Global Head of FX Algo Execution, Asif is an experienced FX Algo Trader who has over 10 years of experience in developing electronic trading platforms. He has a MSc in Artificial Intelligence and has joined BNP Paribas from Citi, where he worked on various initiatives including eFX pricing engines and algorithmic trading. Utilising his experience in artificial intelligence, he has developed and launched Cortex iX (Intelligent eXecution) - a cutting edge FX algorithmic execution platform that has been highly acclaimed by clients and industry experts globally.

As the former director-general of the UK's Security Service, MI5, where he spent 33 years focusing on international and domestic counter-terrorism and cyber-threats and as a previous member of the Prime Minister’s National Security Council, Jonathan offers insight on governance of systemic threats, cyber security and digital espionage. With his current role as an Independent Non-Executive Director at HSBC, he is in a unique position to draw on his experience of approaches to data security within the public service and the financial sector.

Markus is a critical voice on the current draft and adoption of the new regulation MiFID II. Integral to discussions between the European Parliament and European Council, Markus provides essential clarification of the guidelines, what is expected to be implemented and how this should be reported, with a special focus on high-frequency trading (HFT), testing and regulatory authorisation of algorithms.

Peter is the author of Flash Boys: Not So Fast, which debunks the claim that our global equities markets have been systemically “rigged.” Drawing upon his expertise in compliance and regulatory policy from his tenure as COO of the global multi-asset market-making firms EWT & Madison Tyler from 2004-2011, Peter presents a clear-headed view of today’s electronic markets and potential developments that the future might bring.

Felix is Managing Director and equity trader, and a member of BlackRock's London equity team and responsible for high touch execution. Coming from an organisation with the world's largest assets under management, Felix is well placed to contribute in discussions around developments in high touch execution in the European equity market, and with previous experience in international execution, he will be contributing in the invite only buy-side leader think tank.

As one of the top 10 biggest AUM globally, PIMCO has diversified from fixed income and looking to expand into global equities. Melissa is a key part of making this happen. With equity offerings totaling $55 billion in AUM, Melissa’s new role includes managing day to day operations and performance oversight of PIMCO’s regional equity desk and staff to drive and strengthen their global equity trading platform.

As the Global Head of Trading and Securities Financing (TSF) for AXA Investment Managers, Christophe oversees equity, fixed-income, forex and derivatives trading activity, as well as securities lending and repo on desks located in Paris, London, Greenwich and Hong Kong. With running the trading operation for one of the biggest asset managers in the word, Christophe shares his knowledge on how to streamline global activities in line with recent regulations.

As Managing Director and the Head of Trading in EMEA for State Street Global Advisors (SSgA), Dale has responsibility for equity, fixed income, currency and futures execution for SSgA in London. He is the 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.

At a leading asset manager in Europe, Frederic has a core focus on implementing the new regulatory changes and ensuring compliance is filtered down and implemented within the organisation. He shares how he is preparing for the impending changes to commission payments, and implementing processes and new systems internally that can cope and prepare for increasing client demands.

As co-head of volatility and convertible bonds, Gilbert has been driving forward the use of volatility as a new asset class, for new investment opportunities. Over the long run we have evidence that volatility tends to trade across three different regimes. Low levels of volatility were witnessed from 2004-2006 and nowadays; excessive levels during the 2008-2009; and an average regime in 2010-2012. With applications of trading volatility in both long and short, he provides insight on analytical approaches, market participants and product range on this “volatility asset class” to better understand the current market, future opportunities and how this benefits the end investor.

At one of the largest asset manager in Germany, 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 is in a unique position to 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.

Mike has a core focus on technology innovations for improved execution globally. He is currently in 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.

With a growing focus on leveraging technology internally to drive a more content driven trading desk, Matt evaluates how filtering and distributing information in an efficient and targeted fashion can drive improvements in communication internally and externally to make more collaborative and smart trading decisions.

Damien is co-head of EMEA One Delta Execution Services and head of EMEA and International Sales Trading across channels. He is responsible for the Program Trading, Global Institutional (Cross Asset) and Synthetic Products Group Sales Trading, and a member of the Equities Best Execution Committee.

