Speaker alumni

Emma is a portfolio manager for the Airlie Australian Share Fund at Airlie Funds Management, a value focused Australian equities manager. Prior to joining Airlie, Emma worked in Fidelity International’s Australian investment team in Sydney for a number of years. She commenced her career at Nomura Securities as an equity research analyst, and holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Liberal Studies) from the University of Sydney.

James Miller is a Founding Partner and Portfolio Manager at Firetrail, a high conviction investment firm managing more than $6bn in Australian and global equities.

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James has more than 15 years’ experience as a Portfolio Manager and Analyst. Prior to founding Firetrail, James was the co-lead Portfolio Manager of the award-winning Macquarie High Conviction Fund, Macquarie Australia Plus Fund, and Macquarie Pure Alpha Fund.

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Today, James is a Portfolio Manager for the Firetrail S3 Global Opportunities Fund which is a concentrated portfolio of Firetrail’s best global ideas with a sustainable edge.

Patrick Hodgens is Head of Equities at Macquarie Investment Management and lead portfolio manager of the Macquarie High Conviction Fund, winner of the Money Management / Lonsec Australian Equities (Broad Cap) Fund Manager of the Year award in 2016.

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With over 30 years’ experience in investment markets, Patrick has been instrumental in the development of the High Conviction team and the fundamental investment approach at Macquarie Investment Management. In his role, Patrick is responsible for the daily portfolio management of the Fund as well as driving process development across the business.

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In his 27 years at Macquarie, Patrick has developed a comprehensive range of style aware equity strategies across a spectrum of risk/return profiles. Today, the Listed Equities business has over $18bn in assets under management, offering a range of products covering index, low risk, high conviction, small cap, long/short, Asian fundamental, and global funds.

Holly Ransom is an award-winning keynote speaker, master interviewer, author, and leadership expert. Holly is the CEO of Emergent; Author of The Leading Edge; Co-Founder, Chief Curator and Catalyst at Energy Disruptors; Non-executive Director at Port Adelaide Football Club; Board member of Pride Cup,and Hudson.

As an accomplished company director, Holly has compressed a power-packed career into a decade, spanning corporate, non-profit, and public sectors.

Holly Ransom has led discussions with influential figures such as Barack Obama, Malcolm Gladwell, Billie Jean-King, and Julia Gillard. Holly was named one of Australia’s 100 Most Influential Women by the Australian Financial Review and awarded the US Embassy’s Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Leadership Excellence in 2019.

With 25 years’ experience in disruptive business models gained during a career with Macquarie Bank, Alex heads one of the best-performing teams in global investment management in Australia.

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He has a deep understanding of the mechanisms through which disruption changes business models and the impact it has on company valuation, having identified and invested in AI in 2016 through Nvidia, among many other companies which have generated strong portfolio returns over the ten years the fund has operated.

Maggie O’Neill is a founding team member of Hearts & Minds, playing a key role in growing the organisation into one of Australia’s leading corporate givers, on track to donate $100 million to Australian medical research within its first 10 years.

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Maggie is Chief Operating Officer of Hearts & Minds Investments Limited (HM1), an $800m+ ASXlisted global equities fund with a dual purpose: delivering investment returns while accelerating medical breakthroughs through long-term funding and strategic partnerships. She has also been a driving force in delivering and shaping Sohn Hearts & Minds since day one.

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Maggie started her career at UBS, gaining multidisciplinary experience across asset management, wealth management, and corporate communications.

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She holds a Bachelor of Business Leadership and Commerce (Macquarie University), and has completed executive education at Stanford Graduate School of Business, as well as postgraduate studies in Creative Intelligence at UTS.

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Allan joined Cooper Investors in 2007 and has over 12 years of experience investing in international equities markets.

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Having been a foundation member of the Cooper Investors global equities team, Allan has been instrumental in refining and implementing the VOF investment philosophy and the CI Way in global equities markets. This has enabled the team to deliver consistent performance and to build the global equities platform to over $2bn in assets under management.

