Lorraine S. Wilson

Director of Investment Products, JUST Capital

Lorraine S. Wilson is the Director of Investment Products at JUST Capital. She oversees the business development and marketing strategy for JUST Capital within the investor and financial community. With the goal of driving and accelerating the flow of investment capital towards more just companies, JUST Capital’s presence within the financial services and investment management industry is a critical element of its mission and strategy. Lorraine is focused on driving adoption of new investment products, indices and ideas, and investor tools based on the JUST Capital rankings and analysis.

Lorraine served on the American Museum of Natural History’s junior council steering committee. She is an active alumna of NYU Stern; where she serves on the host committee for her class reunion and the annual alumni holiday celebration. Lorraine is a member of the National Arts Club. She was also selected for the inaugural Economic Club of New York Fellows Program.

Lorraine has over 13 years of experience in the financial services industry. Prior to joining JUST Capital, Lorraine was Vice President, Exchange Traded Fund Product Manager at Merrill. Lorraine also held institutional sales roles at Third Avenue Management and Goldman Sachs Asset Management in New York.

Ryan Williams

Founder, Executive Chairman & Co-Chair, Global Investment Committee, Cadre

Ryan A. Williams founded Cadre in 2014 to begin to level the playing field in commercial real estate investing, leveraging technology to provide institutions and individuals access to previously inaccessible real estate and alternative investment opportunities. The next-generation platform uniquely empowers individual investors to invest alongside institutions with lower minimums and fees than traditional private equity and offers first-of-its kind liquidity through a secondary trading market.

Ryan, a native of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and serial entrepreneur, has founded and scaled multiple companies over the past fifteen years. More recently, he started investing in real estate as an undergraduate student at Harvard University.  Seeing the dislocation that resulted from the 2008 financial crisis, Ryan pooled funds from his classmates to acquire foreclosed homes in the Atlanta area, frequently working with previous owners to remain in their homes and eventually buy them back. This experience cemented in Ryan an ethos to “do well and do good.”

After graduating from Harvard, Ryan worked at Goldman Sachs in its technology, media, and telecom group, and then at The Blackstone Group in its real estate private equity division.

Ryan is regularly profiled as a top Founder and CEO. He was featured on the cover of Forbes Magazine in 2019 and has written extensively about the urgent need for social and economic justice for all members of society. Cadre is dedicated to doing business with local operators from diverse backgrounds and with community and Black-owned banks. 

Ryan and his family live in Brooklyn.

Scott Walker

Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer, DNA

A Serial Entrepreneur, Walker began his tech career in 1995 Founding NetPage Communications. An early web-hosting company. Successfully grew the company and sold in 1997 to NetGuard Technologies. Next in 1999 as the Co-founder and President of  www.content.ad  a $50m+ online “Native Advertising” agency which is in operation and profitably running today.  Next, in 2004, as Founder and CEO of mobile game company Atrinsic helped grow to $100m in revenue and 250 employees. Raised $30m and took company public NASDAQ: ATRN. After leaving ATRN in 2007 Walker became an angel investor and has invested in multiple software companies from 2007-2011. In early 2012 fell in love with Blockchain technology and invested in a Bitcoin mining operation with crypto legend and pioneer Brock Pierce. Together acquired several first-generation Avalon mining “ASICS” This provided the initial seed BTC. From there Walker invested in several early stage crowd sales including Ethereum, Mastercoin (Omni), EOS, Block.one, CVC, Storj, Fun, and dozens of others. As a founding LP in Blockchain.Capital with investments in Coinbase, Kraken and more Walker is one of the most knowledgeable crypto investors in the sector.

Jen Wieczner

Senior Writer, Fortune

Jen Wieczner is a senior writer at Fortune, co-founding editor of The Ledger, Fortune’s franchise dedicated to the intersection of finance and technology, and co-chair of the Fortune Brainstorm Finance conference. Her recent writing includes an award-winning investigation into Paul Singer's activist hedge fund Elliott Management; cover stories on legal marijuana and the Bitcoin bubble; and profiles of business titans from Wall Street to Silicon Valley, such as hedge fund billionaire Steve Cohen and former HP chief Meg Whitman. Jen also co-hosts a weekly video show dedicated to fintech, “Balancing the Ledger,” Her work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch, Time, Fast Company, The Atlantic, New York and Glamour. She graduated from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

Adam White

Chief Operating Officer, Bakkt

Adam White is Chief Operating Officer of Bakkt, a regulated, global ecosystem for digital assets. In this role, he is responsible for the strategic direction, P&L, and day-to-day operations for the Company.