Gianluca oversees Pioneer Investments trading operations worldwide in Asia, the U.S.A. and Europe. He is also the London Branch Manager of Pioneer Investment Management Limited (PIML). With a core focus on building communication within the buy side community, Gianluca is looking to change how the buy side work together to help drive change and improve liquidity.

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

In his new role as Head of European equity trading, Simon provides 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.

As head of Execution FX/MM and UK and Asia Fixed Income trading at AXA Investment Managers, Lee provides insight on how to successfully prepare and gain knowledge needed to move from equity trading into FX and FI trading. With experience in developing electronic systems and overseeing TCA activities, he offers essential insight on how to trade and execute in the increasing multi asset trading environment.

Frédéric Surry 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 also 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 facility transparency and commitment.

At Sparinvest, a Luxembourg-based internationally known value investor managing $12 billion, Claus is responsible for trading in global equities and foreign exchange. As execution performance is key, Claus is extensively exploiting TCA to analyse and measure trading partners as well as building proprietary models to optimize the use of a wide range of strategies and algorithms.

Number 17 in the top 20 global assets under management, David is responsible for all EMEA trading at Invesco Perpetual. He will offer insight and contribute on discussions to how current regulations are changing and evolving trading strategies for 2015.

As Director of Equity Trading at Principal Global Investors, company managing close to $500 billion in asset under management, Huw gives information on the evolution of equity trading in various international markets, including Europe, Africa and the Middle East, with a special focus on market rigging and high frequency trading activity in the sector.

As CIO of the leading asset manager in Belgium, and a leading asset manager in Czech Republic and Hungary, Jürgen has been operating in a quasi-full unbundled approach at KBC AM for the last 8 years, with extensive experience in how commission payments can be effectively split between research and execution for improved services.

As Head of Trading at one of the largest Nordic asset managers and with over 60 billion euro of AUM, Eirik is responsible for all equity trading globally. 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.

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.

Newly appointed as the Head of Trading at Union Investment Institutional, one of Europe’s leading asset managers, Christoph manages trading activities for the entire portfolio including cash equities, listed and OTC derivatives, funds and ETFs and especially for the equity side in currencies and securities lending, with extensive experience in portfolio management and trading.

As Global Co-Head of Equity Trading, Frank overseas global equity trading activity at Alliance Bernstein and responsible for adhering to the current regulations and legislative changes that are impacting the current market. With close to $500 billion assets under management, Frank has expertise in understanding and overseeing client facing initiatives related to equity trading, and sustaining business growth.

Neil is Head of Trading at Ardevora, where the investment process centres on a cognitive psychology approach to stock picking. His previous experience in the sell side and other technology firms, have provided him with extensive experience in trading in a mostly liquidity seeking style, taking full advantage of dark pools and stealth strategies, program trading as well as interacting with blocks.

With his current position 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 and is looking to continue developing their technology and market expertise to provide further transparency to their clients.

Mark Hemsley is chief executive officer of BATS Chi-X Europe, the largest pan-European equities exchange and the European arm of BATS Global Markets. Under his leadership, BATS Chi-X Europe became a Recognised Investment Exchange (RIE) in May 2013, strengthening the company’s European leadership position in market structure, technology and innovation. Mr. Hemsley has been named in the "FN 100 Most Influential" list, which recognizes key financial executives impacting European financial markets, every year since 2009. He contributes his market structure expertise as a member of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) Secondary Markets Standing Committee providing consultation on the impact of market structure changes and ESMA policy development.

Victor Lebreton manages the strategies and the portfolio for Quant Hedge a prop-trading fund. His experience in developing electronic trading platforms, and quantitative trading allows him to discuss how systemic and algorithmic trading can assist towards investment research, and act as a tool towards more controlled and smarter trading.

As Managing Director of BVI, the German asset management and fund industry trade association, Rudolf is responsible for legal and regulatory affairs, fund industry standards, and market research. He represents the interest of the German financial industry and acts as the voice for discussing German and EU investment fund and asset management law and regulation, value chain standardisation and market data issues.

With extensive experience in financial services including senior asset management trading roles, Marcus has worked in the fields of market microstructure and the deployment of electronic trading technologies. Having been actively involved in financial services industry working and advisory groups Marcus has made contributions in the areas of electronic trading, financial markets regulation, market structure, transaction cost analysis and the development and application of trading technology.

