Biographies

Roberto Schiavi, Head of Investment Division, EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK
Born in Italy in 1968, after a degree in Business Administration from Bocconi University in Milan in 1991 Roberto Schiavi started his career at IMI Bank Lux S.A., the then Luxembourg capital markets subsidiary of Istituto Mobiliare Italiano S.p.A. There he worked in the capital markets area, with increasing responsibilities on debt origination and derivatives.

In 1995 he joined the European Monetary Institute in Frankfurt am Main, the forerunner of the European Central Bank, in the Financial Market Division, where he developed the market monitoring capabilities of the Institute and was involved in the establishment of the monetary policy and foreign exchange framework of the Eurosystem.

In 1998, he was appointed Head of the Front Office Division of the newly established European Central Bank, responsible for the implementation of monetary policy and foreign exchange operations and for financial market monitoring. In his capacity, he served as Secretary of the ECB’s Foreign Exchange and Money Market Contact Groups, he was member of the BIS Markets Committee and was involved in the Euribor-ACI working groups as the observer for the ECB.

In 2003, he was appointed Head of the ECB’s Investment Division, responsible for the management of the ECB‘s own funds and foreign reserves investments, in EUR, USD, JPY and gold. He was a member of the Bank’s Investment Committee until the beginning of 2009, when he was appointed Chairman. He is a member of the ECB’s Working Group on Operations involving Foreign Reserve Assets and serves on the Board of Education of the ACI – The Financial Markets Association.

Marcel Zimmermann, Head of Foreign Exchange & Gold, SWISS NATIONAL BANK
Marcel Zimmermann, Assistant Director, holds the position of Head Foreign Exchange and Gold at the Swiss National Bank, Zurich. In this function, he is mainly responsible for managing the National Bank's foreign exchange and gold operations as well as for conducting market research in this field.
He also serves on the National Bank's Investment Committee, the Board of the National Bank's Pension Fund and the Board of ACI Suisse. Furthermore, he occasionally worked as a consultant in order to strengthen central bank operations in developing and transition countries. In this role, he also participated in technical assistance missions by the International Monetary Fund in Central Asia, the Caucasus and Africa.

Bill Muysken, Fund Manager, Thames River Capital LLP
Bill is the fund manager responsible for managing Thames River Capital's multimanager currency funds. He joined Thames River in February 2007 from the role of Global Head of Research at Mercer Investment Consulting, the world's largest investment consulting firm. Bill had worked for Mercer in Melbourne and then in London since 1992, and advised clients based in 20 different countries on currency management and other international investment issues over this period. In 2003 he was named European Investment Consultant of the Year by Global Money Management. Prior to joining Mercer Bill had gained 11 years of actuarial and investment experience, firstly with Prudential Assurance in Sydney, and then with the Australian Government in Canberra, where he was a senior policy advisor on pensions, investment and related issues. Bill holds a BA in Actuarial Studies from Macquarie University, and is a Fellow of both the Institute of Actuaries and the Institute of Actuaries of Australia.

Felix Adam is the CEO and founder of ACT Currency Partner in Zurich. He has more than 25 years experience in the foreign exchange markets and during his distinguished career, Felix Adam worked for Citigroup and JPMorgan which enabled him to gain valuable inside knowledge and understanding of managing foreign currency exposure. His longstanding market involvement has enabled him to become an authority in Switzerland on currency management. He frequently appears on CNBC and other new networks, and has written a variety of articles which have been published in various financial newspapers.

Irene Aldridge is Managing Partner, ABLE Alpha Trading, LTD, a proprietary trading vehicle, specializing in high-frequency systematic trading strategies. Prior to ABLE Alpha, Ms. Aldridge worked for various institutions on Wall Street and in Toronto, including Goldman Sachs and CIBC, and taught Finance at the University of Toronto. Ms. Aldridge holds an MBA from INSEAD, MS in Financial Engineering from Columbia University, and a BE in Electrical Engineering from the Cooper Union in New York. Ms. Aldridge is a frequent contributor to academic and practitioner publications, and is completing a book on High-Frequency Trading with applications to foreign exchange, due out next year.

Thomas Kressin, Senior Vice President, Portfolio Manager, PIMCO EUROPE LTD. Dr. Kressin is a senior vice president and Co-Head of the Global Desk Munich with a special focus on currencies. He joined the group in 1991 and was also working with the Private Client Asset Management division. Dr. Kressin has seventeen years of experience and holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration from the Technical University in Berlin, Germany, and a Ph.D. from the Technical University Cottbus.

