Rodney Pedersen

Chief Revenue Officer, Visible Alpha

Rodney Pedersen is Chief Revenue Officer of Visible Alpha and oversees sales, client services, sell-side services and marketing globally, and serves as a member of the firm’s Executive Committee.

Rodney joined Visible Alpha from FactSet where he was most recently SVP of Data Strategy. Rodney spent the majority of his career at FactSet in various sales roles, including founding and managing the company’s Hedge Fund team.

Rodney has a B.S. in Economics from Auburn University and is a CFA Charterholder.

David Mercer

Chief Executive Officer, LMAX Group

David Mercer is the Chief Executive Officer of LMAX Group, a global financial technology company headquartered in the UK, and the leading independent operator of institutional execution venues for FX and crypto currency trading. Following a successful management buyout in 2013, David has built LMAX Group into a key player in both the traditional capital markets and the crypto trading industry. With a global client base and offices in 9 countries, in 2021 LMAX Group sold a minority stake to J.C. Flowers & Co. A former City banking executive and currency specialist, David is an outspoken industry commentator and a long-term champion of the UK’s technology sector as well as a passionate supporter of entrepreneurship.

David McCormick

Chief Executive Officer, Bridgewater Associates

David joined Bridgewater in 2009 and was President and Co-CEO before becoming CEO in 2020. Prior to Bridgewater, he was the US Treasury Under Secretary for International Affairs in the George W. Bush Administration during the global financial crisis, and also had senior roles on the National Security Council and in the Department of Commerce.

From 1999-2005 David served as CEO and then President of two publicly-traded software companies, and before that was a consultant at McKinsey & Company. He is a graduate of the United States Military Academy, a former Army officer and veteran of the First Gulf War, and has a Ph.D. from Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs.

David is a Trustee for The Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) and the Aspen Institute and is the Chairman of the Atlantic Council’s International Advisory Board.

Daniel S. Loeb

Chief Executive Officer, Third Point

Daniel S. Loeb is CEO of Third Point LLC, a New York-based asset management firm founded in 1995. Third Point invests in equity and credit securities in U.S. and international markets. The firm often engages with company management and boards to improve performance and will also take passive stakes in companies with a long-term view of value creation.

Daniel’s philanthropic activities are driven by principles of individual human rights including fighting against inequality and discrimination and for policies that lead to greater economic opportunity for all. For over a decade, he has been an advocate for reforming America’s schools to ensure all children have access to high quality education, fixing the country’s broken criminal justice system, and advancing freedom for LGBT individuals. He is a strong supporter of Jewish and Israel causes.

Daniel graduated from Columbia University with an A.B. in economics in 1983, endowed the Daniel S. Loeb Scholarship for undergraduate study there, and received the school’s John Jay Award for distinguished professional achievement. In October 2020, he was awarded the Alexander Hamilton Award for his philanthropic service by the Manhattan Institute.

Josh Lipsky

Director, GeoEconimics Center, Atlantic Council

Josh Lipsky is the Director of the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center. He previously served as a senior advisor at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Speechwriter to Christine Lagarde.

Prior to joining the IMF, Josh was an appointee at the State Department, serving as Special Advisor to the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy.

Before joining the State Department, Josh worked in the White House and helped plan President Obama’s participation at the G-20 and other global summits. He has also worked on Capitol Hill and at the Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

He is a term-member at the Council on Foreign Relations and an Economic Diplomacy Fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center.

In these roles he has advised policymakers on a range of emerging challenges, including the reform of the Bretton Woods system and the rise of digital currencies.

His analysis has been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Bloomberg, and CNBC.

Josh is a licensed attorney, accredited to practice in Maryland & D.C. He holds a J.D. from Georgetown University Law School, a Master’s degree from the Harvard Kennedy School, and a B.A. from Columbia University. Josh, his wife Leah, and their daughter Clara, live in Maryland.