White joined Bakkt in November 2018 as a founding executive. He previously served as Vice President & General Manager of Coinbase. He joined Coinbase in 2013 as the fifth employee, originally leading business development and strategy and later their exchange and institutional products. Prior to Coinbase, White tested experimental aircraft as a Captain in the United States Air Force and is a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan. He has testified before Congress as an expert in the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry.

White received his Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School and his Bachelor of Science in Optical Engineering from the University of California, Davis.

Michael Weisz

Founder & President, YieldStreet

Michael Weisz is the Founder and President of YieldStreet. Michael is responsible for YieldStreet’s investment strategy and originator network and has overseen more than $900M in transactions over his career.

Michael began his career at a $1.2 billion New York based credit fund, working his way to Vice President before co-founding his own fund in 2013. During his 10 years on the institutional side of the business, he grew frustrated that access to superior wealth creation opportunities was not accessible to individual investors. In 2015, he teamed with Milind Mehere to create YieldStreet.

When not working late you can find Michael spending time with wife and three kids or hosting dinners at his home in Long Island - bringing together friends and family from all backgrounds.

Nicholas Vita

Vice Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Columbia Care

Nicholas has over 25 years of experience serving in corporate leadership roles, investing capital, structuring and funding public/private partnerships and providing strategic advisory services to Fortune 500 companies throughout the U.S., Europe, Asia and Latin America. Prior to Columbia Care, Nicholas was a Partner and served as the Chairman of the Investment Committee at Apelles Investment Management, LLC, a private investment management company focused on the healthcare and privatized military infrastructure sectors. Before Apelles, Nicholas was a General Partner, member of the Investment Committee, and the Portfolio Manager for the Healthcare Sector at ARX Investment Management, a multi-billion dollar global credit hedge fund. Previously, he worked in the Investment Banking Division at Goldman, Sachs & Co. Inc., as an Analyst, Associate and Vice President in the Healthcare Department focused on Mergers, Raid Defense and Corporate Finance. Nicholas is a graduate of Columbia College, Columbia University where he was a member of the Men’s Varsity Heavyweight Crew Team and President of Saint Anthony Hall. In 2018 he was awarded a Tribeca Film Festival Disruptive Innovation Award for his efforts to combat the opioid crisis as CEO of Columbia Care. Nicholas has served as a guest lecturer at a number of leading universities, serves on several corporate and philanthropic advisory boards including GenNext (NY), Success Academy, Deerfield Club of New York, NY State Industrial Hemp Working Group and US Attorney’s (Eastern District, NY) Counterterrorism Working Group (Disruption and Early Engagement) and is a Knight of the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta.

Adam Vigna

Managing Partner & Chief Investment Officer, Sagard Holdings

Adam Vigna is Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer of Sagard Holdings, a multi strategy alternative asset manager that today invests across 4 asset classes: private equity, private credit (Sagard Credit Partners), venture capital (Portag3 Ventures and Diagram Ventures) and healthcare royalties (Sagard Healthcare Royalties Partners). Sagard Holdings is a wholly owned subsidiary of Power Corporation of Canada, where Adam also serves as Vice-President.

Prior to joining Sagard Adam led the Global Principal Credit Investments Group (“PCI”) at the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board (“CPPIB”) with approximately CAD 20 billion of AUM. Prior to joining CPPIB, Adam was Vice-President at Goldman Sachs in the Special Situations Group (“SSG”) in New York and Toronto. In 2006, he moved to Toronto from New York to become one of the three founding members of the Canadian Special Situations Group (“CSSG”). Before joining SSG, Adam worked in Goldman's Investment Banking Division in New York where he was a part of their Financial Institutions Group (“FIG”). Adam currently serves on the board of Peak Achievement Athletics.

Michael G. Trotsky, CFA

Executive Director & Chief Investment Officer, Massachusetts Pension Reserves Investment Management (“PRIM”) Board

Michael G. Trotsky, CFA, is the Executive Director and Chief Investment Officer of the Massachusetts Pension Reserves Investment Management (“PRIM”) Board, the entity responsible for investing the $73.8 billion Massachusetts pension fund, which contains the assets of the Massachusetts Teachers’ and State Employees’ Retirement Systems as well as the assets of approximately 100 participating municipal and county retirement systems.

