Conference on Emerging Trends in Asset Management

9:00 AM – 9:15 AM

Introductory Remarks:  Natasha Vij Greiner, Director, Division of Investment Management

9:15 AM – 9:25 AM

Remarks: Commissioner Hester Peirce

9:30 AM – 11:00 AM

Panel #1: Forever Young: Former IM Directors Reflect on 85 Years of the '40 Acts

Moderator: Natasha Vij Greiner

Panelists:

• Barry Barbash
• William Birdthistle
• Dalia Blass
• Norman Champ
• Buddy Donohue
• Joel Goldberg
• David Grim
• Allan Mostoff

11:00 AM – 11:15 AM

Break

11:15 AM – 12:20 PM

Panel #2: Digital Assets & Tokenization

Moderator: Scott Walker, CCO, Andreessen Horowitz

Panelists:

• Nadine Chakar, Managing Director, Global Head of DTCC Digital Assets
• Amar Kuchinad, CEO, Copper
• Mike Muir, Senior Vice President and Head of Digital Assets Technology, Franklin Templeton Digital Assets

12:20 PM – 1:40 PM

Lunch Break

1:40 PM – 2:45 PM

Panel #3: Product Proliferation & Innovation in Registered Funds

Moderator: Christian Sandoe, Assistant Director, Division of Investment Management

Panelists:

• Samara Cohen, Senior Managing Director, Chief Investment Officer of ETF and Index Investments, BlackRock
• Dave Nadig, Independent Industry Commentator, Nadig.com
• Gerard O’Reilly, Co-CEO, Co-CIO, Dimensional Fund Advisors, and a Dimensional Director

2:45 PM – 3:00 PM

Break

3:00 PM – 4:05 PM

Panel #4: Retail Access to Private Markets

Moderator: Yana Morris, Chief Content Officer, ION Analytics

Panelists:

• William Clayton, BYU Professor of Law
• James Hannigan, Managing Director, Apollo Global Management
• Mark Robillard, Vice President, Alternative Investments Research, Fidelity Investments
• Ben Schiffrin, Director of Securities Policy, Better Markets'

4:05 PM

Concluding Remarks: Natasha Vij Greiner

Barry Barbash – Retired

Mr. Barbash retired as a partner at Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP in 2023, having served as the senior member of the firm’s asset management department and as a practitioner in the asset management area for more than 45 years. His first tenure at Willkie Farr lasted 12 years before he became a partner with Shearman and Sterling LLP (now A&O Shearman) and headed that firm’s asset management department until 2006, at which time he returned to Willkie.

Mr. Barbash served as the Director of the SEC’s Division of Investment Management from 1993 to 1998, and he held earlier staff attorney positions with the Division of Investment Management and the Plan Benefits Security Division in the Office of the Solicitor at the Department of Labor. He was awarded the Presidential Distinguished Rank Award for exceptional achievement during his tenure as a member of the Senior Executive Service of the United States.

He received his A.B. summa cum laude from Bowdoin College and his J.D. from Cornell Law School. Mr. Barbash is currently an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center and an adjunct instructor at Howard University School of Law. He is an author of numerous articles dealing with investment law and practice, and serves as a consultant on matters involving asset management law and practice.

William Birdthistle – Professor from Practice, University of Chicago Law School

Prior to joining the University of Chicago Law School faculty, where he focuses on investment funds, financial regulation, and corporate governance, Mr. Birdthistle served as Director of the SEC’s Division of Investment Management from 2021 to 2024.

He is the author of Empire of the Fund: The Way We Save Now (Oxford University Press) and co-editor of the Research Handbook on the Regulation of Mutual Funds (Elgar). Prior to the SEC, Mr. Birdthistle was a Professor of Law at Chicago-Kent College of Law. Earlier in his career, he clerked for the Honorable Diarmuid O'Scannlain on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and practiced law at Ropes & Gray in Boston. 

Mr. Birdthistle received his J.D. from Harvard Law School, where he served as managing editor of the Harvard Law Review; his M.A. in history from the University of Chicago; and a B.A. summa cum laude in English and psychology from Duke University.

