in Europe and 9th worldwide among players in asset management with €954.2 billion under management. Frederic is currently co-heading the equity dealing desk at Amundi Intermédiation. In addition to his operational duties, he is also overseeing and developing trading platforms across all asset classes, sticking to best trading standards. 

Nick has over 30 years in algo trading, including founding and managing teams for major banks and hedge funds as well as pioneering distributed algo trading and execution environments. Closely involved with trading regulation since 2003 including MiFID & MAR, Nick is Technical director of TraderServe which specialises in creating novel, practical and high-performing solutions to some of the most challenging problems facing financial markets. SQS the world's leading specialist in software quality is now working in partnership with Traderserve to provide a managed testing service based on the proven AlgoGuard test environment. Using non-live algorithm stability testing this prevents deployment of algos which contribute to market disorder or commit market manipulation.

Optiver engages in trading on various major exchanges in Europe, the United States, and the Asia-Pacific. The company trades in a range of products, including listed derivatives, cash equities, ETFs, bonds, and foreign exchange. Kjelle is responsible for market structure evaluation and is a senior Partner, leading a team dedicated to building and maintaining relations with exchanges, clearing houses and direct counterparties. He is also responsible for the strategy behind the products and markets they trade.

Danielle specialises in the Latin American capital markets and covering equity and derivatives market structure, exchanges, electronic trading, and macroeconomic and regulatory drivers. She also covers buy-side equity research, buy-side macro trends (hedge fund and asset management, ETFs, mutual funds), research portals, and market data. Danielle brings to Aite Group a strong understanding of capital markets structure and a broad knowledge of the financial services industry.

Remco is former Chairman of the FIA European Principal Traders Association, and now a close advisor to the group. With previous positions, such as Managing Director at IMC Financial Markets, he has extensive experience in Global Corporate Development and market Structure. In this capacity, he has been responsible for all relationships with exchanges, clearing organizations and platforms as well as all strategic initiatives that the firm undertakes in the various regions in which they are active.

Vipul’s primary responsibility is to provide business solutions by leveraging technology and process know how for the Investment team. The areas he covers include change management and business analysis, vendor relationships for 3rd party investment systems, IT strategy and business process improvement amongst other things. With Vipul’s experience in his all encompassing role, he will be providing insights into what lessons can be learned from equities technology and what you should be looking to apply to your fixed income trading desk today.

Robert has worked in and around the financial markets for nearly 30 years. Initially at banks and financial institutions, in the last ten years he's focused on the records retention space working at Bloomberg and Global Relay. His involvement with communication monitoring, surveillance and some of the highest profile cases in recent history, such as LIBOR and the foreign exchange markets investigations, has allowed him a unique insight into records retention, monitoring, surveillance and behavioral analysis. Etrali works with many major financial markets participants to engineer and support voice recording infrastructure globally with offices in 17 locations. He is also credited with being one of the few people to make financial markets compliance “interesting”.

Frost Consulting is a London/Frankfurt-based firm that works with asset managers and asset owners on a variety of research issues including research valuation/budgeting software platforms (FrostRB) that allow managers to construct strategy/fund specific monetary research budgets reflecting investment process, portfolio construction and expected returns. Managers can thereby maximise ROI on research spending and meet new European regulatory requirements. Frost also advises asset managers on CSA/RPA architectures for the MiFID II research payment environment. Neil has held a wide range of roles in asset management and investment banking in both Europe and North America, ranging from running equities businesses at global banks to launching and managing all aspects of varying asset management products. Neil was appointed to the IMA’s Research Review Advisory Panel. Frost was sponsored by CFA UK/CFA Institute to write a White Paper on the Valuation of Equity Research to help the industry meet new UK regulatory requirements.