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Allan was appointed Portfolio Manager in 2011 and today specialises in North American markets.

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David Allingham is a Portfolio Manager and Principal at Eley Griffiths Group and has over 17 years’ experience analysing small and emerging companies. Prior to joining Eley Griffiths Group in 2004, David worked in marketing at EMI Music Australia. David was educated at Sydney Grammar School and holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Sydney.

Dr Itescu has served on the Mesoblast Board since the Company’s founding in 2004, was Executive Director from 2007, and became CEO and Managing Director in 2011. Prior to founding Mesoblast, he established an international reputation as a physician scientist in the fields of stem cell biology, autoimmune diseases, organ transplantation, and heart failure. Dr Itescu has been a faculty member of Columbia University in New York, and the University of Melbourne and Monash University in Australia. In 2013, Dr Itescu received the inaugural Key Innovator Award from the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Culture for leadership in translational science and clinical medicine in relation to adult stem cell therapy. In 2011, he was named BioSpectrum Asia Person of the Year. Dr Itescu has consulted for various international pharmaceutical companies, has been an adviser to biotechnology and healthcare investor groups, and has served on the Boards of several publicly-listed life sciences companies.

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MBBS, FRACP

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Steven is the Deputy Portfolio Manager and Analyst of the Pengana International Fund, the Pengana International Fund – Ethical, the Pengana International Fund – Ethical Opportunity and the listed investment company Pengana International Equities Ltd. He has over 15 years’ experience as a portfolio manager and equities analyst.

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Prior to joining Pengana, Steven spent seven years at Hunter Hall International as an investment analyst and portfolio manager. He previously worked as an equities analyst at Tricom Securities and as an investment analyst at Platinum Funds Management.

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Steven was awarded a Co-op scholarship at the University of New South Wales, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce (Merit), majoring in Accounting and Finance, and a Masters of Commerce, majoring in Advanced Finance.

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He has completed the Chartered Financial Analyst Program and has been awarded the CFA Charter.

David Halpert is the founder, portfolio manager, and CIO of Prince Street Capital, an emerging and frontier market asset manager based in New York and Singapore. David coined the term ‘Digital Decolonization’ – a new paradigm for assessing investments in emerging and frontier markets through the lens of innovation.

He has 30 years of experience researching and investing in the developing world. Prior to founding Prince Street in 2001, David managed an EM portfolio at Zesiger Capital Group and worked in Indonesia as an equity research analyst.

David has appeared on Bloomberg, CNBC and CNN, and presented at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. He has lectured at universities including NYU, Cornell Tech, Arizona State, Nanyang Technical University and Singapore University of Social Science.

David earned a BA (magna cum laude) in Asian Studies from the University of California, Berkeley and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Cecile King’s research focus over the past 15 years has been in the field of autoimmune disease and T cell immunobiology. Cecile completed her PhD in Immunology at the Telethon Institute for Child Health/University of Western Australia (1999). At completion of the PhD, she was appointed as a Research Associate in the Department of Immunology, Scripps Research Institute in the Laboratory of Nora Sarvetnick.

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Cecile returned to Australia in 2005 and has since established her own independent research group at the Garvan Institute. Her Lab has produced highly cited studies on T helper cell differentiation and autoimmune disease. These studies opened up the field of research on the cytokine interleukin-21 in autoimmune disease and the development of T follicular helper cells.

Gavin Baker is the Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer of Atreides Management, LP.  Prior to founding Atreides in 2019, Gavin was at Fidelity Investments from 1999 – 2017, most recently as the portfolio manager of the Fidelity OTC Fund from 2009 – 2017.  The $17 billion Fidelity OTC Fund outperformed 100% of its Morningstar peers and won 6 Lipper awards over Gavin’s 8-year tenure as portfolio manager.  