Alex Gioulekas is head of research and trading at IPM, which manages USD 10 billion in currencies, equities, fixed income and commodities on behalf of large institutions. His expertise is building models that capture the behavior and interaction of markets or the dynamics of physical systems. Alex has extensive experience in options on various asset classes. He started his career as an options trader for Soc Gen and Banque Indosuez in the US and later created the structured product business for SEB in Sweden. He holds a PhD and M.Sc. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT and has received various scholarships and awards.

Anne Sanciaume is a founding partner at Blacktree Investment Partners, an investment management firm specialising in the development of rules based investment strategies design to extract alpha from the currency markets. Prior to BlackTree, Anne spent 12 years researching and trading the foreign exchange market for Lehman Brothers in London. Since 2000, she was responsible for developing the FX volatility research product and was heavily involved in liquid FX strategies. Her work included studies of the seasonality in implied volatility, the modelling of spot trends, monetisation of the FX volatility risk premium, implementing carry trades through options, systematic trading of correlation and volatility swaps. In 2007 she was given the additional responsibility for running the quantitative research effort on liquid FX and collaborated on the development of Lehman's suite of macro quantitative currency trading strategies. Prior to her research assignment, Anne was an FX options trader focusing on European time zone Emerging Market currencies. Anne holds a Master degree in mathematics applied to finance from Université Paris VI in Paris (DEA Probabilitiés et Finance) and holds an MBA from Ecole Supérieure des Sciences Economiques et Commerciales in Paris (ESSEC).

Pierre Lequeux: Product CIO Currencies, investment experience since 1987. Pierre is head of currency management and joined in June 1999. Pierre’s primary focus is the research and design of trading models and portfolio risk management techniques. Pierre is a member of the firm’s Global Policy Group and Global Fixed Income and Currency Committee. Prior to becoming head of currency management, Pierre worked as a quantitative currency manager within the global markets group. Pierre began his career in 1987 with Banque Nationale de Paris, London branch, where he was head of the quantitative research and trading desk. Pierre, born 1961, is a graduate in international trade from ISTEG (1983) and holds a diploma of the Forex Association (1990). He is also an associate researcher at the Centre for International Banking and Finance of Liverpool Business school. He is an active contributor to academic and practitioner conferences and is presently a member of the editorial board of "Derivative, Use Trading & Regulation".

Momtchil Pojarliev joined Hermes as Head of Currencies in April 2007. He brought to the firm his currency investment process and his outstanding track record in currency management. Prior to joining Hermes, he was a Senior Foreign Exchange Manager with Pictet Asset Management in Geneva and with Invesco in Frankfurt and London. Pojarliev received his PhD in Financial Econometrics from University of Basle. He has published various academic articles on active portfolio management. He is a CFA Charterholder.

Emmanuel Acar is the director of Directional Trading Ltd and 100% shareholder. He has researched the foreign exchange and futures markets since 1990 mostly on the trading side. He worked for almost sixteen years in FX dealing rooms. At Bank of America, he headed the London Risk Management Advisory desk. Prior to this, Emmanuel worked at Citibank within the FX Engineering Group. He was a proprietary trader and portfolio manager for close to ten years at Dresdner Kleinwort Benson, BZW and BNP's London Branch. He combines his trading experience with a PhD from City University in London, on the stochastic properties of trading rules. He also qualified as an Actuary in France. Emmanuel has been active in the development of proprietary trading models since 1990, some of which have been published in Journals or Magazines. Mr Acar's other interests are in designing hedging strategies, performance measurement, trading style analysis, modelling time series, market timing and asset allocation studies.

Diane Miller chairs the Currency/GTAA Ratings Review Committee at Mercer. She is responsible for researching a number of product areas, with a primary focus on currency and GTAA managers. Diane joined Mercer in 2001 and is based in London. She has over 20 years of experience within the pensions and investment industry. Before joining Mercer, she was an Associate Director at Morley and its predecessor companies, General Accident and Provident Mutual, where she worked as a fund manager, specialising in UK equities and asset allocation for pension fund clients. Diane has a degree in mathematics from University College London, and is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries.

Hélie d'Hautefort - CEO & Chief Investment Officer - Overlay Asset Management-
Hélie is the Founder, General Manager & CIO of OAM , a specialist currency manager with over USD 15 Bio under management.. Over the past 20 years, he has built an extensive knowledge and expertise in the field of currency markets. Before setting up OAM in May 1998, Hélie was the manager of a currency fund (Rosebud) for 2 years. His previous assignments include five years for PSA International, within the exchange-risk management unit of Peugeot Citroën group in Geneva, where he was in charge of the use of derivative products in currency hedging. Prior to that, he was in charge of currency options trading and their applications to customers, in three different banking institutions. He began in New York in the currency options market in 1985 within Crédit Lyonnais trading room. Hélie graduated from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales (HEC), Paris.