Mahmoud recently joined HSBC as head of Central Risk Book from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. In his previous role as European head of CRB, he developed the flow interaction framework, managed the electronic client facilitation book and oversaw the automated trading platform for Delta1 products. He has an extensive experience in systematic internalisation and algorithmic trading strategies. Mahmoud started his career at Lehman Brothers in 2005 as a QuantitativeTrader and joined Nomura following its acquisition of Lehman Brothers' European activities where he was responsible for European Algorithms. Mahmoud holds an MSci. in Probability and Finance from the University of Paris VI and MSci. in engineering from Telecom ParisTech.

Joe is responsible for the supervision of customer publishing projects, The Trade Asia, The Trade Derivatives and The Trade News. Having won numerous awards in journalism in the investment and finance space, he is very well placed to contribution to and moderate top level discussions around trading and investment.

As Director and Co-Head of Sales EMEA for the Advanced Execution Services Group (AES) of Credit Suisse’s Investment Banking Division, Matthew is responsible for sales, marketing, and distribution of AES products and services across the region. His experience incorporates running the European Broker Dealer business for AES which saw compound growth rate of over 400% from this area. Before joining Credit Suisse, Matthew was Head of DMA Sales at AKJ Ltd. (a global electronic broker dealer specialising in DMA solutions). Previous to this, he was a Director and General Manager at EBI Ltd where he was responsible for overseeing electronic brokerage operations and the day-to-day running of the firm.

Marcus has an extensive background is in Financial Services Markets and related areas, with particular expertise in strategy, analysis and implementation. His recent projects include deliveries relating to MiFID II / MiFIR, EMIR, Dodd-Frank & CPSS IOSCO, and his knowledge covers Equities, Fixed Income, FX, derivatives and Commodities.

Eirik is responsible for all equity trading globally for one of the largest Nordic asset managers and with over 60 billion euro of AUM. With a current focus on evaluating current broker relationships, and establishing effective processes to best analyse data generated, he is able to explain how developing an in house TCA tool can help trade-to-trade and venue analysis to make more educated trade decisions.

With previous experience in running trading system solutions, Nic has extensive experience at working at one of the world's leading asset managers, on China Trading, regarding via pnotes (Delta One ELN’s), B-shares, A-shares, US & HK-listed Chinese stocks themselves (ie, H-shares, Red Chips, etc) and ‘Stock Connect’.

A recognized thought leader in market structure, regulatory reform and financial trading technology, Rebecca founded Incisus to focus on the complex challenges the financial service industry now faces and how technology can help address these, ultimately improving capital markets both for participants and investors. Widely quoted in the financial, business and trade media, she has appeared on TV and radio discussing ongoing changes in capital markets such as the Financial Times, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, The Times, De Telegraaf, Die Welt, Le Monde, Les Echos, CNBC TV, BBC and Bloomberg, among others. In 2012, Rebecca was invited to provide evidence for the UK House of Lords review into electronic trading and regularly contributes to wider debates on regulatory reform including conducting research for ESMA on the impact of MiFID II

Christoph joined Union in April 2014 and, with his team, is responsible for all trading activities associated with portfolio management of cash equities, fixed income, fund and ETF business, FX, listed and OTC derivatives, and securities lending. Currently his new position is specific to multi-asset trading. Christoph has more than 20 years of international investment banking, trading and management experience, having worked for companies on the sell- and buy-side, most recently as Head of Execution Sales at Barclays Bank and at Alpha Trading.

Oliver, a budding entrepreneur,  combines his expertise in statistical learning techniques, ensemble methods and quantitative trading strategies with his fundamental research skills to maximise investment profitability. Evolutiq is an independent investment manager with a quantitative, research-driven investment process. His main role is to develop, design and implement quantitative trading models over the investment value chain for his clients.

James Fairweather is the European Head for the Global Execution Services, since 2007. He is also business program manager for the MiFID II project for ABN AMRO Clearing. 

James joined ABN AMRO Clearing (formerly Fortis Bank Global Clearing) in 2000 in the team that was called Direct Market Access at the time. 