Jimmy Levin

Chief Investment Officer & Chief Executive Officer, Sculptor Capital

Jimmy Levin is the Chief Investment Officer and Chief Executive Officer of Sculptor Capital and a member of Sculptor Capital’s Board of Directors. Mr. Levin joined Sculptor in 2006 and is the Chairperson of the Firm’s Portfolio Committee, the Chairperson of the Partner Management Committee and a member of the private investment committees.

In his role, Mr. Levin oversees all aspects of the Firm’s investment portfolios, including capital allocation across investment strategies and geographies, as well as driving our business strategy and making key operating decisions.

Mr. Levin holds a Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science from Harvard University. Mr. Levin serves on the Board of the East Harlem Tutorial Program.

Carrie Lazorchak

Chief Revenue Officer, Similarweb

Carrie is a seasoned executive and a well known business leader with over 25 years’ experience in building and managing Go To Market organizations. She has held multiple sales leadership roles and has most recently served as the SVP of Worldwide Sales for Nuance Communications, a company focusing on conversational AI powered customer engagement solutions, where she has spent nearly two decades. Prior to that Carrie held sales leadership roles at LifeMinders, and Inacom Information System and Data Processing Solutions. Carrie is also a mentor in the Global Good Fund, a non-profit organization which provides leadership development solutions for social entrepreneurs helping them become impactful global leaders. Carrie holds a BS in PR & Communications from the Perdue School of Business and an MS ITS from Johns Hopkins.

Congressman Ro Khanna

CA-17 (D)

Congressman Ro Khanna is proud to serve as the representative for California’s 17th District. Ro was elected to his first term in Congress in 2016.

As Silicon Valley’s representative in Congress, Ro is a Progressive Capitalist who has led the way on tech policy and job creation, working across the aisle to pass multiple bills into law. Ro was named as the Democrat most likely to succeed in having a bill signed by former President Trump, passing 5 into law during the Trump administration. In response to the growing economic crisis, Ro led the way on the largest government investment in science and tech since the 1960s, the Endless Frontiers Act, which invests $250 billion in science and technology hubs across the United States. Ro has worked to spread the wealth of high paying digital jobs to areas of the country left behind in the digital revolution, partnering with Silicon Valley tech companies to establish job training programs in states like Iowa, South Carolina, and Mississippi and rebuild the middle class.

Ro has worked across the aisle while remaining committed to progressive principles and policies that will ensure a more competitive, prosperous economy.

Chris Kemp

Founder, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Astra

Chris Kemp is the Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Astra. Astra, the first publicly traded spacetech company, reached space faster than any company in history. Astra is ramping up to provide daily orbital launches by 2025, beginning with monthly launches this summer. Astra’s mission is to improve life on Earth from space by launching a new generation of space services to create a healthier and more connected planet.

Chris previously served as CTO of NASA. While at NASA, Chris partnered with Google and Microsoft, helped create Google Moon and Mars, worked with the White House to develop the cloud computing strategy for the United States Federal government, and co-founded OpenStack, an open-source cloud computing infrastructure software project that is one of the three most active open source projects in the world. Chris has served as a CEO or board member of various tech companies.

Jason Kelly

Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Ginkgo Bioworks

Dr. Jason Kelly is the co-founder and CEO of Ginkgo Bioworks. Ginkgo is a synthetic biology company headquartered in Boston, MA that programs cells for customers in the chemical, pharmaceutical, food and energy industries. The company recently raised over $930M in venture capital to expand their automated genetic engineering foundries and is the largest designer of synthetic DNA in the world.

Ginkgo is valued at $4.5B and has been listed for the past three years on CNBC's Disruptor 50 List of fast- growing companies. Prior to Ginkgo, Jason received B.S. degrees in Chemical Engineering and Biology and a PhD in Biological Engineering all from MIT.

Geeta Kapadia

Associate Treasurer, Yale New Haven Health System

Geeta Kapadia is Associate Treasurer of Investments at Yale New Haven Health System, where she leads the team responsible for assets of approximately $5.6 billion. At YNHHS, she has responsibility for sound management of the System’s investible assets which includes developing prudent investment strategy for the System’s portfolios, conducting and evaluating capital markets research, and selecting and monitoring the program’s investment managers. With over twenty years of investment experience, Geeta has been with the System since 2009, having previously worked at Mercer Investment Consulting in London and in Edinburgh, where she provided strategic investment advice to institutional investors. She has also held positions at Capital Metrics & Risk Solutions in Pune, India, and Stratford Advisory Group in Chicago.