Dalia Blass – Partner, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP

Ms. Blass is the senior investment management partner and a partner in the firm’s Financial Services Group. Her practice focuses on providing strategic and regulatory advice to asset managers, registered and private funds, fund boards and their service providers across the range of regulatory, governance, compliance, examination and enforcement matters they face.

Prior to Sullivan & Cromwell, she was senior managing director, global head of external affairs, and a member of the global executive committee at BlackRock. Ms. Blass served a total of 14 years at the SEC, including as Director of the Division of Investment Management from 2017 to 2021. She was a recipient of the Distinguished Service Award and the Manuel F. Cohen Award. 

Ms. Blass earned a J.D. from Columbia University School of Law. She received her B.A. in international studies from American University and studied political science at The American University in Cairo.

Nadine Chakar – Managing Director, Global Head of DTCC Digital Assets

Ms. Chakar oversees digital asset technology at DTCC Digital Assets, partnering with clients and key stakeholders to transform and evolve their operating models and create new digital asset services. She is a member of the DTCC Executive Committee. 

Prior to DTCC, Ms. Chakar was the CEO at Securrency, a provider of institutional-grade digital asset technology that was acquired by DTCC in October 2023. Previously, she was executive vice president and head of State Street DigitalSM, where she oversaw the setup of a new integrated business and operating model to support clients’ entire digital investment cycle from pre-trade, trade, and post-trade as well as initiatives to enhance client experience. She previously served as executive vice president and head of State Street Global Markets and held roles with Manulife and BNY Mellon.

Ms. Chakar holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Finance from Boston University. She currently serves on the Board of Trustees for the Boston Medical Center and is a member of the CFTC’s Global Markets Advisory Committee and co-chair of the Digital Asset Subcommittee workstream covering Tokenization Infrastructure.

Norm Champ – Partner, Investment Funds Group at Kirkland & Ellis LLP

Mr. Champ is a partner in the firm’s New York office, where he heads up the regulatory solutions practice in the Investment Funds Group. He counsels some of the most sophisticated private fund sponsors in the world on complying with the constantly changing regulatory environment in the United States and other countries.  

Previously, Mr. Champ was the SEC’s Director of the Division of Investment Management from 2012 to 2015 after serving as Deputy Director of the SEC’s Office of Compliance, Inspections and Examinations (OCIE) and as Associate Regional Director for Examinations in the SEC’s New York Regional Office. In these capacities, he supervised SEC examinations of investment advisers and other market participants.

William Clayton – Associate Dean, BYU Law

Mr. Clayton is a business law scholar whose research on private equity fund contracting and governance has been cited in rulemaking, comment letters, and amicus briefs relating to private investment funds in recent years.

Mr. Clayton's work has been published in journals including the Vanderbilt Law Review, Yale Journal on Regulation, and Harvard Business Law Review. He is a contributing author to research handbooks on private equity and venture capital. He currently serves as the associate dean for faculty and curriculum at BYU Law School and as a co-director of the BYU Global Business Law Program.

Before joining the BYU Law faculty, Mr. Clayton worked as a corporate lawyer at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz and as a private funds lawyer at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP in New York City. He was the executive director of the Yale Law School Center for the Study of Corporate Law. Mr. Clayton holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, an M.B.A. from Stanford Graduate School of Business, and a B.A. from Stanford University.

Samara Cohen – Chief Investment Officer of ETF and Index Investments, BlackRock

Ms. Cohen is a senior managing director at BlackRock in addition to chief investment officer of ETF and Index Investments and a member of the firm’s global executive committee. She leads teams delivering the market quality and investment integrity of roughly $7.8 trillion of BlackRock’s index funds and iShares ETFs.

Prior to rejoining BlackRock in 2015, Ms. Cohen was a managing director in the securities division of Goldman Sachs, where she built and led the global market transition team to develop and deliver solutions to clients in the evolving market structure and regulatory environment following the 2008 global financial crisis. She first joined BlackRock in 1993 as an analyst in the institutional client business.