Mr. Trotsky’s work at PRIM was preceded by a 25-year career in the private sector, most recently as senior vice president and portfolio manager at PAR Capital Management, a Boston-based absolute return strategy fund. Previously, he was a senior analyst at Greenberg-Summit Partners in Boston and also served as a principal and senior vice president at Independence Investment Associates (a John Hancock subsidiary), also in Boston. Mr. Trotsky began his professional career in 1985 as an engineer at Intel Corporation in California.

Mr. Trotsky serves as Vice-Chair of the CFA Society Boston and is a member of the Boston Economics Club. Mr. Trotsky previously served as a member of the CFA Institute Board of Governors and as Chairman of the CFA Institute’s Asset Manager Code of Professional Conduct Advisory Committee.

Mr. Trotsky received a BS in electrical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Chris Toomey

Executive Director, Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management

Chris is a partner of a top NYC-based Private Wealth Management team managing ~$5 billion in client assets. Their clients include high net worth individuals, family offices, foundations and organizations, money management principals, institutional money managers, small cap banks, and offshore investors.

Chris primarily focuses on the asset allocation, alternative investments, and strategy implementation for their clients.

Chris began his career at JP Morgan’s Private bank and was there until 1998 when he then joined Lehman Brothers. Chris held various positions throughout the firm, transitioning from Portfolio Manager of LB Gov / Credit Portfolio to building out Lehman’s third party long only manager platform. As Senior Vice President, he was responsible for manager due diligence and often assisted in providing asset allocation and investment advice for private wealth clients. He joined Morgan Stanley Private Wealth in May 2008.

Chris has earned various distinctions including membership in Morgan Stanley’s President’s Club. He was recognized by Financial Times as one of the top 400 Advisors.and Forbes Shook Top Wealth Advisors. He has spoken at several conferences about alternative investments, including SALT, HedgeWorld, and the Investment Institute. He has also appeared on CNBC’s Squawk on the Street, Fox Business News’ FBN:AM and Wall Street Week, and Reuters.

Chris is a Chartered Financial Analyst and earned his Bachelor of the Arts from Hamilton College.

Reid Thomas

Executive Vice President & General Manager, NES Financial

Reid Thomas is Executive Vice President and General Manager of NES Financial’s Specialty Financial Administration, focusing on technology-enabled EB-5, 1031 and Opportunity Zone fund administration.

Reid is responsible for overseeing the day to day operations of the Specialty Financial Administration business unit. To this role he brings decades of leadership experience in both public and private companies, primarily in high-growth Silicon Valley technology companies. At NES Financial, Reid has been instrumental in the rapid growth of the company's EB-5 and Opportunity Zone businesses, working to develop the purpose-built software solutions and dedicated client services teams, which have propelled the company into leadership positions in both industries.

Reid actively contributes to both the EB-5 and Opportunity Zone communities as a writer and as a speaker at events and conferences across the country. In 2018, he received IIUSA’s “Industry Game Changer” award for his visionary work in the EB-5 space.

Peter Tarrant

Managing Director & Global Head of Capital Introduction & Business Development, BTIG

Peter Tarrant is a Managing Director and Head of Business Development and Capital Introduction at BTIG. Responsible for marketing and sales across the firm's various divisions, he works to identify potential clients and cultivate new business opportunities. Mr. Tarrant is also a member of BTIG’s Global Operating Committee. He joined the firm in 2002 via BTIG’s predecessor firm Baypoint Trading. Mr. Tarrant has nearly 25 years of industry experience. Previously, he spent seven years at Banc of America Securities (formerly Montgomery Securities), where he held several senior management roles within the Equity Trading division. Mr. Tarrant began his career as an Associate within Private Client and Corporate Services at Montgomery Securities. He earned his BA from the University of Colorado Boulder.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Distinguished Scientific Advisor, Universa Investments

Nassim Nicholas Taleb spent 21 years as a risk taker (quantitative trader) before becoming a researcher in philosophical, mathematical and (mostly) practical problems with probability.

Taleb is the author of a multivolume essay, the Incerto (The Black Swan, Fooled by Randomness, Antifragile, and Skin in the Game) covering broad facets of uncertainty. It has been translated into 36 languages.