Prior to joining ABN AMRO, James worked for a large Japanese Bank providing Futures & Options execution services to Institutional Clients. Besides his responsibilities with ABN AMRO Clearing, James has advised various industry bodies on automated trading and Direct market Access.

Frédéric is responsible for the equity and convertible bond portfolio management teams within BNP Paribas Investment Partners’ distribution business line. He is the Chairman of the Association Française de Gestion‘s (AFG) working group “liquidity and market mechanisms” and active within the European Fund and Asset Management Association (EFAMA). With a strong quantitative bias, and additional experiences in financial engineering and dealing services, he provides extensive insight into how to extend the investment universe in the increasingly competitive market, find liquidity and facilitate transparency and commitment.

As Head of Execution at Exane BNP Paribas, Antoine is responsible for managing High Touch Trading and Sales Trading, Electronic Trading, Portfolio Trading, as well as the Quantitative and Technology teams. His previous experience include 8 years at Deutsche Bank where he was Head of EMEA Execution Sales, and 4 years at Morgan Stanley in the Global Portfolio Trading team. He has extensive knowledge of clients’ changing needs in a growingly fragmented and complex equity market.

With efforts to role the current investment opportunities to a global level, Chantal discusses how her experience in raising asset and developing investment teams has enabled her to develop a business with over 3 billion euros in AUM and homes in on the product, strategy and operations factors that need to be considered to achieve this global growth. 

Hendrik is an expert in investment strategies like Relative Value, Event Driven and Global Macro Strategies, alternative investments and has been the Head Portfolio Manager since 2004 at Da Vinci Invest AG, an independent asset manager, based in Zurich, Switzerland. The company runs their own successful event driven hedge fund which makes Hendrik a strong candidate to discuss the evolution of modern day algorithms and routing logic.

Nicolas oversees the equivalent of about $66 billion, and heads up the trading desk at Carmignac Gestion, a Paris-based asset manager. He will be taking part of our Buy side head trader think tank to discuss and debates the challenges a of a European head trader.

Motif Capital is a global equity investment manager that specialises in the management of thematic investment strategies for financial institutions. Their unique disciplined, scientific, and transparent approach to thematic investing relies on combining data-driven insights with objective fundamental research, algorithmic portfolio design and cutting-edge technology & analytics. Peter is responsible for research, development, and asset management of thematic strategies. Specialties include top-down thematic portfolio construction, smart beta, strategic and tactical asset allocation models.

KFL Asset Management is a new company that has broken into the market with machine learning and uses predictive modelling to gain a trading advantage over the human limitations. Dave founded the company and is also an active private investor and co-founded Entertech Systems Inc. and Actual ID, companies that make biometric access, control and time and attendance technology and software. He is also a General Partner in a small venture fund that has investments in the medical device and security equipment industries. He is in an unique position to discuss how to use big data and intelligent machines to predict price and how to analyse market data to develop predictive models.

Henry joined Susquehanna in February 2007, initially market making the precious metals and commodity ETFs/ETCs. Since 2009, Henry has lead the ETF sales desk, and his team of 5 sales traders provides prices to a pan-European network of buy-side and sell-side counterparties across the broad suite of equity, fixed income and commodity tracking products from all the main ETF issuers.

Having made the transition from high-touch sales trading to a low-touch sell-side trading desk and then finally to the buy-side, Alexander has experienced first-hand the evolution of execution methods at a time of rapidly changing trading regulation. He has a keen interest in the growing sophistication of the buy-side (particularly with regards to new ways of trading large blocks and how the dark space will adapt) and he is very excited to see how the industry as a whole can change further, as new rules and new technologies converge.

Giovanni heads up the portfolio management and trading at the UK based Hedge Fund, Auriel Capital. With a current focus on how the regulatory changes are impacting the market structure, and how to best prepare for changes on crossing networks, he shares his experience and the current efforts for disclosure and transparency for hedge funds.

Antonio has extensive experience in portfolio management and engineering, with a strong knowledge of both managing and trading equities and derivatives. His experience places him in an ideal position to discuss how a top European trading desk is currently managing and adapting to the current regulatory climate and where they are investing to survive.