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Gavin was the Boston Globe’s Fund Manager of the Year in 2014 and his performance was recognized by articles in Barron’s, the New York Times, Investors Business Daily and the Wall Street Journal.  He helped spearhead Fidelity’s venture capital investing and was a board observer at Nutanix, 23andME, Jet.com, AppNexus, Dataminr and Roku, among others.  Gavin earned an AB in economics and history from Dartmouth College.

Joyce is the Founder of FACT Capital (FACT stands for Fairness, Alignment, Compounding, and Transparency), which innovates on the hedge fund model and applies ‘first principles’ thinking to investment framework, portfolio/research transparency, technology use, and incentive alignment for long term compounding. Prior to FACT, Joyce was Partner at Vernier Capital and Research Analyst at MSD Capital and Goldman Sachs Investment Partners. Joyce graduated Summa Cum Laude from the Huntsman Program of the University of Pennsylvania, receiving a BA in International Studies and a BS in Economics from the Wharton School.

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Joyce received the Rhodes Scholarship and graduated with Distinction from Oxford University with an MSc in Financial Economics and an MSc in Economics for Development.

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Joyce was also recognized as Forbes 30 under 30 (2014) and Wharton 40 under 40 (2015). She speaks Mandarin and Spanish fluently. As hobbies, she volunteers with Givology - a 100% volunteer-driven non-profit she co-founded in 2008, enjoys reading, and plays ice hockey.

Seth H. Fischer is the founder and Chief Investment Officer of Oasis Management, an international investment manager headquartered in Hong Kong that invests globally across capital structures. Mr. Fischer founded Oasis in 2002 following a successful seven-year career at Highbridge Capital Management, where he managed the firm’s Asian investment portfolio.

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A proponent of corporate governance reforms across Asia, he is a frequent speaker on economic and investment panels. Oasis is a signatory to Stewardship Codes in Japan, Korea and Hong Kong, and a Sustaining Donor to the Board Director Training Institute of Japan, as well as a member of the Japan Corporate Governance Network and the Asia Corporate Governance Association.

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Prior to joining Highbridge, Mr. Fischer served in the Israel Defense Forces.  He received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Yeshiva University in 1993.  He is a Board Member of the Karen Leung Foundation and the Carmel School in Hong Kong, and Vice Chairman of the Ohel Leah Synagogue Management Committee in Hong Kong.

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Kit Huckvale is a Research Fellow in eHealth at the Block Dog Institute at the University of New South Wales, developing and evaluating novel technologies for mental health in youth. A medically-qualified doctor and informatics specialist, Kit joined the Black Dog Institute in November 2016 from Imperial College London where he was Research Principal for Imperial Tech Foresight, providing technology foresight and horizon scanning for major corporates. He completed his PhD at the eHealth Unit of Imperial College London and holds degrees from the University of Edinburgh and the University of Manchester. Kit is the recipient of a Black Puppy Foundation postdoctoral fellowship.

Blake Henricks is the Deputy Managing Director at Firetrail Investments and co-manages the Firetrail Australian High Conviction Fund.

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Prior to establishing Firetrail, Blake worked at Macquarie for over a decade and was responsible for managing the highly successful Macquarie High Conviction Fund, which delivered 10.6% p.a. (after fees) since inception in 2005. The Macquarie High Conviction Fund was one of the top performing Australian equity funds over the medium and long term.

Jay Kahn founded Flight Deck Capital in April 2020. Flight Deck is a fundamental long/short TMT hybrid fund that invests in disruptive public and private companies across the U.S., Japan, Korea, SE Asia, Latin America, and Europe. The firm makes concentrated, long-term investments by leveraging relationships with entrepreneurs, VCs, and growth investors globally to identify secular change.

