Stan Beckers
Managing Director
Barclays Global Investors

Stan Beckers joined BGI in June 2004 as a Managing Director . He is currently Head of the Alpha Management Group. Stan has a long and distinguished career in quantitative asset management and he is one of the highly respected people in this field in Europe. He worked for BARRA for almost twenty years, establishing and managing their non-US operations and running their London office, following which he became Global Head of Investments for West LB Asset Management. More recently he established and ran the investment office at Kedge Capital, a wealth management organization belonging to a Swiss family. Alongside his business career Stan has also maintained strong links with academia. His work has been widely published and he remains Visiting Professor of Finance at the University of Leuven in Belgium. Stan holds a PhD in Finance from UC Berkeley.

William F. Browder
Chief Executive Officer
Hermitage Capital Management

William Browder is the Founder and CEO of Hermitage Capital Management, the premier asset management firm specializing in Russian equities. The firm has over US $4 billion under management. The Hermitage Fund was named EuroHedge “2005 Fund of the Year” (Emerging Markets Equities category). The Fund has also been ranked among the best emerging market and global hedge funds by agencies including Nelson’s, Lipper and Micropal.

Mr. Browder is a leading shareholder rights activist and advocate for better corporate governance in Russia. Hermitage, through its shareholder activism, has been credited with a number of breakthroughs improving corporate governance standards at major Russian companies, including Unified Energy Systems, Sberbank and Gazprom. Mr. Browder serves as Chairman of the Russia Task Force for the Institute of International Finance and is a member of the OECD/World Bank Roundtable on Corporate Governance in Russia.

He was named a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute, received a 2004 Industry Achievement Award by Global Fund Analysis and was designated a 2005 “Person to Watch” by the Financial News. Before founding Hermitage in 1996, he was Vice-President of Salomon Brothers, as well as a management consultant with the Eastern European practice of the Boston Consulting Group in London. He obtained an honorary BA in Economics from the University of Chicago and an MBA from the Stanford Business School.

Ray Dalio
Founder, President & Chief Investment Officer
Bridgewater Associates, Inc.

Ray Dalio is President and Chief Investment Officer of Bridgewater Associates, which manages $170 billion.  Approximately $30 billion of this is in its Pure Alpha hedge fund strategy, which makes Bridgewater one of the largest hedge funds.  Mr. Dalio's concepts of separating alphas and betas, which Bridgewater has employed for over 15 years, is now probably the hottest topic in investing and will be covered by Mr. Dalio today. 

Since he graduated with an M.B.A. degree in finance from Harvard Business School in 1973, Ray Dalio has been seeking to produce value-added via currencies and credit markets.  In May 1973, he was Director of Commodities at Dominick & Dominick, a Wall Street brokerage house.  In 1974, he joined Shearson, Haydon Stone where he was in charge of the Institutional Futures department.  In 1975, he left Shearson to form Bridgewater Associates. 

Philip Duff
Chairman and CEO
Robson Ventures LLC

Phil Duff launched Robson Ventures in January 2007. Robson Ventures is a new enterprise that is creating a platform to provide new business propositions across asset management, liability solutions and retirement schemes—the next generation investment management company. Robson Ventures will provide institutional clients integrated portfolio solutions to fund and manage liabilities.

Phil was co-Founder, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of FrontPoint Partners LLC. FrontPoint Partners was founded in 2000 and was sold to Morgan Stanley in December 2006. FrontPoint Partners is an integrated investment management firm currently managing over $7 billion in client assets in single manager and multi-strategy vehicles offering an institutional-quality platform for incorporating non-correlated investment strategies into large asset portfolios.

Prior to FrontPoint, Phil was formerly Chief Operating Officer and Senior Managing Director of Tiger Management, where he served as a member of Tiger’s Management Committee and Advisory Board. Prior to joining Tiger, Phil worked for much of his career at Morgan Stanley. Phil was the Chief Financial Officer of Morgan Stanley and served on the firm’s Management Committee. Phil served as President and CEO of Van Kampen American Capital, a $70 billion mutual fund company which was acquired by Morgan Stanley, and had previously headed Morgan Stanley’s Financial Institutions Group in Investment Banking. Phil began his career as a grain trader for Louis Dreyfus Corporation.