Philip Bille is Executive Director of Petercam and Head of the Dealing Desk. He is in charge of the Equity Broker Review process, the relationship with the sell-side and the market structure related topics. With over 20 year experience in small and mid-cap equities, both on the sell-side and the buy-side, he is in a unique position to discuss how these two part of the market are currently evolving regarding small to mid cap trades.

Recognised as a pioneer of multi-asset electronic trading, Richard has been in the vanguard of change in equity trading and market structure since the mid 1980's.Having held positions as CEO of Instinet, MD and Global Head of Electronic trading at Credit Suisse, COO for global trading at BZW, and Head of National Market Development at the London Stock Exchange, he has a wealth of experience. He is now an independent consultant advising brokers, fund managers and exchanges on all aspects of execution services, electronic trading, market structure and regulation.

As a member of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) and chairman of the ESMA Market Integrity Standing Committee (MISC), Kostas plays a key part in the regulatory dealing with cooperation, exchange of information and market surveillance in the capital market. Playing an active part in ESMA’s efforts regarding commission unbundling, Kostas is able to represent the regulatory voice on the current situation and efforts within the market.

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.

Antoine is responsible for trading and execution at Exane BNP Paribas and has extensive experience in high-touch, programme trading and electronic trading. With the French broker, Exane BNP Paribas looking to expand it’s business in London, Antoine has been integral to ensuring this transition and growth is successful.

Fabrice is responsible for leading the equity and credit research team at Société Générale, and his current focus is on building on the success of the macro part of the business, specialising in economy, quant, cross assets and strategy and moving to a global coverage on the international sectors In 2014, Societe Generale has been named Best overall Macro Research by Extel (#1 Global Strategy, #1 Global Economics, #1 Multi Asset Research, #1 Equity Quant, #1 Index Analysis), Best Overall Credit Research by Euromoney and Best Overall Commodity Research by Risk Energy. Fabrice Theveneau joined the Research department in 1997 as financial analyst covering the capital goods sector research. He has been ranked 3rd best individual analyst in this sector by Extel in 2004 & 2005, n°1 in France and n°2 across all sectors.

With extensive experience in the financial services industry and networking infrastructure, Ronan discusses the fascinating story of IEX, their efforts to restore trust to the stock market, in a market where computerised HFT activity is still a concern for market rigging. Ronan will also explain IEX’s future efforts to further develop tactics to correct the effects of HFT.

As Co-CIO at VTB Capital Investment Management, and with extensive experience in portfolio management for both long-only and long/short equity and fixed-income funds in the Russia and CIS markets, Tim discusses essential know-how for trading in the Russian and CIS market and how to capitalise on the current and future investment possibilities.

Based in Paris, Capital Fund Management is specialised in developing trading strategies based on a global and quantitative approach to financial markets. As “Head of Execution” Julien supervises a team of 8 researchers that devise execution algorithms and perform transaction cost analysis. He has authored several papers on order book dynamics and market impact.

As CIO of Duet Africa, Ayo has been an integral part of developing the new Africa investment arm of Duet Group, with AUM of ~£500 million.. With a specific focus on Eastern and Western African markets, he has been involved in researching African equity markets and played a key role in equity capital markets activity and the successful marketing of a number of new equity issues from the Sub-Saharan Africa region.

With experience from both a bank-owned Asset Manager (HSBC Asset Management), and now General Manager at an independent Fund Manager in Turkey, Fokus Asset Management, Ercan has experience in both fund managing and trading, something unique in the Turkish market. He introduced a new investment strategy to the Turkish investment market, where he combined top-down and bottom-up investment approaches which has improved how asset managers perform and the market trade.

Josh Levy is the Managing Director of Tactical Asset Management, a Foreign-Exchange investment advisory and algorithmic proprietary trading firm. Josh has extensive experience of using high frequency trading activity for trade prediction rather than arbitrage, and gives essential insight into how the market need to stop evaluating the frequency of trades, but more the underlying strategy and how and why.

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.

As CEO of KCG Europe, Phil 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.