Ms. Cohen is a member of the board of directors for the Securities Industry Financial Markets Association (SIFMA), and serves as a member of the board of the BlackRock Foundation. She earned a B.S. Econ in finance from the Wharton School and a B.A. in theatre arts from the College of Arts and Sciences of the University of Pennsylvania. She earned her M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

Andrew J. Donohue – Independent Director, BNY Mellon Funds

Mr. Donohue has been engaged in the investment management industry for more than 40 years in both senior government and private sector roles, most recently as an independent director of certain BNY Mellon Funds and as chair of the Mutual Fund Directors Forum.

Mr. Donohue served as Chief of Staff at the SEC from 2015 to 2017 and as Director of the Division of Investment Management from 2006 to 2010. In the private sector he was Managing Director & Investment Company General Counsel of Goldman Sachs (2012 to 2015), Global General Counsel of Merrill Lynch Investment Managers (2003 to 2006), and Executive Vice President & General Counsel of OppenheimerFunds Inc. (1991 to 2001).         

He also served as the chair of the Investment Company and Investment Adviser Subcommittee of the American Bar Association’s Federal Regulation of Securities Committee. He continues to serve as a co-chair of the Task Force on Fund Director’s Guidebook, Federal Regulation of Securities Committee of the American Bar Association. Mr. Donohue earned his J.D. from New York University School of Law and his B.A. cum laude with honors in economics from Hofstra University.

Joel Goldberg – Retired

Mr. Goldberg retired from the practice of law in 2015 after a long career working at several New York law firms. He mainly represented registered investment companies and their investment advisers as well as investment company boards of directors. From 1981 to 1983, Mr. Goldberg served as the Director of the SEC’s Division of Investment Management.

He has appeared on many programs and panels relating to the Investment Company Act of 1940 and Investment Advisers Act of 1940 and other topics. He also authored or co-authored numerous articles on those subjects. He currently serves as an independent director of the WisdomTree Funds and the Better Business Bureau of Greater New York.

Mr. Goldberg received his B.A. from Brandeis University and his J.D. from Columbia Law School.

Dave Grim – Co-Chair, Investment Management, Stradley Ronon

Mr. Grim helps lead Stradley Ronon's nationally recognized investment management practice, overseeing approximately 75 lawyers across the firm’s offices. He is the partner-in-charge of the firm’s Washington D.C. office. He regularly provides strategic and practical advice to clients navigating SEC rules and regulations, examination and enforcement matters, and challenging governance matters.

During more than 20 years of public service at the SEC, Mr. Grim developed regulatory policy and legal guidance for the asset management industry. He joined the Division of Investment Management directly from law school and rose to become Division Director from 2015 to 2017. Among his earlier roles in the Division were Deputy Director and Assistant Chief Counsel.

Mr. Grim graduated cum laude with a degree in political science from Duke University and received his law degree from George Washington University, where he was managing editor of the George Washington Journal of International Law and Economics. 

James Hannigan – Managing Director and Head of Enterprise Product Structuring, Apollo

Mr. Hannigan is a member of Apollo's strategy team and plays a key role in the design, launch, and management of products for the global wealth and retirement markets.

Prior to joining Apollo in 2021, Mr. Hannigan was a managing director at Blackstone, where he was actively involved in the structuring and management of the firm's retail products. Mr. Hannigan previously was an associate vice president at FRM Americas LLC and an associate in the asset management group of Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP.

Mr. Hannigan currently serves on the board of directors of the Institute for Portfolio Alternatives and the Defined Contribution Alternatives Association. He graduated from Vanderbilt University with a B.A. in philosophy and received a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law.

Amar Kuchinad – CEO, Copper

Mr. Kuchinad serves as the Global CEO of Copper, a digital asset financial services company providing blockchain-based collateral management, custody, and treasury optimization solutions. With a diverse background spanning traditional finance and innovative fintech, he brings a wealth of experience to drive Copper's institutional-first approach.

Prior to Copper, he was a senior managing director at alternative asset manager Pretium Partners, where he was responsible for technology, data, analytics, and risk across the management company and its operating subsidiaries. He previously was CEO and co-founder of broker-dealer Electronifie, which operated an alternative trading system enabling institutions to trade corporate bonds, and he served as chief strategy officer at Trumid following Trumid’s acquisition of Electronifie.