Phil currently serves on the Board of Directors of Greenwich Academy (where he is currently Chairman), Black Diamond Equipment Ltd., Solar Power Corporation, RiskMetrics Group, and the Managed Funds Association. He previously served on the Board of Trustees of the Financial Accounting Foundation. Phil received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Mathematics from Harvard College and a Master of Business Administration from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dinakar Singh
Founder
TPG-Axon Capital

Dinakar Singh is the founding partner of TPG- Axon Capital, a leading global investment firm. Through offices in New York, Hong Kong, and Tokyo, TPG-Axon invests over $6 billion of investor capital in public and private markets across the world. The firm was founded by Mr. Singh in late 2004, in partnership with Texas Pacific Group, a leading private equity firm. TPG-Axon currently has approximately 75 people analyzing investments spanning over 20 different countries, and an investment spectrum ranging from public equities to structured private investments.

He was previously a partner at Goldman Sachs, where he was co-head of the Principal Strategies department. The Department is one of the key franchises at the firm, and is responsible for investing the firm’s capital across global markets. Mr. Singh helped build and lead a premier global multi-strategy investment group, and had responsibility for a multi-billion dollar portfolio of investments spanning a wide spectrum of products and markets. In addition, during his 14 years at Goldman Sachs, he served on a number of the firm’s key leadership committees, including the Securities Division Operating Committee, Risk Committee, Partnership Committee, and Asia Management Committee. While at Goldman Sachs, he spent four years based in Hong Kong, establishing the Principal Strategies efforts across Asia, and building teams in Hong Kong and Japan.

He is a founder of the Spinal Muscular Atrophy Foundation, and also serves on the Columbia University Medical Center Board of Visitors. In addition, he is a member of the Trilateral Commission, and serves on the Yale University President’s Council on International Activities. Dinakar Singh is the founding partner of TPG- Axon Capital, a leading global investment firm. Through offices in New York, Hong Kong, and Tokyo, TPG-Axon invests over $6 billion of investor capital in public and private markets across the world. The firm was founded by Mr. Singh in late 2004, in partnership with Texas Pacific Group, a leading private equity firm. TPG-Axon currently has approximately 75 people analyzing investments spanning over 20 different countries, and an investment spectrum ranging from public equities to structured private investments.

He was previously a partner at Goldman Sachs, where he was co-head of the Principal Strategies department. The Department is one of the key franchises at the firm, and is responsible for investing the firm’s capital across global markets. Mr. Singh helped build and lead a premier global multi-strategy investment group, and had responsibility for a multi-billion dollar portfolio of investments spanning a wide spectrum of products and markets. In addition, during his 14 years at Goldman Sachs, he served on a number of the firm’s key leadership committees, including the Securities Division Operating Committee, Risk Committee, Partnership Committee, and Asia Management Committee. While at Goldman Sachs, he spent four years based in Hong Kong, establishing the Principal Strategies efforts across Asia, and building teams in Hong Kong and Japan.

He is a founder of the Spinal Muscular Atrophy Foundation, and also serves on the Columbia University Medical Center Board of Visitors. In addition, he is a member of the Trilateral Commission, and serves on the Yale University President’s Council on International Activities.

Daniel Zwirn
Chief Executive Officer
D.B. Zwirn & Co.

Daniel Zwirn is Managing Partner and Founder of D.B. Zwirn & Co., L.P. (DBZCO), a global alternative investment firm and merchant capital provider founded in October 2001. DBZCO has over $5 billion in capital and nearly $8 billion of invested assets. DBZCO also has an ownership interest in JCK Partners, L.P., ZS Structured Credit Capital Management, L.P., ZM Capital Partners, L.P., and Threadgreen Partners, LLC.

Through December 2003, Mr. Zwirn served as Managing Director and Senior Portfolio Manager of the Special Opportunities Group of Highbridge Capital Management, LLC.

Prior to that, Mr. Zwirn served as Founder/Portfolio Manager of the Special Opportunities Group of MSD Capital, L.P., the private investment firm of Michael Dell. From 1997 through early 2000, Mr. Zwirn was employed at Davidson Kempner Partners where he initiated the firm’s focus on direct debt investments as well as international merger arbitrage, for which he was given a mandate to open the firm’s London office. Prior to attending business school, Mr. Zwirn served as an analyst in media and communications mergers and private equity investments at Lazard Frères & Co. and Madison Dearborn Partners, LLC respectively.

Mr. Zwirn received an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School in 1998. He received a B.S., cum laude, in Economics with a triple concentration in Accounting, Finance and Corporate Control (self-designed) from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business in 1993, and a B.A.S. in Computer Science, cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania’s Moore School of Electrical Engineering in 1993.

Mr. Zwirn is a member of The Council on Foreign Relations (Term) and The Young Presidents Organization. He also serves on the Advisory Council of The Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution, the Leadership Council of the Robin Hood Foundation and the Board of Trustees of New York’s Public Theater.