Michel Girardin, Chief Investment Advisor, Union Bancaire Privée
Michel Girardin is a Member of Senior Management and the Chief Investment Adviser of UBP Gestion Institutionnelle, the Asset Management affiliate of Union Bancaire Privée. Michel has 6 years experience in FX. He begun as a Currency Economist at UBS in Zurich, then became Head of Forex at UBP. As such, he advises Institutional clients on Investment Strategy, with an emphasis on Alternative Investments. Michel is also in charge of Institutional Clients in Italy and Ticino. He has some 20 years experience as Head of Research and Chief Investment Officer for Private Banks in Geneva and Zurich. His experience includes that of managing global Equity and Bond Funds as well as an Asian Fund of Hedge Funds. Michel holds a Ph.D. and B.Sc. in Economics from the University of Lausanne and a Master’s degree in Economics from the London School of Economics. A regular columnist in the Swiss and International press, Michel Girardin is a Professor of Finance at the University of Lausanne.

Richard Olsen is an economic researcher in high frequency finance. He is co-founder of OANDA, a market maker and information source for currency; is chief executive of Olsen Ltd, an investment manager, and visiting professor at the Centre for Computational Finance and Economic Agents at the University of Essex.

Jeremy Armitage is responsible for the Research department of State Street Global Markets and is based in London, England. This global team is renowned for their research in the fields of investor behavior and portfolio & risk management. Our theoretical work is regularly published in prestigious academic and practitioner journals, such as the Journal of Financial Economics, the Journal of Portfolio Management and the Financial Analysts Journal.
In late 2007, Mr. Armitage was asked to lead Global Markets’ Derivatives initiative with the goal of establishing a derivatives capability across our diverse business lines including foreign exchange, equities, fixed income, real estate and portfolio solutions.
For our clients we provide an analytical framework and a full spectrum of indicators, tools, and strategies spanning the global markets that enable them to reexamine their investment opportunities from new, illuminating perspectives. This award-winning analysis is regularly cited in the financial press and is available to clients through Global Markets’ research portal, www.globallink.com.
Mr. Armitage has been at the forefront of establishing our research agenda, having been appointed Managing Director and Head of State Street Associates in August 2000. Mr Armitage was promoted to Senior Managing Director in September 2006. This unique partnership was formed by State Street in conjunction with academic and practitioner thought leaders in the Finance profession.
Prior to this role Mr. Armitage worked for State Street in their London branch for eight years in a number of management positions within the Global Markets business and has assisted clients across the globe in providing solutions to complex investment problems. He has presented at conferences Worldwide has had numerous articles published in the financial press. He has a BS in Computing Science, Imperial College, London, holds the CFA designation and is member of the UK Society of Investment Professionals

Lynnelle Jones is Director of Business Development and Client Service for Hathersage Capital Management LLC, www.hathersage.com, a discretionary absolute return currency trading firm. Lynnelle has over twenty seven years of experience in global financial markets. She began her career working in the Bond Market Research Department at Salomon Brothers. In 1981 she moved to Goldman Sachs where she worked for a decade as a Vice President and institutional salesperson specializing in fixed income products, derivatives and structured products. Following her Wall Street experience she joined the Hathersage team and, in addition, consulted with Private Banks, including Coutts & Co. and The European Financial Group, on hedge funds and structured products. Lynnelle is a frequent speaker and writer regarding absolute return and risk conscious portfolio development. She holds a BA in Economics from Colby College, Waterville, Maine and an MBA from Cornell University, Johnson School of Business, Ithaca, N.Y.

Peter Panholzer, Partner, DynexCorp Ltd, holds a Master's Degree from the Technical University of Vienna. His currency trading career spans 34 years. A Canadian citizen since 1979, he joined ContiCommodity Services (Canada) in the same year and became one of Conti's foremost money managers, based on the success of his Magnum Currency Program. With nearly 300 accounts, it is believed to be the first ever systematically managed currency program offered to the general public at large, indeed a very early example of currency alpha as a separate independent asset class. In 1988 Peter Panholzer founded DynexCorp, an institutional FX alpha manager. In 2002 DynexCorp was accepted by Deutsche Bank for its proprietary FX fund management, which evolved two years later into Deutsche Bank’s pioneering creation of its FX Select platform assembling over a hundred FX alpha managers. Alongside with Mercer Consulting and Parker Global Strategies, DynexCorp was chosen by Deutsche Bank as recommended investable FX index architect and manager. DynexCorp manages the investable “Dynamic Currency Alpha Index” which was funded in January 2008.