Mr. Kuchinad served as a Senior Policy Advisor at the SEC, providing market practitioner insights across the Division of Trading and Markets, Division of Investment Management, and Division  of Enforcement. His career on Wall Street was primarily spent at Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs, where he was responsible for a number of equity and credit trading businesses. Mr. Kuchinad graduated from Harvard College with an A.B. in Applied Mathematics.

Yana Morris – Chief Content Officer, ION Analytics

Throughout her career, Ms. Morris has been opening new frontiers for data and intelligence gathering in the opaque private markets through the strategic application of both technology and HUMINT, serving critical needs for clients in the banking and asset management sectors. 

Now leading the future of financial data and intelligence at ION Analytics, Ms. Morris spearheads the creation of high-quality, expert-driven content and data solutions across ION's extensive portfolio of 27 brands, including Blackpeak, Debtwire, Dealogic, Mergermarket, and Infralogic.

Ms. Morris has more than two decades of experience in the financial information industry, successfully transforming mature assets under both public and private ownership, and driving the development and market launch of innovative new products. She actively contributes to industry discourse as a frequent speaker and commentator on private markets across core asset classes.

Allan Mostoff – Retired

Mr. Mostoff served as the Director of the SEC’s then-newly formed Division of Investment Management Regulation from 1972 to 1976, the predecessor to the Division of Investment Management. He joined the SEC in 1962 as a staff member of the Special Study of Securities Markets and later served in the Office of General Counsel and subsequently as Special Counsel, Assistant Director, and Associate Director of the Division of Corporate Regulation.

In 1976, Mr. Mostoff left the SEC to create the financial services practice at the Dechert law firm. In his practice he represented a wide and extensive variety of investment managers, investment companies, and their boards of directors. During his time at Dechert, he served as a longtime member of the firm's management committee and was instrumental in developing and implementing the firm's national and international expansion strategy. Upon retiring from Dechert in 2002, Mr. Mostoff worked with former SEC Chairman David Ruder to organize the Mutual Fund Directors Forum and served for several years as its founding director and president. 

Mr. Mostoff received the Fund Directions "Lifetime Achievement Award" in 2007 in recognition of his service to mutual fund directors and the mutual fund industry, and in 2011 he was recognized by Strategic Insight as a "Mutual Fund Visionary". He is now happily retired and residing in Florida.

Mike Muir – Senior Vice President and Head of Digital Assets Technology, Franklin Templeton Digital Assets

Mr. Muir leads and manages the team that is responsible for the Franklin Templeton’s blockchain application development across the digital asset landscape. He has more than 15 years of experience in the financial services industry.

Prior to his current role, Mr. Muir was responsible for enterprise software systems addressing trade order and execution management, portfolio construction and monitoring, performance attribution and risk management, and ETFs. Mr. Muir also has software development experience in client reporting, web presence, data warehousing, and anti-money laundering systems. He joined Franklin Templeton in 2006 as a senior technical consultant.

Mr. Muir has subject matter expertise in general programming concepts, data structures, concurrency and multi-threading, software configuration management, and performance profiling across a wide variety of programming languages and runtimes. In his current role, Mr. Muir studies first and second order blockchain protocol and application implementations, contributing to Franklin Templeton's strategies across digital assets of all varieties.

Dave Nadig – Former Chief Investment Officer and Director of Research of ETF Trends and ETF Database, Nadig.com 

Mr. Nadig is an independent ETF expert and financial futurist with more than 30 years in the investment management and ETF business. 

He has served as financial futurist for VettaFi, CEO of ETF.com, director of research at ETFTrends.com, director of exchange-traded funds at FactSet Research Systems, and managing director & chief strategy officer of Barclays Global Investors.

Mr. Nadig provides regular ETF analysis at nadig.com and is viewed on the ExcessReturns Podcast network. He is the author of “A Comprehensive Guide to Exchange-Traded Funds,” which was published by the CFA Institute. 