With experiences at UBS and before, as Head of multi-asset trading at AXA Investment Managers, Richard has experience of both the buy and sell side of the market. Currently responsible for execution of client relationships, client strategy, sales and marketing, market structure and regulation, Richard has extensive experience and insight on how liquidity can be found . He is looking to continue developing their technology, market expertise and to provide transparency to their clients.

Tom is responsible for the FCA's domestic and international policies regarding exchanges, multilateral trading facilities and organised trading facilities, as well as elements of OTC trading (including the MiFID regimes for pre- and post-trade transparency and systematic internalisers). He has previously worked at HM Treasury on various European and financial services policy issues and at the European Commission as an economist, focusing on UK growth and fiscal issues. Whilst at the Commission, Tom co-edited a book on the causes and consequences of the financial crisis in the UK.  

Mehdi has been involved in the T2S Programme from its inception and has extensive understanding of how this can improve the highly fragmented securities settlement infrastructure in Europe. Formerly, he worked for Euroclear and Euronext giving him a practical perspective on key industry issues. Mehdi’s in-depth overview of T2S places him impeccably to provide a unique update on the program progression after wave 1 goes live this July, and prior to the larger wave 2 going live in 2016. Mr Manaa will share thoughts on how current regulations can help drive the creation of the single market for financial services in the EU. 

Mark has worked in Formula One for almost 30 years and has spent the last 15 working as a senior executive within the management of Jordan Grand Prix, Red Bull Racing and Cosworth. While operating at the centre of this fascinating sports business, Mark has worked directly with the world’s top drivers and team owners, giving him a privileged understanding of what it takes to be a world class competitor. Formula One is a unique mix of business and sport, where strong leadership, efficient team work, split second decision making and a clear focus on delivery are required to compete at the highest levels in the 20 Grands Prix which comprise the FIA Formula One World Championship.

Tim is an economist, writer and broadcaster. He's the author of the million selling "The Undercover Economist" and more recently of "Adapt". He's won awards both for his Financial Times columns and his BBC radio series, "More or Less", which debunks dubious statistics wherever they may lurk. He's spoken at the TED conference, on the stand-up comedy circuit and at the Sydney Opera House.

John has had a long and distinguished career of over 35 years’ experience in the capital markets in a wide variety of leadership roles. John has been at the forefront of many market innovations and is an acknowledged leader in the automation of trading. He built the market leading algorithmic and high speed trading business at Lehman; founded, as CEO of Chi-X Global, a number of exchanges in Asia; and, created a messaging infrastructure, information and data company, MarketPrizm, which was sold to Colt Telecommunications in 2011.

An expert in the field of, business process management, information technology, international affairs and operations management, Alex is TABB Group’s Chief Operations Officer and technology analyst. Alex’s focus is on financial services hardware and software innovations and has worked closely with many of today’s leading technology innovators. Prior to being named COO in January 2013, Alex ran TABB Group’s operational consulting efforts. He joined TABB in 2004 from Kroll Inc., the international risk consulting company, where he served as the security services group’s executive officer and assisted leadership by running many of the day–to-day functions within the organization, including security and risk-assessment projects, as well as crisis management and business continuity assignments. Prior to Kroll, he was a Foreign Service officer with the US Department of State for 12 years, serving as an economics and commercial officer in Lusaka, Zambia and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, as well as being a member of the US Mission to the United Nations Alex earned a BS in history from American University. He is also a graduate of the U.S. Foreign Service Institute, where he studied economics, security and international affairs.

Duncan Higgins joined ITG in 2010 and is currently a Managing Director and Head of Electronic Sales in EMEA. Duncan has extensive industry knowledge and experience in electronic trading, execution tools, liquidity access products, and market structure. Prior to ITG, he spent two years at the multi-lateral trading facility, Turquoise, where he served as the Head of Client Relationship Management leading their sales and marketing efforts. Prior to that, Duncan spent 9 years at UBS, most recently as an Executive Director within the Client Trading & Execution business.