In addition to his trader life, Taleb has also written, as a backup of the Incerto, more than 70 scholarly papers in statistical physics, statistics, philosophy, ethics, economics, international affairs, and quantitative finance, all around the notion of risk and probability.

Taleb is currently Distinguished Professor of Risk Engineering at NYU's Tandon School of Engineering (only a quarter time position) [and scientific advisor for Universa Investments]. His current focus is on the properties of systems that can handle disorder ("antifragile").

Taleb refuses all honors and anything that "turns knowledge into a spectator sport.”

Jon Stein

Chief Executive Officer & Founder, Betterment

Jon Stein is the CEO and founder of Betterment. Passionate about making life better, and with his experience from his career of advising banks and brokers on risk and products, he founded Betterment in 2008. Jon is a graduate of Harvard University and Columbia Business School, and he holds Series 7, 24, 63, and is a CFA, Chartered Financial Analyst. His interests lie at the intersection of behavior, psychology, and economics. What excites him most about his work is making everyday activities and products more efficient, accessible, and easy to use.

Michael Steele

Former Chairman, RNC

When he was elected Lt. Governor of Maryland in 2003, Michael Steele made history as the first African American elected to statewide office; and again with his subsequent chairmanship of the Republican National Committee from 2009-2011.

As chairman of the RNC, Michael Steele was charged with revitalizing the Republican Party. A self-described "Lincoln Republican," under Steele’s leadership the RNC broke fundraising records (over $198 million raised during the 2010 Congressional cycle) and Republicans won 63 House seats, the biggest pickup since 1938. His commitment to grassroots organization and party building at the state and local levels produced 12 governorships and the greatest share of state legislative seats since 1928 (over 600 seats).

As Lt. Governor of Maryland, Mr. Steele’s priorities included reforming the state's Minority Business Enterprise program, improving the quality of Maryland's public education system (he championed the State’s historic Charter School law), expanding economic development in the state and fostering cooperation between government and faith-based organizations to help those in need.

Prior to his public service, Mr. Steele served as in-house finance counsel to the Mills Corporation (1997-1998) and as a corporate securities associate in the D.C. office of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP (1991-1997). In 1999, Mr. Steele formed The Steele Group, Inc. a business and legal communication and consulting firm which he still operates today.

From 2007-2008, Mr. Steele was a partner in the Washington, DC office of Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP, where he focused on corporate securities, government relations, and international affairs, with an emphasis on Africa. In 2012, Mr. Steele joined with former White House Counsel Lanny Davis in founding the crisis management and strategic communications firm Purple Nation Solutions (PNS). PNS was absorbed by Levick in 2014.

Mr. Steele’s ability as a communicator and commentator has been showcased through his current role as a political analyst for MSNBC. He has appeared on Meet the Press, Face the Nation, HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, Comedy Central's The Colbert Report and The Daily Show. In addition to his work in television, Mr. Steele can be heard weekdays on his radio program, Steele & Ungar on the POTUS Channel on SiriusXM.

Mr. Steele writings on law, business and politics have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, The Washington Post, and on websites such as MSNBC.com, The Hill.com, The Grio.com, The Root.com, BET.com, Politico.com, Townhall.com, and in scholarly journals such as The Journal of International Security Affairs and Catholic University Law Review, among others.

He is the author of Right Now: A 12-Step Program for Defeating the Obama Agenda, which is a call to arms for grassroots America and co-author of The Recovering Politician’s Twelve Step Program to Survive Crisis.

Born at Andrews Air Force Base in Prince George’s County, Maryland, Mr. Steele was raised in Washington, DC. Upon graduating Johns Hopkins University (‘81), he entered the Order of St. Augustine where studied for the priesthood. He is a graduate of Georgetown Law Center (’91), an Aspen Institute Rodel Fellow in Public Leadership and a University of Chicago Institute of Politics Fellow.

Sally Staley

Former Chief Investment Officer, Case Western

Sally Staley is a board member, investment committee leader and advisor to institutional asset owners and investment managers. She retired in 2017 from Case Western Reserve University where she had worked for 15 years, serving since 2006 as CIO for $3 billion of endowment and retirement plan assets. She began her financial career in international bond market research and sales with Salomon Brothers and Merrill Lynch and transitioned to investment management at the State of Wisconsin Investment Board where she established an international fixed income program and managed an international bond portfolio. Sally later worked as Senior Consultant with the investment management consulting practice of PricewaterhouseCoopers. She holds a Master of International Affairs degree from Columbia University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from The College of Wooster where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa. She has been a member of Wooster’s board of trustees since 2006, currently chairing the investment committee and serving on the finance, governance, and executive committees. She is also a board member and investment subcommittee chair for Great Lakes Theater Festival Inc., a member of the advisory committee of the Certified Investment Fund Director Institute, and a former board member and investment committee chairperson for the Saint Luke’s Foundation of Cleveland.