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Prior to launching Flight Deck, Jay was a Partner at Light Street Capital from 2011-2020 where he ran the firm’s internet, media, and consumer investments globally. In addition to managing Light Street’s public investments in these sectors, Jay also spearheaded the firm’s investments in private companies, leading or co-leading 14 private deals across Light Street’s side pockets, SPVs, and later stage growth fund including: Unity, Uber, Lyft, Spotify, Pinterest, Everlane, Harry’s, Boxed, Toast, EzCater, Madeira Madeira, SmartHR, Slack, and Blackbuck. From 2006-2008, Jay was an Associate at Elevation Partners, where he evaluated late stage growth and buyout investments in internet, media, music, gaming, and sports.

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Jay earned an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 2010, and a B.A. magna cum laude in Quantitative Economics from Tufts University in 2002.

Dawn Kanelleas is Senior Portfolio Manager, Small Companies for Colonial First State Global Asset Management (‘CFSGAM’).

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In her role, Dawn manages a range of Small Companies portfolios as well as researching and analysing of a range of Australian listed stocks in the Small Companies and MidCap sectors. Dawn has more than 20 years of investment industry experience as a broker and fund manager.

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Prior to joining CFSGAM in January 2008, Dawn was a Portfolio Manager in Deutsche Asset Management’s highly-rated Small Companies Team for four years. Prior to this Dawn was with ABN AMRO Stockbroking as a marketing analyst for small companies. She was promoted to Director after four months and turned around a formerly unrated Small Companies franchise.

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Dawn has completed a Bachelor of Science with first class honours and a PhD in chemistry. She also has a Graduate Diploma in Applied Finance.

Markus Bihler is co-founder of Builders Union. Prior to Builders Union, Markus was founding CEO of HappyFresh Group which he built into Southeast Asia's leading grocery delivery and consumer analytics platform, and venture partner at Temasek / Vertex, one of the lead investors in HappyFresh. He joined HappyFresh from automotive e-commerce retailer Tirendo (Germany), where he served as CEO and led its strategic sale to SDAX-listed Delticom. Markus started his career as a generalist private equity investor with The Blackstone Group (London) and EQT Partners (Munich/Warsaw). Markus graduated from the University of Oxford, Balliol College.

Steven Krein is the CEO, co-founder and managing partner of StartUp Health, which is investing in a global army of entrepreneurs, called Health Transformers, committed to achieving health moonshots. StartUp Health has the world’s largest health innovation portfolio with more than 290 companies from 24 countries and six continents. In addition, StartUp Health has assembled a curated worldwide network of 200,000 innovators, industry leaders and investors committed to supporting the entrepreneurs reinventing the future of health.

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Steven is a serial entrepreneur, speaker, investor, advisor and entrepreneurial coach. Prior to StartUp Health, Steven co-founded and led several technology companies including OrganizedWisdom, Promotions.com and Webstakes, a company he took public on Nasdaq in 1999. Steven received his JD degree from Delaware Law School and BA degree from the University of Maryland, College Park. Steven is a member of YPO (Young Presidents’ Organization) and lives in New York City with his wife and three daughters.

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Joe Lonsdale is a serial entrepreneur and founding partner of 8VC.  He serves on several boards including Wish, Addepar, OpenGov, Affinity, Illumio, Radius and Hyperloop-One.  Joe is a co-founder of Palantir, a multi-billion dollar global software company best known for its work in defense and finance.  Most recently, he was a founding partner at Formation 8, the precursor fund to 8VC, which is one of the top performing private funds.  Before that, he founded Addepar, a leading wealth management technology platform, and OpenGov.  Previously, Joe was an early executive at Peter Thiel’s Clarium Capital, which they grew into a large global macro hedge fund.  He also worked with the financial arm of PayPal while he was at Stanford.  Joe received a B.S. in Computer Science from Stanford in 2003 and often lectures and writes on entrepreneurship and technology.

Kerr Neilson has over 40 years of experience in financial markets both in broking and funds management. This has involved a stint in London, followed by managing the research department for a stockbroker in South Africa. Upon migrating to Australia he joined Bankers Trust, where he made important contributions to the development of that company’s highly successful retail funds management division.