Kepler Cheuvreux is a multi-local equity broker with the highest market share in Continental European equities among independent brokers. Robert is Head of Account Management, with extensive experience with  equity sales and management roles. Currently, as MiFID II spokesman at Kepler Cheuvreux, he is in an ideal position to discuss the impact of commission unbundling on the market structure. 

Mark is is a proven industry leader in proprietary trading firms, having led Getco Europe for nearly a decade into a leading market liquidity provider across multiple asset classes. As a director at Van der Moolen, he was responsible for all trading activities and operational functions in the US, UK and Germany. He has an in-depth knowledge of algorithmic and high frequency trading and with liquidity provision in listed markets. Mark also serves as Board Chairman of CME Europe and as a non-executive board member of Aquis Exchange.

James is responsible for Pan European cash equity sales and marketing across the Group’s equity trading platforms, including LSE and Turquoise. Prior to his current role, James was Director of Client Relationship Management for Turquoise, the London Stock Exchange Group majority owned Pan European cash equity Multi Lateral Trading facility. James has extensive experience in market data and client connectivity, and was heavily involved in the dark book initiative developed in partnership with Lehman Brothers and latterly as a standalone subsidiary of the London Stock Exchange. 

Robert Boardman is a Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer for ITG’s European operations. From 2006 to 2010 he served as head of European algorithmic trading at ITG. Prior to joining the firm, Rob spent 12 years at Goldman Sachs in various positions, including executive director on the electronic transaction services sales team and head of connectivity for the equities division.

Adam is responsible for managing Instinet's brokerage operations and business strategy in the EMEA region. He has a deep understanding of the needs of clients and the challenges they face rapidly-changing and highly-complex markets. Adam served as Managing Director and Co- Global Head of Electronic Trading at Nomura International plc. He joined Nomura following its acquisition of the European assets of Lehman Brothers, where he headed its European Portfolio and Electronic Sales Trading desk. Prior to that, he served as an Equity Trader at Barclays Global Investors in London.

Philip  is responsible for leading the firm’s agency-execution and market-making businesses in the region. With his previous position as Global Head of Cash and EMEA head of Equities at UBS, he has extensive experience and insight in what the market needs regarding liquidity, lower TCA and pricing.

Newly appointed, Stéphane is Chairman of the Managing Board of Euronext, the pan-European stock exchange operating regulated markets in Amsterdam, Brussels, Lisbon, London and Paris. His proven track record as a successful manager of international organisations, advising on equity raising and M&A advice for venture capital funds and innovative technology companies and his extensive experience of the financial markets, in particular in dealing with European corporates and with global investors, makes him a highly suitable candidate for the role.

Danielle has responsibility for almost €200m revenues from the core cash trading business in equities, bonds and ETFs. Danielle is one of the UK trading industry’s most high-profile female executives and led the sales and client coverage team in London at NYSE Euronext from 2012 to early 2014. Prior to this Danielle spent three years as Director of electronic distribution at Barclays Capital for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, where she helped roll-out its electronic trading business in cash equities and established the bank’s broker crossing network.

Tim’s primary role is to develop the international Prime Brokerage platform and manage the international sales team. Tim began his career at Tilney Investment Management and then spent over 5 years at the London Stock Exchange, where he managed the ETF and structured products platform and latterly was involved in the launch of Russian derivatives on Turquoise Derivatives (then EDX). Tim moved to the sell side joining Renaissance Capital to develop structured products, later equity sales. Prior to joining BCS, Tim was at Otkritie Securities Limited where he developed and built up the DMA/prime brokerage platform.

Philippe Buhannic revolutionized the trading space with the introduction of the industry’s first execution management system (EMS) 14 years ago – he coined the term for this type of platform on his personal blog in 1998. Since then, Philippe built TradingScreen® into a universal platform for global trading, which includes the largest EMS in the world.