Geeta holds an A.B. in mathematics from The University of Chicago and a master's degree in financial markets and trading from the Illinois Institute of Technology. She is a CFA charterholder and holds the UK’s Investment Management Certificate. She is an invited speaker at a variety of investment conferences and sits on a number of advisory boards. She is a member of CFA Institute, CFA Society of India, and CFA Society of Philadelphia and served as a member of CFA Institute’s Disciplinary Review Committee from 2008 to 2014. She is the president of the Board of Trustees of Chester County Family Academy and a member of the Board of Trustees of Radnor Memorial Library.

Dr. Scott Gottlieb

23rd Commissioner of the U.S. Food & Drug Administration

Scott Gottlieb is an American physician who served as the 23rd Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Dr. Gottlieb’s work focuses on advancing public health through developing and implementing innovative approaches to improving medical outcomes, reshaping health care delivery, and expanding consumer choice and safety. He is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a member of the board of directors of drug maker Pfizer, a member of the board of directors of the biotech company Illumina, a contributor to the cable financial news network CNBC, and a partner at the venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates. Since March 2020, Dr. Gottlieb has also been a frequent guest on CBS’s “Face the Nation” to discuss the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dr. Gottlieb is an aggressive advocate for advancing the health of patients, promoting healthcare access, and driving innovation. The agency’s historic and prolific advances in new policy distinguished his tenure as the FDA’s commissioner, in addition to a record-setting number of approvals of novel drugs, medical devices, and generic medicines. Under his leadership, the FDA advanced new frameworks for the modern and safe and effective oversight of gene therapies, cell based regenerative medicines, targeted drugs, and digital health devices. The FDA implemented new reforms to standardize drug reviews and make historic improvements of post market data collection and the use of real-world evidence. They promoted policies to reduce death and disease from tobacco, improve food safety, and aggressively confront addiction crises.

Previously, Dr. Gottlieb served as the FDA’s Deputy Commissioner for Medical and Scientific Affairs and before that, as a Senior Adviser to the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, where he helped advance policies to improve healthcare quality and promote the effective use of new medical technologies.

Dr. Gottlieb is widely published in leading medical journals and periodicals, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Forbes, and The Washington Post. He has held editorial positions with The British Medical Journal and The Journal of the American Medical Association. Fortune Magazine recognized him as one of the “World’s 50 Greatest Leaders” in 2018 and 2019. Modern Healthcare named him amongst the “Most Influential Physician Executive and Leaders” in 2018, 2019, and 2020. TIME magazine named him one of its “50 People Transforming Healthcare” in 2018.

Dr. Gottlieb lives in Westport, Connecticut with his wife and three daughters.

Dr. Dario Gil

Senior Vice President & Director, IBM Research

As a technology and business leader, Dr. Gil is responsible for IBM Research, one of the world’s largest and most influential corporate research labs, with over 3,000 researchers. He is the 12th Director in its 76-year history. Dr. Gil leads the technology roadmap and the technical community of IBM, directing innovation strategies in areas including hybrid cloud, AI, quantum computing, and exploratory science. He is also responsible for IBM's intellectual property strategy and business.

Dr. Gil is a globally recognized leader of the quantum computing industry. Under his leadership, IBM was the first company in the world to build programmable quantum computers and make them universally available through the cloud.

An advocate of collaborative research models, Dr. Gil co-chairs the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab, which advances fundamental AI research to the broad benefit of industry and society. He also co-chairs the COVID-19 High-Performance Computing Consortium, which provides access to the world’s most powerful high-performance computing resources in support of COVID-19 research.

Dr. Gil is a member of the National Science Board, the governing body of the National Science Foundation (NSF), a member of the Board of Governors of the New York Academy of Sciences, and a trustee of the New York Hall of Science.

Dr. Gil received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT.