Eldon Sprickerhoff

Founder & Chief Innovation Officer, eSentire

Eldon Sprickerhoff is the original pioneer and inventor of what is now referred to as Managed Detection and Response (MDR). In founding eSentire, Eldon responded to the incipient, yet rapidly growing, demand for a more proactive approach to preventing and investigating information security breaches. With over twenty years of tactical experience, Eldon is widely acknowledged as a subject matter expert in information security analysis. Eldon holds a Bachelor of Mathematics, Computer Science degree from the University of Waterloo.

James Lee Sorenson

Founder, Sorenson Impact Foundation

Jim is a world-renowned entrepreneur, business leader and societal innovator. Among the numerous companies Jim has founded, are those that have become instrumental in developing new industry categories and tens of thousands of jobs. These include digital compression software and tech solutions which enable on-line video and addressability, data and interactivity at scale on broadcast TV at Sorenson Media and Video Relay Services (VRS) which have transformed opportunities for deaf and hard of hearing individuals through Sorenson Communications. Jim also served as Chairman of the Board of MediConnect Global, a leader in medical records digitization and data analytics.

Jim is regarded as an important thought leader and pioneer of the impact investing movement around the world through his role as Chairman of the Sorenson Impact Foundation, which funds sustainable, scalable endeavors that maximize positive impact on the lives and societies they touch. Sorenson also endowed the Sorenson Impact Center at the University of Utah. Sorenson serves as Chairman of the Board of Village Capital and a member of the National Advisory Board of Impact Investing.

Jim has served on many community boards, including Utah’s David Eccles School of Business, Gallaudet University, the University Venture Fund, Art Works for Kids, the Utah Sports Commission, and Trustee of the University of Utah.

Michael Sonnenshein

Chief Executive Officer, Grayscale

Michael Sonnenshein is the CEO at Grayscale Investments, the world’s largest digital currency asset manager. Under his leadership, the firm has grown to be the definitive leader in crypto investing, offering a wide range of investments including single-asset and diversified products. Michael is regularly featured on CNBC and Bloomberg and was honored in 2018 as one of Business Insider’s Rising Stars of Wall Street. Michael serves as a member of the Grayscale Board of Directors, CME Group Bitcoin Futures Council, and NYU Blockchain Association. Prior to joining Grayscale, Michael was a financial advisor at JP Morgan Securities, covering HNW individuals and institutions, and an analyst at Barclays Wealth, providing coverage to middle‐market hedge funds and institutions. Michael earned his Bachelor of Business Administration from the Goizueta Business School at Emory University and his Master of Business Administration from the Leonard N. Stern School of Business at New York University.

Barry Silbert

Chief Executive Officer & Founder, Digital Currency Group

Barry Silbert is the Founder and CEO of Digital Currency Group (DCG), a global enterprise that builds, buys, and invests in blockchain and bitcoin companies all over the world.  

A pioneer in bitcoin investing, Barry began buying bitcoin in 2012 and quickly established himself as one of the earliest, most active investors in the industry.

Barry founded DCG in 2015 and today, DCG sits at the epicenter of the blockchain industry, backing over 140 companies across 30 countries, including Coinbase, Ripple, and Circle. DCG also invests directly in digital currencies and other digital assets. Additionally, DCG is the parent company of Grayscale Investments (the largest digital currency asset manager with ~$1 billion in AUM), Genesis Trading (the largest regulated crypto trading and lending firm), and CoinDesk (the preeminent blockchain media and events company). 

Prior to leading DCG, Barry founded SecondMarket, a technology company that was acquired by Nasdaq. Barry has received numerous accolades for his leadership including Entrepreneur of the Year by both EY and Crain's, and being selected to Fortune’s “40 under 40” list.

Before becoming an entrepreneur, Barry worked as an investment banker. He graduated with honors from the Goizueta Business School of Emory University.