Philippe has kept the focus of TradingScreen on finding innovative ways to make global markets simple. In 2011, TradingScreen launched another product breakthrough in this vein, with the introduction of TradePrime®.

TradePrime is a platform that incorporates all the key workflows needed to operate a hedge fund – from execution management (EMS), position collection, to risk, pricing, compliance services and OMS – right out of the box, delivered via a cost-effective software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. TradingScreen’s TradePrime is revolutionizing the alternative asset management industry by resolving one of the most difficult challenges hedge funds face: the complexity of integrating the trading-focused EMS, the position- and performance-focused OMS, and the administrator information into a seamless, intuitive workflow.

Philippe serves as Director of Futures Industry Association, and he has more than 20 years of management, marketing and technical industry experience and is a widely recognized authority on electronic trading and customer information systems.

Prior to TradingScreen, Philippe served as a Managing Director at Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB) in New York. While at CSFB, he worked in the fixed income unit, where he handled listed derivatives, prime brokerage and e-commerce. Buhannic was also responsible for creating and implementing CFSB’s e-commerce products including the “Prime Family” that includes PrimeTrade, PrimeClear, Prime Brokerage and PrimeFund –all of which received industry acclaim as the first successful attempt at global distribution of electronic, multi-asset asset class transaction processing via the Internet.

Prior to joining CSFB, from 1993 to 1995, Philippe was Chairman and CEO of Fimat Futures USA Inc., a subsidiary of Societe Generale of France, and a member of the board of the Fimat Group. Philippe redeveloped the firm by combining innovative marketing and leading edge technology products, establishing Fimat as a major, profitable player in the US market. From 1987 to 1993, he was the deputy Chief Financial Officer of Credit Commercial de France, where he oversaw the global marketing of short-term FX and interest rate products.

In a market generating increasing amounts of data, Tom discusses how real-time microstructrure analytics and trading optimisation platforms can enhance decision making and improve performance for top global institutions and hedge funds worldwide. With previous experience with buy side firms and tier one sell side firms where he developed models at Barcap and bear sterns, he has a solid understanding of buy side requirements for comprehensive analytics to make better trading decision.

Gil has been involved with virtual machine and runtime technologies for the past 25 years. His pet focus areas include system responsiveness and latency behavior. Gil is a frequent speaker and an official JavaOne Rock Star. He pioneered the Continuously Concurrent Compacting Collector (C4) that powers Azul's continuously reactive Java platforms. In past lives, he also designed and built operating systems, network switches, firewalls, and laser based mosquito interception systems.

Having held positions as CEO, COO and in specialist sales and marketing, Richard has broad experience in the financial services sector. He has been described as a pioneer of electronic trading, having been in the vanguard of change in equity trading and market structure since the mid 1980's. Now he is an independent consultant advising brokers, fund managers and exchanges on all aspects of execution services, electronic trading, market structure and regulation.

Julia founded Streets Consulting, the business development, marketing and communications FinTech consultancy, that  represents a  fast-growing list of international financial services, technology and B2B organisations across the UK, across Europe, North America, SE Asia and Australia. Having held previous positions at NYSE Technologies and Instinet,  she using her marketing communications skills to help support her clients with business development, marketing and communications. In 2013, Brummell Magazine named Julia one of their 30 Inspirational Women on Boards and in 2014 one of their 30 Inspirational Women Entrepreneurs. This year, Innovate Finance listed Julia one of their 100 Women in FinTech. Julia writes a monthly column for the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants ‘FM Magazine’ and is the author of 'The Lingua Franca of the Corporate Banker', lampooning corporate jargon. She is also a public speaker, auctioneer and stand-up comedian.

Christian's responsibility is for the AFME Equity Divisions and for the AFME MiFID programme. He is a LLM and MBA graduate with 16 years' experience working in the financial services industry. Prior to his current position he worked in the FSA Market Policy Department focusing on the UK implementation of the Transparency Directive and the development and implementation of FSA policy relating to the clearing and settlement of securities transactions.