Having recently left Scottish Widows Investments Partners, as Head of Equity Dealing and Derivatives, Anthony is very experienced in motivating and monitoring a team of dealers in an increasingly demanding financial environment. This was achieved by way of a thorough and inclusive management style with the aim of minimising the Implementation Shortfall suffered by the Fund Managers whilst ensuring that their targets were met. He interacted with customers and clients both internal and external to promote the core values within my team and the rest of the business.

Fabio is in charge of the FCA policy for MTFs and systematic internalisers, mainly focusing on transparency and market structure. He is currently working on the MiFID review and he is part of the ESMA Task Force on Transparency and Trading Obligation, which was created to carry out ESMA’s responsibilities on implementing measures under MiFID II. He is a former a member of the IOSCO committee on the regulation of secondary markets.

As an expert and responsible for the coordination of MiFID II Level 2 project for its cash market and other regulatory initiatives such as financial transaction tax and high frequency trading related topics, Sandra is extremely well place to discuss the impact of HFT behaviour on the market given her experience in managing major brokers/banks and high frequency trading firms in the UK and Scandinavia. She has been instrumental in the firm's responses on several regulatory issues (e.g. MiFID II Level 1, ESMA guidelines etc.). She also played a vital role in the successful implementation of the German High Frequency Trading Act.

As Managing Director at Goldman Sachs, Michael is responsible for European Execution sales and is Head of European Electronic Trading. His experience in the market and extensive trading knowledge positions him well to provide relevant insights on how the execution landscape in Europe is evolving.

Duncan is Director of the electronic sales group at ITG, and is focused on explaining the algorithmic execution, electronic liquidity access products and the Triton EMS to European clients. With his previous experience at the multi-lateral trading facility Turquoise, Duncan offers extensive industry experience on electronic execution and the intelligent tools that are available to the market.

In a market generates increasing amounts of data, Tom, CEO and co-founder of OTAS Technologies, 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.

In his position as CEO and Managing Director of the Investment Technology Group (ITG), Rob is responsible for the European operations, and with previous experience in electronic transaction services and connectivity for equity divisions, he is able to share knowledge on how effective trading analysis, in both high touch and electronic trading can improve trading performance and reduce costs in global markets.

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.

As the driver of corporate strategy and products for Liquidnet, Per oversees the strategic initiatives for developing the Institutional electronic block trading network in EMEA. With a current focus on developing relationships with liquidity partners, analysts, regulators and vendors, Per looks at how their products can really engage the buy side industry and ensure capture of alpha.

Leading the Electronic Trading and Prime Brokerage sales effort at Otkritie Capital International Ltd, one of the most active brokerage company for on exchange traded Russian instruments, Serge is involved in designing new products to keep OCIL ahead of curve and provide an easy access to the Russian financial markets to international clients. Prior to joining OCIL, Serge spent 5 years at Jefferies International Ltd, building and marketing the DMA, trading algorithms and Portfolio Trading platform, and 4 years at Sungard Financial system, working on markets access for sell-side and high frequency trading firms.

As CEO and Founder of the financial markets’ research and strategic advisory firm focused exclusively on capital markets, TABB Group, Larry has extensive insight in the challenges of the whole market chain, including the fiduciary, investment manager, broker, exchange and custodian. He offers essential data and market research on conflicts within the market and insight on best execution for all market participants.

Stefan Hendrickx is Founder and Executive Director of Ancoa, providers of contextual surveillance and insightful analytics for exchanges, regulators, buy and sell-side firms. Stefan established Ancoa in 2010 to help financial institutions process and analyse large volumes of structured and unstructured data, generate alerts in real time whilst readily adapting to changing market conditions, data inputs and regulatory requirements.

Andrey Shemetov has held the position of Deputy Chairman of the Executive Board at Moscow Exchange since November 12, 2012. Until June 25, 2013, he occupied the post of Member of the Company's Supervisory Board. In 2008 he headed ATON LLC, which is a part of ATON Group. Mr. Shemetov graduated from State University of Management with a specialty in Management of Entrepreneurship.