Jennifer Garrison

Assistant Professor, Buck Institute for Research on Aging

Jennifer L. Garrison, PhD, is Founder and Director of the Global Consortium for Female Reproductive Longevity & Equality (GCRLE) and an Assistant Professor at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging. She also holds appointments in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology at UCSF and the Leonard Davis School of Gerontology at the University of Southern California. She is a passionate advocate for women’s health and is pioneering a new movement to advance science focused on female reproductive aging with the ultimate goal of ending menopause. This initiative, by focusing research on understanding how and why women go through reproductive decline in mid-life, has the potential to dramatically and significantly improve the health and well-being of women worldwide.

She received her BA in Molecular Cell Biology from the UC Berkeley then completed her PhD at UCSF in Chemistry and Chemical Biology where she was a National Science Foundation Fellow and an ARCS Scholar, then was a Helen Hay Whitney Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at the Rockefeller University. She was named an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow and an Allen Institute for Brain Science Next Generation Leader and is the recipient of a Pathway to Independence Award and a Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award for Early Stage Investigators from the NIH, a Glenn Medical Foundation Award for Research in Biological Mechanisms of Aging, and a Junior Faculty Award from the American Federation of Aging Research.

Yaya J. Fanusie

Adjunct Senior Fellow, Center for a New American Security (CNAS)

Yaya J. Fanusie is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). His research focuses on the national security implications of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. Yaya spent seven years as both an economic and counterterrorism analyst in the CIA, where he regularly briefed federal law enforcement, U.S. military personnel, and White House-level policy makers—including President George W. Bush whom he personally briefed on terrorism threats. In 2009, he spent three months in Afghanistan providing analytic support to senior military officials.

After leaving government service, Yaya worked for a small consulting firm focused on financial asset recovery cases involving global corruption. Later, as director of analysis at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Center on Sanctions and Illicit Finance, Yaya led research work on sanctions evasion, terrorist financing, and Bitcoin money laundering. Yaya has testified before Congress multiple times on illicit financing issues. He has appeared on CNN, Fox News, and has been quoted in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. Yaya is certified with the Association of Certified Financial Crime Specialists.

Yaya is founder of Cryptocurrency AML Strategies, an advisory firm that helps financial institutions and technology firms address money laundering and terrorist financing risks associated with digital assets. In 2018, he developed and taught an Introduction to Blockchain Technology course at Morgan State University in Baltimore.

Yaya received an MA in International Affairs from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and a BA in Economics from UC Berkeley.

Katie Falconi

Head of Credit Research & Risk Analytics, Fitch Ratings

Katie Falconi joined Fitch Ratings in 2017 as Regional Credit Officer for the Americas, and was named Head of Credit Research and Risk Analytics in June 2021. She is based in New York and leads the Credit Policy Group’s efforts on risk identification, credit research, and analytic tool development; she is also responsible for the group’s activities in the Americas region. From 1999 to 2014, Katie was a Vice President with Goldman, Sachs & Co. She began her career in the firm’s Credit department covering sovereigns, commodities, and Latin America corporates, and was chief credit officer for Goldman Sachs do Brasil. Katie was a founding member of Goldman Sachs’ counterparty risk group, launched in 2010, and helped to lead implementation efforts surrounding Basel III, Dodd Frank, and related risk monitoring initiatives. From 2014 to 2017, Katie was Head of the Risk and Research department for Farm Credit Banks’ Funding Corporation, with responsibility for Enterprise Risk Management and stress testing. Katie received an AB in political science and Latin American studies from Duke University.

Michaela Edwards

Partner, Capricorn Investment Group

Michaela Edwards is a Partner at Capricorn Investment Group, one of the largest mission-aligned investment firms in the world. Prior to joining Capricorn in 2019, she spent nine years as a Senior Portfolio Manager with Norges Bank Investment Management, the sovereign wealth fund of Norway, where she lead the external global environmental portfolio. Before joining Norges, Michaela worked as a research analyst for Russell Investments in London and New York. She started her career on the trading desk of DNB in Oslo. She is a graduate of Cass Business School in London and Oslo University College. She is a CFA charter holder.