Arjun leads the Investment Association’s regulatory affairs work covering institutional business and capital markets regulation. He represents the buy side in policy discussions with regulators across Europe and has been most recently, involved in developing the buy-side’s messages in relation to MiFIR/D II. Currently, the biggest challenges facing the regulatory affairs division within the Investment Association relate to the implementation of MiFIR/D II; the use of dealing commissions for investment research and the G-SIFI designation of asset managers and investment funds.

Essentia’s decision support software enables fund managers to capture richer data about their own behaviour, while improving the productivity and referenceability of their investment processes.  Clare has spent 10 years as a fund manager, both active equity – running over $1bn of pension funds for Deutsche Asset Management – and hedge – as founder and CIO of Avocet Capital Management, a specialist tech fund manager. She ultimately “went native” into the software space as President of Beauchamp Financial Technology, a market-leading provider of portfolio management systems to hedge funds, which was acquired by Linedata Services S.A. Clare’s vision for Essentia is based on years of being the customer, followed by years of listening to the customer.

Sjoerd has been a key contributor to the company's trading strategy, set-up and operations, acting as Head of trading since 2009. In 2010, Sjoerd was named COO due to his keen insight into the necessary inter-relationship between technology and trading. In this capacity he has been responsible for both Trading and IT & Development operations and in 2014 Sjoerd and Dennis Dijkstra, the former CFO of Flow Traders, were appointed co-CEO’s of the Flow Traders group, trading over 500 bn euro value in ETPs.

Tom O'Brien, an experienced professional in the area of international financial markets, joined Moscow Exchange in 2013 from TMX Group, having previous spent 17 years at the London Stock Exchange in various roles. 

Tom is leading the international sales team based at the Exchange's London office. He is responsible for building the international sales network for the company to attract interest from international clients.

Alfred Eskandar is a proven business leader and technology entrepreneur who has dedicated almost 20 years to introducing new levels of innovation and customer value to the global capital markets community. As CEO of Portware, Eskandar has passionately worked to fundamentally change the trading technology landscape. Eskandar has been named to Institutional Investor’s Trading Technology 40 list, the global ranking of the most prominent innovators and managers in the capital markets, 3 of the last 4 years, including 2016 following Portware’s acquisition by FactSet Research Systems.

Chairman of the Hellenic Capital Market Commission, former Member of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) Board of Supervisors, Member of the ESMA Management Board, Chairman of the ESMA Market Integrity Standing Committee, dealing with cooperation, exchange of information and market surveillance, Kostas has been responsible for the whole capital markets legislative package during the Greek Presidency of the European Union (first semester 2014), Chairman of the working group on the benchmark Regulation. One of the two European Regional Committee (ERC) representatives to the IOSCO Board.

Rick Watson is Managing Director and Head of Capital Markets at AFME, the Association for Financial Markets in Europe. In this role he leads staff whose member committees include all the main fixed income and equities-related cash products across Europe, AFME’s growth-related initiatives, as well as AFME’s investor and corporate relationships. Previously, Mr. Watson was Managing Director, Structured Finance, for FGIC UK Limited. Prior to joining FGIC, Rick held positions as head of securitisation origination at HSBC Bank plc and Bear Stearns in London, and before then worked at UBS Limited, Morgan Stanley and Freddie Mac. Mr Watson received an MBA from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University. In September 2013 he was appointed to the EIOPA Insurance and Reinsurance Stakeholder Group and in January 2006, he co-edited the Euromoney Books’ publication "Asset Securitisation and Synthetic Structures: Innovation in the European Credit Markets”.

Sam is currently the Head of Software Engineering at LMAX Exchange. He has had an eclectic career to date: variously modelling the metabolism of drugs and food additives, creating tools to manage and mine scientific data, and now leading the development of a high performance FX exchange at one of the UK's fastest growing Tech Companies.