Gerard O’Reilly – Co-Chief Executive Officer and Co-Chief Investment Officer, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP

Mr. O’Reilly guides the firm’s vision and strategy through daily oversight of the company’s people and processes. As Co-CIO, he drives innovation across Dimensional’s investment offering. He has served as Co-CEO since 2017.

Since joining the firm, Mr. O’Reilly has been instrumental in the evolution of Dimensional’s systematic approach to creating and implementing investment solutions. He was formerly head of research, managing the firm’s rigorous, scientific approach to interpreting, testing, and applying research in portfolios. He is a member of the firm’s investment research committee, which reviews potential investment strategy enhancements, and a member of the investment committee, which oversees portfolio and account management. He also serves on the boards of Dimensional’s U.S. mutual funds and exchange-traded funds.

Prior to joining Dimensional, Gerard obtained his PhD in aeronautics from the California Institute of Technology. He holds a master of science degree in high performance computing from Trinity College Dublin in his native country of Ireland, where he also received a first-class honors degree in theoretical physics. He was a recipient of the Foundation Scholarship.

Mark Robillard – Vice President, Fidelity Investments 

Mr. Robillard is vice president, alternative investments research within Fidelity Institutional Wealth Adviser (FIWA), the registered investment advisor at Fidelity Institutional. In this role, he is responsible for FIWA’s open architecture due diligence research on alternative investment strategies and authoring topical white papers.

Mr. Robillard previously served as vice president, investment solutions and asset allocation, for Fidelity Family Office Services and headed its investment committee. He also spent eight years working at Fidelity Capital Markets, the institutional trading arm of Fidelity Investments, which provides trading products and services to a wide array of clients, including buy-side institutions and hedge funds. He held roles in research, trading, and investment banking on the fixed income team. 

Mr. Robillard received his master of science in management degree and bachelor of science in management degree from Bridgewater State University. He is a CFA® Charterholder, a member of the Boston Security Analysts Society, a CAIA® Charterholder, and a Financial Risk Manager – Certified by the Global Association of Risk Professionals. He holds FINRA Series 7, 57, and 63 licenses. 

Benjamin Schiffrin – Director of Securities Policy, Better Markets

Mr. Schiffrin leads this nonprofit organization's work regarding securities across the policymaking process, focusing on the SEC. His responsibilities include commenting on proposed rules, formulating policy recommendations, authoring original materials, and engaging with all interested stakeholders regarding issues impacting securities regulation and the securities markets.

Before joining Better Markets, Mr. Schiffrin worked at the SEC for 18 years in the Office of the General Counsel. He began his career as a Staff Attorney in the Office of Adjudications in 2004, worked as an Appellate Litigator from 2008 to 2016, and served as an Associate General Counsel from 2016 to 2022. Mr. Schiffrin was the 2006 recipient of the SEC's Manuel F. Cohen Award.

Mr. Schiffrin holds a law degree from Harvard Law School, and graduated summa cum laude with a master’s degree and a bachelor’s degree from Brandeis University.

Scott Walker – Chief Compliance Officer, Andreessen Horowitz

Mr. Walker oversees regulatory compliance at Andreessen Horowitz, and prior to joining a16z he was the Senior Special Examiner and Counsel for Blockchain Technology at the SEC.

Serving in the SEC’s Division of Examinations, Mr. Walker was the co-chair of the Digital Assets specialized working group and was the Division's delegate to the SEC's FinHub. In addition to serving as a subject matter expert for policymaking, he was responsible for the Division's surveillance of crypto markets and for spearheading the Division's engagements of entities offering digital asset services. He previously served as Special Counsel in the Division of Corporation Finance and as an Attorney-Adviser in the Investment Adviser & Investment Company Program.

Prior to his work as a regulator, Mr. Walker held several roles pertaining to private fund regulatory matters and hedge fund strategy, including vice president & counsel at BlackRock with a focus on derivatives, prime brokerage, and securities finance transactions. He received his J.D. from The Ohio State University, and his B.S. in finance from Butler University. Mr. Walker is a member of the California Bar.