Jimmy Dunne

Vice Chairman & Senior Managing Principal, Piper Sandler

Jimmy Dunne is vice chairman and senior managing principal of Piper Sandler. He was one of the founders of Sandler O’Neill + Partners, L.P., which was acquired by Piper Jaffray in January 2020. Under his leadership, Sandler O’Neill grew to become the largest independent full-service investment banking firm focused on the financial services sector.

Sandler was greatly affected by the events of September 11, 2001, when it lost 66 of its 171 employees in the World Trade Center attacks. In the aftermath, Dunne spearheaded the firm’s recovery process and rebuilt it into a market leader.

Dunne, based in the firm’s Palm Beach location, plays a very active role in many of Piper Sandler’s key client relationships and advises on a wide variety of the firm’s mergers and acquisitions. He has advised on some of the financial industry’s largest M&A transactions over the past three decades. Recent transactions he advised on include Cadence Bancorporation’s announced merger with BancorpSouth Bank, Century Bancorp’s announced merger with Eastern Bankshares, TD Ameritrade in its merger with Charles Schwab, Blackhawk Network Holdings in its acquisition by Silver Lake and P2 Capital Partners, Financial Engines in its acquisition by Hellman & Friedman, Virtu Financial in its acquisition of ITG, and FCB Financial Holdings in its merger with Synovus Financial Corp.

Dunne is a frequent financial industry commentator on CNBC and Bloomberg TV and is often invited to speak on leadership and management issues to business, academic and civic organizations.

He began his career on Wall Street after graduating from the University of Notre Dame with a bachelor’s degree in economics. In May of 2021, Dunne served as the commencement speaker for Notre Dame and received an honorary doctor of laws degree. He is also a member of Notre Dame’s Board of Trustees. Dunne is an avid golfer and active with numerous charitable organizations.

Lisa Diaz

Managing Partner & Founder, Turf Advisory

Lisa is the Managing Partner and Founder of Turf Advisory, a business development advisory firm that bridges the public and private sectors to build smarter and more human-centered cities. Turf works with next generation construction technology companies developing their go-to-market strategies, marketing narrative, capital raising and acts as an extension of the client's business development team. Turf also partners with both technology and constructions companies from around the world to bring their innovation solutions to the US market.

Prior to her focus on urban innovation, Lisa was President & CEO of Prince Street Capital Management, an emerging markets asset management company. She was also a Managing Director at Goldman Sachs spearheading the firm’s relationship with Sovereign Wealth Funds, global hedge funds and mutual fund complexes. Her nearly three-decade career on Wall Street
spanned capital markets, research, prime brokerage across the capital structure and globe.

Lisa received her BA Middlebury College and sits on the board of The Boys & Girls Club of Mount Vernon, Prince Street Foundation, and is on the advisory board of Dalia Empower, a women’s leadership and innovation platform.

Nathaniel David, PhD

Chief Executive Officer, Jupiter Bioventures

Over the past 22 years, Ned has co-founded four biotechnology companies that have collectively raised over $2 billion in financing and have given rise to three IPOs, two M&A acquisitions, and four FDA-approved medicines (ALOGLIPTIN, TRELAGLIPTIN, ZEMDRI, and KYBELLA). Ned cofounded Syrrx (acquired by Takeda), Achaogen (NASDAQ: AKAO), Kythera Biopharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: KYTH, acquired by Allergan), and UNITY Biotechnology (NASDAQ: UBX). Ned holds 46 allowed patents in fields as far flung as nanovolume crystallography, antibiotic resistance, aesthetic medicine, and cellular senescence. Ned has served on the board of directors of Kythera Biopharmaceuticals, UNITY Biotechnology, the Buck Institute for Research on Aging and is a member of the board of trustees of the University of California Foundation. Ned was named one of the Top 100 innovators in the world by the MIT Technology Review and received the Honorary Leadership Award from the American Federation for Research on Aging (AFAR). He holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in Molecular and Cellular Biology and an A.B. in Biology from Harvard.