Brian is responsible for all aspects of the secondary markets business for equities, including Business and Product development and Marketing. As a member of the Equities and Derivatives Management Committee, Brian is also involved with the Exchange’s strategy across Turquoise and Derivatives markets. With experience at leading global banks in trading roles, Brian has a very clear idea of what the European venue market need for improved connectivity, market access and execution.

As a successful business entrepreneur and visionary for the algorithmic trading market, Stephane was instrumental in taking QuantHouse from its early stages to a global eight-digit revenue business helping more than 120 clients around the world execute highly advanced Algo-Trading solutions within 5 years. This lead to a successful acquisition in 2012 by S&P Capital IQ where he is providing strategic insight for the growth and integration of the Real Time business.

Giovanni has responsibilities as Managing Partner and heading 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.

Gil has been involved with virtual machine technologies for the past 20 years and has been building Java technology-based products since 1995. Gil pioneered Azul's Continuously Concurrent Compacting Collector (C4), Java Virtualisation, Elastic Memory, and various managed runtime and systems stack technologies that combine to deliver the industry's most scalable and robust Java platforms.

Philippe has stayed on the forefront of global markets and financial technology for more than 30 years, in a career that has spanned executive management, technical, and marketing experience in international markets. Having founded TradingScreen in 1999, working to connect global sell-side participants and leading regional brokers to a common environment, the company was ahead of the curve from day one – delivering market access, and order and liquidity management to the buy side – anticipating the shift away from paper-based trading towards digital markets. Today, TradingScreen is not only the world’s leading execution management system (EMS), it is also the leading independent provider of liquidity, trading and investment technology via Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) to the financial community.

Julia Streets is the founder & CEO of Streets Consulting representing a wide range of financial services and technology firms from right across the capital markets. 
Her career has included senior executive positions at Atos Euronext Market Solutions and Instinet Europe.   A fintech and tech evangelist, Julia is a SWIFT Innotribe judge, Accenture Fintech Innovation Lab and Cognicity ‘Smart Cities’ mentor and is a fintech commentator in her own right.  Brummel Magazine named her one of their ‘Inspirational Women on Boards’ and ‘Inspirational Women Entrepreneurs’, she was named one of Innovate Finance’s Women in FinTech this year and is currently featured in Microsoft’s global ‘#DoMore’ instagram campaign.  Julia is proud to serve as a trustee of the charity Children in Crisis that seeks to improve the lives  of children and their communities in some of the world’s most remote, post-conflict territories. 

With experience in managing the risk, compliance & legal aspects of The Investment Association, the trade association of the UK’s £5 trillion investment management industry Guy leads the policy teams which cover the regulation of funds and managers, and most of their engagement in the retail and institutional markets and on the capital markets. Mr Sears is also a director of the UK’s Joint Money Laundering Steering Group.

Joe joined Asset International at the beginning of 2015 from Dow Jones where he was Asset Management Editor at Financial News. He has written for a wide variety of titles including the Financial Times, The Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Independent.

As a founding member of an early stage mover in the European hedge fund market place, Julie was a multi asset class trader for eleven years working closely with the senior fund managers. Her trading experience ranges from illiquid frontier equity markets to the most liquid instruments. She subsequently was a founding partner of a successful agency stock-broking firm. Julie set up the trading desk, using the best components of the then emerging Algo technology suites and an experienced trading team. She drove various projects including: preparing the front office for MiFid and building an emerging markets voice based dark pool; aggregating liquidity from a range of local brokers across the regions. Julie now curates high value newswires for a small group of clients and consults on the buy-side.

Ralph is responsible for the global product portfolio and its expansion across services and geographies. A regular commentator on the Asia and FX markets, Ralph joined Colt when low latency market data specialist MarketPrizm was acquired in 2011. Previously Ralph worked at Turquoise as co-head of sales and Citigroup as a VP in Markets and Securities Services where he spent five years covering financial institutions and infrastructures, with assignments in Frankfurt and Moscow.

A recognized thought leader in market structure, regulatory reform and financial trading technology, Rebecca is an independent research analyst focusing on new technical solutions to answer the complex challenges the financial service industry now faces. A European Consultant for TABB Group since March 2011, Rebecca has authored an expanding catalogue of research papers and commentary covering European equities, FX, fixed income, dark pools, TCA, HFT, FTT, market surveillance, market structure and regulatory reform.