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Kerr left Bankers Trust Australia as an Executive Vice President to form Platinum Asset Management in February 1994. In addition to managing Platinum’s global mandates, Kerr held the position of Chief Investment Officer until May 2013. Kerr remains Chief Executive Officer and as portfolio manager for the global mandates at Platinum and is the principal shareholder.

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BCom (UCT).

Dr O’Dea’s research areas include online interventions for depression and anxiety, adolescent mental health and wellbeing, social networking sites and cyber-bullying. Dr O’Dea is interested in improving access to evidence-based care through technology supported through her involvement with the Digital Dog research program.

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Dr O’Dea has been involved in the development of multiple e-mental health apps and was also responsible for co-leading the investigations into social media and suicide, including the Twitter studies and the Ground Truth Project, and contributing to the collaborations with CSIRO, Amazon Web Services, and PRADA at Deakin University, established by Prof. Christensen. She currently holds an Early Career Fellowship from the Society for Mental Health Research. Dr O’Dea is leading the development of the Online Clinic for Adolescents and the development of the mobile app for youth relationships.

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Andrew Macken founded Montaka Global Investments in Sydney in 2014 after spending nearly four years as a senior member of the research team at Kynikos Associates in New York. Montaka Global Investments has grown to $600 million with offices in Sydney and New York; and manages the Montaka global equity long/short funds and the Montgomery Global long-only funds.

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During his time at Kynikos, Andrew developed particular expertise in short portfolio management that represents an important part of Montaka’s investment approach and has become increasingly valuable in today’s global equity market environment.  He began his career as a management consultant advising corporates based in Australia and abroad.

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Andrew holds a Master of Business Administration from Columbia Business School in New York.  While at Columbia, Andrew was a member of the Applied Value Investing program through the prestigious Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing.  Andrew graduated with a Master of Commerce, focusing on Finance; and First Class Honours with a Bachelor of Engineering under a Co-Op Scholarship from the University of New South Wales in Sydney.

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Paul Mason is a Portfolio Manager and Senior Analyst on the Paradice Global Small Cap Fund.

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Paul started his career with KPMG 13 years ago in a Corporate Advisory and Taxation role before joining Paradice Investment Management in 2009. Over the past 9 years, Paul has worked  in both the Sydney and Denver offices of Paradice, with a dedicated focus on global small cap opportunities.

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Paul holds degrees in Commerce and Business Law from the University of Wollongong.

Tim is a founder of Auscap Asset Management, which has been running successfully since inception 10 years ago.

He has 18 years’ experience in the financial services industry. He has managed the Auscap Long Short Australian Equities Fund since 2012. From 2007 to 2011 he was an executive director at Goldman Sachs where he was responsible for managing an Australian equities long short portfolio using proprietary funds. Prior to 2007 he worked at Macquarie Bank within the investment banking group.

Tim is a CFA charterholder, a CMT charterholder, a Senior Associate of FINSIA, a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and has a Bachelor of Laws (First Class Honours) from the University of Sydney and a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Sydney.

Yen Liow is the Managing Partner at Aravt Global LLC. Mr. Liow directs the firm’s research process and actively researches many of the investments in the portfolio. Mr. Liow was previously a Principal of Ziff Brothers Investments (“ZBI”) and a Managing Director at ZBI Equities, ZBI’s equity market-neutral fund in New York. Mr. Liow joined ZBI in 2001 and ran a team that oversaw ZBI Equities’ investments in the media, telecom, energy and agriculture sectors. Prior to ZBI, Mr. Liow was a Consultant at Bain & Company in its San Francisco, Sydney, Singapore and Beijing offices.

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Mr. Liow earned a Bachelor of Laws (Hons.) and Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Melbourne in 1994 and a Masters of Business Administration (George F. Baker Scholar) from Harvard Business School in 2001. Mr. Liow lives in Manhattan, New York with his wife and two children.